Philippi

VIEW:23 DATA:01-04-2020

warlike; a lover of horses
(same as Philip, in the plural)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


PHILIPPI was a city situated E. of Mt. Pangæus, on the E. border of Macedonia, about 10 miles from the coast. It was originally (under the name of Crenides) a settlement of Thasians, who mined the gold of Mt. Pangæus; but one of the early acts of Philip of Macedon was to assure himself of revenue by seizing these mines and strongly fortifying the city, to which he gave his own name. The mines are said to have yielded him 1000 talents a year. Philippi passed with the rest of Macedonia to the Romans in b.c. 168. Until b.c. 146 Macedonia was divided into four regions, with separate governments, and so divided that a member of one could not marry or hold property in another. But in 146 it received the more regular organization of a province. The great Eastern road of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, after crossing the Strymon at Amphipolis, kept N. of Mt. Pangæus to Philippi and then turned S.E. to Neapolis, which was the port of Philippi. Philippi stood on the steep side of a bill, and immediately S. of it lay a large marshy lake.
The Church at Philippi was founded by St. Paul on his second missionary journey. With Silas, Timothy, and Luke he landed at Neapolis, and proceeded to Philippi, which St. Luke describes as ‘a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roman colony.’ Philippi was not the capital city of either of the regions into which Macedonia had been divided in 168, but the most natural explanation of the phrase ‘first of the district’ is that the province had at this time a division for official purposes of which we do not know. Other explanations are that it means ‘the first city we arrived at’ (which the Greek could scarcely mean), or that Philippi claimed a pre-eminence in much the same way that Pergamus, Smyrna, Ephesus all claimed to be the ‘first city’ of Asia. It had become a Roman colony after the battle of Philippi, b.c. 42, when Octavian and Antony, having vanquished Brutus and Cassius, settled a number of their veterans there. Another body of veterans was settled there after Actium, b.c. 31. As a colony its constitution was modelled on the ancient one of Rome, and its two chief magistrates had not only lictors (EV [Note: English Version.] Serjeants), but also a jurisdiction independent of that of the governor of the province. It was the first essentially Roman town in which St. Paul preached. There was no synagogue, but on the Sabbath, says St. Luke, ‘we went forth without the gate by a river-side where we supposed there was a place of prayer.’ At this place, therefore, St. Paul found a number of women assembled, Jewesses or proselytes, one of whom named Lydia (wh. see), a merchant in purple from Thyatira, was immediately converted and baptized. For the subsequent Incidents see Python, Magistrate, etc.
It is probable that the Church at Philippi was left in charge of St. Luke, for at this point in the narrative of the Acts the first person is dropped until St. Paul passes through Macedonia on his return from the third missionary journey (Luk_20:5). The Church flourished, and always remained on terms of peculiar affection with St. Paul, being allowed to minister to his needs more than once. See art. Philippians [Epistle to], which was probably written during his first imprisonment at Rome. From 1Ti_1:3 we assume at least one later visit of the Apostle to Philippi.
Before a.d. 117 Ignatius passed through Philippi on his journey from Antioch to his martyrdom in Rome. He was welcomed by the Church, and they wrote a letter of consolation to the Church of Antioch and another to Polycarp of Smyrna, asking for copies of any letters that Ignatius had written in Asia. Polycarp wrote his Epistle to the Philippians in answer. In the 4th and 5th centuries we read of the bishop of Philippi as present at Councils, but apart from this the Church passes out of history.
A. E. Hillard.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

A city of Macedon, in a plain between the Pangaeus arid Haemus ranges, nine miles from the sea. Paul from the port Neapolis (Kavalla) on the coast (Act_16:11) reached Philippi by an ancient paved road over the steep range Symbolum (which runs from the W. end of Haemus to the S. end of Pangaeus) in his second missionary journey, A.D 51. The walls are traced along the stream; at 350 ft. from it is the site of the gate through which Paul went to the place of prayer by the river's (Gangites) side, where the dyer Lydia was converted, the firstfruits of the gospel in Europe. (See LYDIA.) Dyed goods were imported from Thyatira to the parent city Philippi, and were dispersed by pack animals among the mountaineers of Haemus and Pangaeus. The Satriae tribe had the oracle of Dionysus, the Thracian prophet god. The "damsel with the spirit of divination" may have belonged to this shrine, or else to Apollo's (as the spirit is called "Pythoness," Greek), and been hired by the Philippians to divine for hire to the country folk coming to the market.
She met Paul several days on his way to the place of prayer, and used to cry out on each occasion "these servants of the most high God announce to us the way of salvation." Paul cast out the spirit; and her owners brought him and Silas before the magistrates, the duumvirs, who inflicted summary chastisement, never imagining they were Romans. Paul keenly felt this wrong (Act_16:37), and took care subsequently that his Roman privilege should not be set at nought (Act_22:25; 1Th_2:2). Philippi was founded by Philip of Macedon, in the vicinity of the famed gold mines, on the site "the springs" (Kremides). Augustus founded the Roman "colony" to commemorate his victory over Brutus and Cassius Act_16:12), Act_16:42 B.C., close to the ancient site, on the main road from Europe to Asia by Brundusium, Dyrrachium, across Epirus to Thessalonica, and so forward by Philippi. Philippi was "the first (i.e. farthest from Rome and first which Paul met in entering Macedon) city of the district" called Macedonia Prima, as lying farthest eastward, not as KJV "the chief city."
Thessalonica was chief city of the province, and Amphipolis of the district "Macedonia Prima." A "colony" (accurately so named by Luke as distinguished from the Greek apoikia) was Rome reproduced in miniature in the provinces (Jul. Gellius, 16:13); its inhabitants had Roman citizenship, the right of voting in the Roman tribes, their own senate and magistrates, the Roman law and language. That the Roman "colonia," not the Greek apoikia is used, marks the accuracy of Act_16:12. Paul visited Philippi again on his way from Ephesus into Macedon (Act_20:1), and a third time on his return from Greece (Corinth) to Syria by way of Macedon (Act_20:3; Act_20:6). The community of trials for Christ's sake strengthened the bond which united him and the Philippian Christians (Php_1:28-30). They alone supplied his wants twice in Thessalonica soon after he left them (Php_4:15-16); a third time, through Epaphroditus, just before this epistle (Php_4:10; Php_4:18; 2Co_11:9).
Few Jews were in Philippi to sow distrust between him and them. No synagogue, but merely an oratory (proseuchee), was there. The check to his zeal in being forbidden by the Spirit to enter Asia, Bithynia, and Mysia, and the miraculous call to Macedon, and his success in Philippi and the love of the converts, all endeared it to him. Yet the Philippians needed to be forewarned of the Judaizing influence which might assail their church at any time as it had crept into the Galatian churches (Php_3:2). The epistle (Php_4:2-3), in undesigned coincidence with the history (Act_16:13-14), implies that females were among the prominent church members.
Its people were poor, but most liberal (2Co_8:1-2); persecuted, but faithful: only there was a tendency to dissension which Paul reproves (Php_1:27; Php_2:1-4; Php_2:12; Php_2:14; Php_4:2). In A.D. 107 the city was visited by Ignatius, who passed through on his way to martyrdom at Rome. Immediately after Polycarp wrote to the Philippians, sending at their request a copy of all the letters of Ignatius which the church of Smyrna had; so they still retained the same sympathy with sufferers for Christ as in Paul's days. Their religion was practical and emotional, not speculative; hence but little doctrine and quotation of the Old Testament occur in the epistle of Paul to them. The gold mines furnished the means of their early liberality, but were a temptation to covetousness, against which Polycarp warns them. Their graces were doubtless not a little helped by the epistle and the oral teaching of the great apostle.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Philip'pi. (named from Philip of Macedonia). A city of Macedonia about nine miles from the sea, to the northwest of the island of Thasos, which is twelve miles distant from its port Neapolis, the modern Kavalla. It is situated in a plain between the ranges of Pangaeus and Haemus. The Philippi which St. Paul visited was a Roman colony founded by Augustus after the famous battle of Philippi, fought here between Antony and Octavius and Brutus and Cassius, B.C. 42. The remains which strew the ground near the modern Turkish village Bereketli are, no doubt, derived from that city. The original town, built by Philip of Macedonia, was probably not exactly on the same site.
Philip, when he acquired possession of the site, found there a town named Datus or Datum, which was probably in its origin a factory of the Phoenicians, who were the first that worked the gold-mines in the mountains here, as in the neighboring Thasos. The proximity of the goldmines was of course the origin of so large a city as Philippi, but the plain in which it lies is of extraordinary fertility. The position, too, was on the main road from Rome to Asia, the Via Egnatia, which from Thessalonica to Constantinople followed the same course as the existing post-road.
On St. Paul's visits to Philippi, see Philippians, The Epistle to The. At Philippi, the gospel was first preached in Europe. Lydia was the first convert. Here too, Paul and Silas were imprisoned. Act_16:23. The Philippians sent contributions to Paul to relieve his temporal wants.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

one of the chief cities of Macedonia, lying on the north-west of Neapolis, and formerly called Datum or Datos, but afterward taking its name from Philip, the celebrated king of Macedon, by whom it was repaired and beautified. In process of time, it became a Roman colony. It was the first place at which St. Paul preached the Gospel upon the continent of Europe, A.D. 51. He made many converts there, who soon afterward gave strong proofs of their attachment to him, Php_4:15. He was at Philippi a second time, but nothing which then occurred is recorded. The Philippian Christians having heard of St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome, with their accustomed zeal, sent Epaphroditus to assure him of the continuance of their regard, and to offer him a supply of money. His epistle was written in consequence of that act of kindness; and it is remarkable for its strong expressions of affection. As the Apostle tells the Philippians that he hoped to see them shortly, Php_2:24, and there are plain intimations in this epistle of his having been some time at Rome, Php_1:12; Php_2:26, it is probable that it was written A.D. 62, toward the end of his confinement.
“It is a strong proof,” says Chrysostom, “of the virtuous conduct of the Philippians, that they did not afford the Apostle a single subject of complaint; for, in the whole epistle which he wrote to them,
there is nothing but exhortation and encouragement, without the mixture of any censure whatever.”
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

fi-lip?ı̄ (Φίλιπποι, Phı́lippoi, ethnic Φιλιππήσιος, Philippḗsios, Phi_4:15):

1. Position and Name:
A city of Macedonia, situated in 41o 5? North latitude and 24o 16? East longitude. It lay on the Egnatian Road, 33 Roman miles from Amphipolis and 21 from Acontisma, in a plain bounded on the East and North by the mountains which lie between the rivers Zygactes and Nestus, on the West by Mt. Pangaeus, on the South by the ridge called in antiquity Symbolum, over which ran the road connecting the city with its seaport, NEAPOLIS (which see), 9 miles distant. This plain, a considerable part of which is marshy in modern, as in ancient, times, is connected with the basin of the Strymon by the valley of the Angites (Herodotus vii. 113), which also bore the names Gangas or Gangites (Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 106), the modern Anghista. The ancient name. of Philippi was Crenides (Strabo vii. 331; Diodorus xvi. 3, 8; Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 105; Stephanus Byz. under the word), so called after the springs which feed the river and the marsh; but it was refounded by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, and received his name.

2. History:
Appian (Bell. Civ. iv. 105) and Harpocration say that Crenides was afterward called Daton, and that this name was changed to Philippi, but this statement is open to question, since Daton, which became proverbial among the Greeks for good fortune, possessed, as Strabo tells us (vii. 331 fr. 36), ?admirably fertile territory, a lake, rivers, dockyards and productive gold mines,? whereas Philippi lies, as we have seen, some 9 miles inland. Many modern authorities, therefore, have placed Daton on the coast at or near the site of Neapolis. On the whole, it seems best to adopt the view of Heuzey (Mission archeologique, 35, 62 ff) that Daton was not originally a city, but the whole district which lay immediately to the East of Mt. Pangaeus, including the Philippian plain and the seacoast about Neapolis. On the site of the old foundation of Crenides, from which the Greek settlers had perhaps been driven out by the Thracians about a century previously, the Thasians in 360 BC founded their colony of Daton with the aid of the exiled Athenian statesman Callistratus, in order to exploit the wealth, both agricultural and mineral, of the neighborhood. To Philip, who ascended the Macedonian throne in 359 BC, the possession of this spot seemed of the utmost importance. Not only is the plain itself well watered and of extraordinary fertility, but a strongly-fortified post planted here would secure the natural land-route from Europe to Asia and protect the eastern frontier of Macedonia against Thracian inroads. Above all, the mines of the district might meet his most pressing need, that of an abundant supply of gold. The site was therefore seized in 358 BC, the city was enlarged, strongly fortitled, and renamed, the Thasian settlers either driven out or reinforced, and the mines, worked with characteristic energy, produced over 1,000 talents a year (Diodorus xvi. 8) and enabled Philip to issue a gold currency which in the West soon superseded the Persian darics (G.F. Hill, Historical Greek Coins, 80 ff). The revenue thus obtained was of inestimable value to Philip, who not only used it for the development of the Macedonian army, but also proved himself a master of the art of bribery. His remark is well known that no fortress was impregnable to whose walls an ass laden with gold could be driven. Of the history of Philippi during the next 3 centuries we know practically nothing. Together with the rest of Macedonia, it passed into the Roman hands after the battle of Pydna (168 BC), and fell in the first of the four regions into which the country was then divided (Livy xlv. 29). In 146 the whole of Macedonia was formed into a single Roman province. But the mines seem to have been almost, if not quite, exhausted by this time, and Strabo (vii. 331 fr. 41) speaks of Philippi as having sunk by the time of Caesar to a ?small settlement? (κατοικία μικρά, katoikı́a mikrá). In the autumn of 42 BC it witnessed the death-struggle of the Roman republic. Brutus and Cassius, the leaders of the band of conspirators who had assassinated Julius Caesar, were faced by Octavian, who 15 years later became the Emperor Augustus, and Antony. In the first engagement the army of Brutus defeated that of Octavian, while Antony's forces were victorious over those of Cassius, who in despair put an end to his life. Three weeks later the second and decisive conflict took place. Brutus was compelled by his impatient soldiery to give battle, his troops were routed and he himself fell on his own sword. Soon afterward Philippi was made a Roman colony with the title Colonia Iulia Philippensis. After the battle of Actium (31 BC) the colony was reinforced, largely by Italian partisans of Antony who were dispossessed in order to afford allotments for Octavian's veterans (Dio Cassius li. 4), and its name was changed to Colonia Augusta Iulia (Victrix) Philippensium: It received the much-coveted iusItalicum (Digest L. 15, 8, 8), which involved numerous privileges, the chief of which was the immunity of its territory from taxation.

3. Paul's First Visit:
In the course of his second missionary journey Paul set sail from Troas, accompanied by Silas (who bears his full name Silvanus in 2Co_1:19; 1Th_1:1; 2Th_1:1), Timothy and Luke, and on the following day reached Neapolis (Act_16:11). Thence he journeyed by road to Philippi, first crossing the pass some 1,600 ft. high which leads over the mountain ridge called Symbolum and afterward traversing the Philipplan plain. Of his experiences there we have in Acts 16:12-40 a singularly full and graphic account. On the Sabbath, presumably the first Sabbath after their arrival, the apostle and his companions went out to the bank of the Angites, and there spoke to the women, some of them Jews, others proselytes, who had come together for purposes of worship.
One of these was named Lydia, a Greek proselyte from Thyatira, a city of Lydia in Asia Minor, to the church of which was addressed the message recorded in Rev_2:18-29. She is described as a ?seller of purple? (Act_16:14), that is, of woolen fabrics dyed purple, for the manufacture of which her native town was famous. Whether she was the agent in Philippi of some firm in Thyatira or whether she was carrying on her trade independently, we cannot say; her name suggests the possibility that she was a freedwoman, while from the fact that we hear of her household and her house (Act_16:15; compare Act_16:40), though no mention is made of her husband, it has been conjectured that she was a widow of some property. She accepted the apostolic message and was baptized with her household (Act_16:15), and insisted that Paul and his companions should accept her hospitality during the rest of their stay in the city. See further LYDIA.
All seemed to be going well when opposition arose from an unexpected quarter. There was in the town a girl, in all probability a slave, who was reputed to have the power of oracular utterance. Herodotus tells us (vii. III) of an oracle of Dionysus situated among the Thracian tribe of the Satrae, probably not far from Philippi; but there is no reason to connect the soothsaying of this girl with that worship. In any case, her masters reaped a rich harvest from the fee charged for consulting her. Paul, troubled by her repeatedly following him and those with him crying, ?These men are bondservants of the Most High God, who proclaim unto you a way of salvation? (Act_16:17 margin), turned and commanded the spirit in Christ's name to come out of her. The immediate restoration of the girl to a sane and normal condition convinced her masters that all prospect of further gain was gone, and they therefore seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the forum before the magistrates, probably the duumviri who stood at the head of the colony. They accused the apostles of creating disturbance in the city and of advocating customs, the reception and practice of which were illegal for Rom citizens. The rabble of the market-place joined in the attack (Act_16:22), whereupon the magistrates, accepting without question the accusers' statement that Paul and Silas were Jews (Act_16:20) and forgetting or ignoring the possibility of their possessing Rom citizenship, ordered them to be scourged by the attendant lictors and afterward to be imprisoned. In the prison they were treated with the utmost rigor; they were confined in the innermost ward, and their feet put in the stocks. About midnight, as they were engaged in praying and singing hymns, while the other prisoners were listening to them, the building was shaken by a severe earthquake which threw open the prison doors. The jailer, who was on the point of taking his own life, reassured by Paul regarding the safety of the prisoners, brought Paul and Silas into his house where he tended their wounds, set food before them, and, after hearing the gospel, was baptized together with his whole household (Act_16:23-34).
On the morrow the magistrates, thinking that by dismissing from the town those who had been the cause of the previous day's disturbance they could best secure themselves against any repetition of the disorder, sent the lictors to the jailer with orders to release them. Paul refused to accept a dismissal of this kind. As Rom citizens he and Silas were legally exempt from scourging, which was regarded as a degradation (1Th_2:2), and the wrong was aggravated by the publicity of the punishment, the absence of a proper trial and the imprisonment which followed (Act_16:37). Doubtless Paul had declared his citizenship when the scourging was inflicted, but in the confusion and excitement of the moment his protest had been unheard or unheeded. Now, however, it produced a deep impression on the magistrates, who came in person to ask Paul and Silas to leave the city. They, after visiting their hostess and encouraging the converts to remain firm in their new faith, set out by the Egnatian Road for Thessalonica (Act_16:38-40). How long they had stayed in Philippi we are not told, but the fact that the foundations of a strong and flourishing church had been laid and the phrase ?for many days? (Act_16:18) lead us to believe that the time must have been a longer one than appears at first sight. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 226) thinks that Paul left Troas in October, 50 AD, and stayed at Philippi until nearly the end of the year; but this chronology cannot be regarded as certain.
Several points in the narrative of these incidents call for fuller consideration. (1) We may notice, first, the very small part played by Jews and Judaism at Philippi.
There was no synagogue here, as at Salamis in Cyprus (Act_13:5), Antioch in Pisidia (Act_13:14, Act_13:43), Iconium (Act_14:1), Ephesus (Act_18:19, Act_18:26; Act_19:8), Thessalonica (Act_17:1), Berea (Act_17:10), Athens (Act_17:17) and Corinth (Act_18:4). The number of resident Jews was small, their meetings for prayer took place on the river's bank, the worshippers were mostly or wholly women (Act_16:13), and among them some, perhaps a majority, were proselytes. Of Jewish converts we hear nothing, nor is there any word of Jews as either inciting or joining the mob which dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates. Further, the whole tone of the epistle. to this church seems to prove that here at least the apostolic teaching was not in danger of being undermined by Judaizers. True, there is one passage (Phi_3:2-7) in which Paul denounces ?the concision,? those who had ?confidence in the flesh?; but it seems ?that in this warning he was thinking of Rome more than of Philippi; and that his indignation was aroused rather by the vexatious antagonism which there thwarted him in his daily work, than by any actual errors already undermining the faith of his distant converts? (Lightfoot).
(2) Even more striking is the prominence of the Rom element in the narrative. We are here not in a Greek or Jewish city, but in one of those Rom colonies which Aulus Gellius describes as ?miniatures and pictures of the Rom people? (Noctes Atticae, xvi. 13).
In the center of the city is the forum (ἀγορά, agorá, Act_16:19), and the general term ?magistrates? (ἄρχοντες, árchontes, English Versions of the Bible, ?rulers,? Act_16:19) is exchanged for the specific title of praetors (στρατηγοί, stratēgoı́, English Versions of the Bible ?magistrates,? Act_16:20, Act_16:22, Act_16:35, Act_16:36, Act_16:38); these officers are attended by lictors (ῥαβδοῦχοι, rhabdoúchoi, English Versions ?sergeants,? Act_16:35, Act_16:38) who bear the fasces with which they scourged Paul and Silas (ῥαβδίζω, rhabdı́zo, Act_16:22). The charge is that of disturbing public order and introducing customs opposed to Roman law (Act_16:20, Act_16:21), and Paul's appeal to his Roman civitas (Act_16:37) at once inspired the magistrates with fear for the consequences of their action and made them conciliatory and apologetic (Act_16:38, Act_16:39). The title of praetor borne by these officials has caused some difficulty. The supreme magistrates of Roman colonies, two in number, were called duoviri or duumviri (iuri dicundo), and that this title was in use at Philippi is proved by three inscriptions (Orelli, Number 3746; Heuzey, Mission archeologique, 15, 127). The most probable explanation of the discrepancy is that these magistrates assumed the title Of praetor, or that it was commonly applied to them, as was certainly the case in some parts of the Roman world (Cicero De lege agraria ii. 34; Horace Sat. i. 5, 34; Orelli, Number 3785).
(3) Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 200 ff) has brought forward the attractive suggestion that Luke was himself a Philippian, and that he was the ?man of Macedonia? who appeared to Paul at Troas with the invitation to enter Macedonia (Act_16:9).
In any case, the change from the 3rd to the 1st person in Act_16:10 marks the point at which Luke joined the apostle, and the same criterion leads to the conclusion that Luke remained at Philippi between Paul's first and his third visit to the city (see below). Ramsay's hypothesis would explain (a) the fullness and vividness of the narrative of Acts 16:11-40; (b) the emphasis laid on the importance of Philippi (Act_16:12); and (c) the fact that Paul recognized as a Macedonian the man whom he saw in his vision, although there was nothing either in the language, features or dress of Macedonians to mark them out from other Greeks. Yet Luke was clearly not a householder at Philippi (Act_16:15), and early tradition refers to him as an Antiochene (see, however, Ramsay, in the work quoted 389 f).
(4) Much discussion has centered round the description of Philippi given in Act_16:12. The reading of Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, etc., followed by Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, the Revised Version (British and American), etc., is:
ἤτις ἐστὶν πρώτη τῆς μερίδος Μακεδονίας πόλις κολωνία, hḗtis estı́n prṓtē tḗs merı́dos Makedonı́as pólis kolōnı́a. But it is doubtful whether Makedonias is to be taken with the word which precedes or with that which follows, and further the sense derived from the phrase is unsatisfactory. For prōtē must mean either (1) first in political importance and rank, or (2) the first which the apostle reached. But the capital of the province was Thessalonica, and if tēs meridos be taken to refer to the easternmost of the 4 districts into which Macedonia had been divided in 168 BC (though there is no evidence that that division survived at this time), Amphipolis was its capital and was apparently still its most important city, though destined to be outstripped by Philippi somewhat later. Nor is the other rendering of prōtē (adopted, e.g. by Lightfoot) more natural. It supposes that Luke reckoned Neapolis as belonging to Thrace, and the boundary of Macedonia as lying between Philippi and its seaport; moreover, the remark is singularly pointless; the use of estin rather than ḗn is against this view, nor is prōtē found in this sense without any qualifying phrase. Lastly, the tēs in its present position is unnatural; in Codex Vaticanus it is placed after, instead of before, meridos, while D (the Bezan reviser) reads κεφαλἡ τῆς Μακεδονιας, kephalḗ tḗs Makedonı́as. Of the emendations which have been suggested, we may notice three: (a) for meridos Hort has suggested Pierı́dos, ?a chief city of Pierian Macedonia?; (b) for prōtē tēs we may read prōtēs, ?which belongs to the first region of Macedonia?; (c) meridos may be regarded as a later insertion and struck out of the text, in which case the whole phrase will mean, ?which is a city of Macedonia of first rank? (though not necessarily the first city).

4. Paul's Later Visits:
Paul and Silas, then, probably accompanied by Timothy (who, however, is not expressly mentioned in Acts between Act_16:1 and Act_17:14), left Philippi for Thessalonica, but Luke apparently remained behind, for the ?we? of Act_16:10-17 does not appear again until Act_20:5, when Paul is once more leaving Philippi on his last journey to Jerusalem. The presence of the evangelist during the intervening 5 years may have had much to do with the strength of the Philippian church and its stealfastness in persecution (2Co_8:2; Phi_1:29, Phi_1:30). Patti himself did not revisit the city until, in the course of his third missionary journey, he returned to Macedonia, preceded by Timothy and Erastus, after a stay of over 2 years at Ephesus (Act_19:22; Act_20:1). We are not definitely told that he visited Philippi on this occasion, but of the fact there can be little doubt, and it was probably there that he awaited the coming of Titus (2Co_2:13; 2Co_7:5, 2Co_7:6) and wrote his 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians (2Co_8:1 ff; 2Co_9:2-4). After spending 3 months in Greece, whence he intended to return by sea to Syria, he was led by a plot against his life to change his plans and return through Macedonia (Act_20:3). The last place at which he stopped before crossing to Asia was Philippi, where he spent the days of unleavened bread, and from (the seaport of) which he sailed in company with Luke to Troas where seven of his companions were awaiting him (Act_20:4-6). It seems likely that Paul paid at least one further visit to Philippi in the interval between his first and second imprisonments. That he hoped to do so, he himself tells us (Phi_2:24), and the journey to Macedonia mentioned in 1Ti_1:3 would probably include a visit to Philippi, while if, as many authorities hold, 2Ti_4:13 refers to a later stay at Troas, it may well be connected with a further and final tour in Macedonia. But the intercourse between the apostle and this church of his founding was not limited to these rare visits. During Paul's first stay at Thessalonica he had received gifts of money on two occasions from the Philippian Christians (Phi_4:16), and their kindness had been repeated after he left Macedonia for Greece (2Co_11:9; Phi_4:15). Again, during his first imprisonment at Rome the Philippians sent a gift by the hand of one of their number, Epaphroditus (Phi_2:25; Phi_4:10, Phi_4:14-19), who remained for some time with the apostle, and finally, after a serious illness which nearly proved fatal (Phi_2:27), returned home bearing the letter of thanks which has survived, addressed to the Philippian converts by Paul and Timothy (Phi_1:1). The latter intended to visit the church shortly afterward in order to bring back to the imprisoned apostle an account of its welfare (Phi_2:19, Phi_2:23), but we do not know whether this plan was actually carried out or not. We cannot, however, doubt that other letters passed between Paul and this church besides the one which is extant, though the only reference to them is a disputed passage of Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (iii. 2), where he speaks of ?letters? (ἐπιστολαί, epistolaı́) as written to them by Paul (but see Lightfoot's note on Phi_3:1).

5. Later History of the Church:
After the death of Paul we hear but little of the church or of the town of Philippi. Early in the 2nd century Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was condemned as a Christian and was taken to Rome to be thrown to the wild beasts. After passing through Philadelphia, Smyrna and Troas, he reached Philippi. The Christians there showed him every mark of affection and respect, and after his departure wrote a letter of sympathy to the Antiochene church and another to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, requesting him to send them copies of any letters of Ignatius which he possessed. This request Polycarp fulfilled, and at the same time sent a letter to the Philippians full of encouragement, advice and warning. From it we judge that the condition of the church as a whole was satisfactory, though a certain presbyter, Valens, and his wife are severely censured for their avarice which belied their Christian profession. We have a few records of bishops of Philippi, whose names are appended to the decisions of the councils held at Sardica (344 AD), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), and the see appears to have outlived the city itself and to have lasted down to modern times (Le Quien, Oriens Christ., II, 70; Neale, Holy Eastern Church, I, 92). Of the destruction of Philippi no account has come down to us. The name was perpetuated in that of the Turkish hamlet Felibedjik, but the site is now uninhabited, the nearest village being that of Raktcha among the hills immediately to the North of the ancient acropolis. This latter and the plain around are covered with ruins, but no systematic excavation has yet been undertaken. Of the extant remains the most striking are portions of the Hellenic and Hellenistic fortification, the scanty vestiges of theater, the ruin known among the Turks as Derekler, ?the columns,? which perhaps represents the ancient thermae, traces of a temple of Silvanus with numerous rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions, and the remains of a triumphal arch (Kiemer).

Literature.
The fullest account of the site and antiquities is that of Heuzey and Daumet, Mission archeologique de Macedoine, chapters i through v and Plan A; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, III, 214-25; Cousinery, Voyage dana la Macedoine, II, 1 ff; Perrot, ?Daton. Neapolis. Les ruines de Philippos,? in Revue archeologique, 1860; and Hackett, in Bible Union Quarterly, 1860, may also be consulted. For the Latin inscriptions see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, III, 1, numbers 633-707; III, Suppl., numbers 7337-7358; for coins, B.V. Head, Historia Numorum, 192; Catalogue of Coins in the British Museum: Macedonia, etc., 96. For the history of the Philippian church and the narrative of Acts 16:12-40 see Lightfoot, Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, 47-65; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, 202-26; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of Paul, chapter ix; Farrar, Life and Work of Paul, chapter xxv; and the standard commentaries on the Acts - especially Blass, Acta Apostolorum - and on Philippians.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Philip?pi, a city of the proconsular Macedonia, situated eastward of Amphipolis, within the limits of ancient Thrace (Act_16:12; Act_20:6; Php_1:1). It was anciently called Krenides (fountains) from its many fountains; but having been taken and fortified by Philip of Macedon, he named it, after himself, Philippi. In the vicinity were mines of gold and silver; and the spot eventually became celebrated for the battle in which Brutus and Cassius were defeated. Paul made some stay in this place on his first arrival in Greece, and here founded the church to which he afterwards addressed one of his epistles. It was here that the interesting circumstances related in Acts 16 occurred; and the city was again visited by the Apostle on his departure from Greece (Act_20:6). In the former passage (Act_16:12) Philippi is called a colony, and this character it had in fact acquired through many of the followers of Antony having been colonized thither by Augustus (Dion. Cass, xlvii. 432). The fact that Philippi was a colony was formerly disputed; but its complete verification has strongly attested the minute accuracy of the sacred narrative. The plain in which the ruins of Philippi stand is embraced by the parallel arms of mountains extended from the Necrokop, which pour into the plain many small streams, by which it is abundantly watered and fertilized. The acropolis is upon a mount standing out into the plain from the north-east, and the city seems to have extended from the base of it to the south and south-west. The remains of the fortress upon the top consist of three ruined towers and considerable portions of walls of stone, brick, and very hard mortar. The plain below does not now exhibit anything but ruins?heaps of stone and rubbish, overgrown with thorns and briars; but nothing of the innumerable busts and statues, thousands of columns, and vast masses of classic ruins, of which the elder travelers speak. Ruins of private dwellings are still visible; also something of a semicircular shape, probably a forum or market-place, 'perhaps the one where Paul and Silas received their undeserved stripes.' The most prominent of the existing remains is the remainder of a palatial edifice, the architecture of which is grand, and the materials costly. The pilasters, chapiters, etc. are of the finest white marble, and the walls were formerly encased with the same stone. These marble blocks are gradually knocked down by the Turks, and 'wrought into their silly gravestones.' The travelers were informed that many of the ruins are now covered by stagnant water, at the bottom of which they may be seen; but they did not visit this spot.




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Philippi
(Φίλλιπποι, plur. of Philip), a celebrated city of Macedonia, visited by the apostle Paul, and the seat of the earliest Christian Church formally established in Europe. The double miracle wrought there, and the fact that “to the saints in Philippi" the great apostle of the Gentiles addressed one of his epistles, must ever make this city holy groulnd. The following account of it combines the ancient notices with modern investigations.
1. Apostolic Associations. — St. Paul, when, on his first visit to Macedonia in company with Silas, he embarked at Troas, made a straight run to Samothrace, and from thence to Neapolis, which he reached on the second day (Act_16:11). The Philippi of Paul's day was situated in a plain, on the banks of a deep and rapid stream called Gangites (now Angista). The ancient walls followed the course of the stream for some distance; and in this section of the wall the site of a gate is seen, with the ruins of a bridge nearly opposite. In the narrative of Paul's visit it is said: "On the Sabbath we went out of the gate by the river (ἐξήλθομεν τῆς πὐλης παρὰ ποταμόν),where a meeting for prayer was accustomed to be" (Act_16:13). It was doubtless by this gate they went out, and by the side of this river the prayer-meeting was held. As Philippi was a military colony, it is probable that the Jews had no synagogue, and were not permitted to hold their worship within the walls. Behind the city, on the north-east, rose lofty mountains; but on the opposite side a vast and rich plain stretched out, reaching on the south-west to the sea, and on the north-west far away among the ranges of Macedonia. On the south-east a rocky ridge, some sixteen hundred feet in height, separated the plain from the bay and town of Neapolis. Over it ran a paved road connecting Philippi with Neapolis. Though the distance between the two was nine miles, yet Neapolis was to Philippi what the Piroeus was to Athens; and hence Paul is said, when journeying from Greece to Syria, to have "sailed away from Philippi;" that is, from Neapolis, its port (Act_20:6).
Philippi was in the province of Macedonia, while Neapolis was in Thrace. Paul, on his first journey, landed at the latter, and proceeded across the mountainroad to the former, which Luke calls "the first city of the division of Macedonia" (πρώτη τῆς μερίδος τῆς Μακεδονίας πόλις, Act_16:12). The word πρώτη does not, as represented in the A.V., signify "chief." Thessalonica was the chief city of all Macedonia, and Amphipolis of that division (μερίς) of it in which Philippi was situated (see Wieseler, Chron. des Apost. Zeit. page 37). Πρώτη simply means that Philippi was the "first" city of Macedonia to which Paul came (Alford, ad loc.; Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, 1:311, note). In descending the mountain-path towards Philippi the apostle had before him a vast and beautiful panorama. The whole plain, with its green meadows, and clumps of trees, and wide reaches of marsh, and winding streams, lay at his feet; and away beyond it the dark ridges of Macedonia.
The missionary visit of Paul and Silas to Philippi was successful. They found an eager audience in the few Jews and proselytes who frequented the prayerplace on the banks of the Gangites. Lydia, a trader from Thyatira, was the first convert. Her whole house followed her example. It was when going and returning from Lydia's house that "the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination" met the apostles. Paul cast out the spirit, and then those who had made a trade of the poor girl's misfortune rose against them, and took them before the magistrates, who, with all the haste and roughness of martial law, ordered them to be scourged and thrown into prison. Even this gross act of injustice redounded in the end to the glory of God: for the jailer and his whole house were converted, and the very magistrates were compelled to make a public apology to the apostles, and to set them at liberty, thus declaring theit innocence. The scene in the prison of Philippi was one of the most cheering, as it was one of the most remarkable incidents in the history of the apostolic Church.
Paul visited Philippi twice more, once immediately after the disturbances which arose at Ephesus out of the jealousy of the manufacturers of silver shrines for Artemis. By this time the hostile relation in which the Christian doctrine necessarily stood to all purely ceremonial religions was perfectly manifest; and wherever its teachers appeared, popular tumults were to be expected, and the jealousy of the Roman authorities, who dreaded civil disorder above everything else, to be feared. It seems. not unlikely that the second visit of the apostle to Philippi was made specially with the view of counteracting this particular danger. He appears to have remained in the city and surrounding country a considerable time (Act_20:1-2).
When Paul passed through Philippi a third time hie does not appear to have made any considerable stay there (Act_20:6). He and his companion are somewhat loosely spoken of as sailing from Philippi; but this is because in the common apprehension of travellers the city and its port were regarded as one. Whoever embarked at the Piraeus might in the same way be said to set out on a voyage from Athens. On this occasion the voyage to Troas took the apostle five days, the vessel being probably obliged to coast in order to avoid the contrary wind, until coming off the headland of Sarpedon, whence she would be able to stand across to Troas with an E. or E.N.E. breeze, which at that time of year (after Easter) might be looked for.
The Christian community at Philippi distinguished itself in liberality. On the apostle's first visit he was hospitably entertained by Lydia, and when he afterwards went to Thessalonica, where his reception appears to have been of a very mixed character, the Philippians sent him supplies more than once. and were the only Christian community that did so (Php_4:15). They also contributed readily to the collection made for the relief of the poor at Jerusalem, which Paul conveyed to them at his last visit (2Co_8:1-6). It would seem as if they sent further supplies to the apostle after his arrival at Rome. The necessity for these appears to have been urgent, and some delay to have taken place in collecting the requisite funds; so that Epaphroditus, who carried them, risked his life in the endeavor to make tup for lost time (μέχρι θανάτου ἤγγισεν παραβουλευσάμενος τῇ ψυχῇ, ἵνα ἀναπληρώσῃ τὸ ὑμῶν ὑστέρημα τῆς προς μὲ λειτουργίας, Php_2:30). The delay, however, seems to have somewhat stung the apostle at the time, who fancied his beloved flock had forgotten him (see 4:10-17). Epaphroditus fell ill with fever from his efforts, and nearly died. On recovering he became homesick, and wandering in mind (ἀδημονῶν) from the weakness which is the sequel of fever; and Paul although intending soon to send Timothy to the Philippian Church, thought it desirable to let Epaphroditus go without delay to them, who had already heard of his sickness. and carry with him the letter which is included in the canon — one which was written after the apostle's imprisonment at Rome had lasted a considerable time. Some domestic troubles connected with religion had already broken out in the community. Euodias and Svntyche, who appear to be husband and wife, are exhorted to agree with one another in the matter of their common faith; and the former is implored to extend his sympathy to certain females (obviously familiar both to Paul and to him) who did good service to the apostle in his trials at Philippi, and who in some way or other appear to be the occasion of the disagreement between the pair. Possibly a claim on the part of these females to superior insight in spiritual matters may have caused some irritation; for the apostle immediately goes on to remind his readers that the peace of God is something superior to the highest intelligence (ὑπερέχουσα πάντα νοῦν).
It would seem, as Alford says, that the cruel treatment of the apostle at Philippi had combined with the charm of his personal fervor of affection to knit up a bond of more than ordinary love between him and the Philippian Church. They alone, of all churches, sent subsidies to relieve his temporal necessities" (Php_4:10; Php_4:15; Php_4:18; 2Co_11:9; 1Th_2:2; Alford, Greek Test., Prol. 3:29). The apostle felt their kindness; and during his imprisonment at Rome wrote to them that epistle which is still in our canon. This epistle indicates that at that time some of the Christians there were in the custody of the military authorities as seditious persons, through some proceedings or other connected with their faith (ὑμῖν ἐχαρίσθη τὸ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, οὐ μόνον τὸ εἰς αὐτὸν πιστεύειν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ πάσχειν· τὸν αὐτὸν ἀγῶνα ἔχνοτες οιον εἴδετε ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ νῦν ἀκούετε ἐν ἐμοί, Php_1:29). The reports of the provincial magistrates to Rome would of course describe Paul's first visit to Philippi as the origin of the troubles there; and if this were believed, it would be put together with the charge against him by the Jews at Jerusalem which induced him to appeal to Caesar, and with the disturbances at Ephesus and elsewhere; and the general conclusion at which the government would arrive might not improbably be that he was a dangerous person and should be got rid of. This will explain the strong exhortation of the first eighteen verses of chapter 2, and the peculiar way in which it winds up. The Philippian Christians, who are at the same time suffering for their profession, are exhorted in the most earnest manner, not to firmness (as one might have expected), but to moderationi, to abstinence from all provocation and ostentation of their own sentiments (μηδὲν κατὰ ἐριθείαν μηδὲ κενοδοξίαν, Php_1:3), to humility, and consideration for the interests of others. They are to achieve their salvation with fear and trembling, and without quarrelling and disputing, in order to escape all blame from such charges, that is, as the Roman colonists would bring against them. If with all this prudence and temperance in the profession of their faith, their religion is still made a penal offence, the apostle is well content to take the consequence — to precede them in martyrdom for it — to be the libation poured out upon them the victims (εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι ἐπὶ τῇ θυσίᾷ καὶ λειτουργίᾷ τῆς πίστεως ὑμῶν χαίρω καὶ συγχαίρω πᾶσιν ὑμῖν, Php_1:17). Of course the Jewish formalists in Philippi were the parties most likely to misrepresent the conduct of the new converts; and hence (after a digression on the subject of Epaphroditus) the apostle reverts to cautions against them, such precisely as he had given before-consequently by word of mouth: "Beware of those dogs" — (for they will not be children at the table, but eat the crumbs underneath) — "those doers (and bad doers too) of the law-those flesh-manglers (for circumcised I won't call them, we being the true circumcision, etc.") (3:2, 3). Some of these enemies Paul found at Rome, who "told the story of Christ insincerely" (κατήγγειλαν οὐχ ἁγνῶς, 1:17) in the hope of increasing the severity of his imprisonment by exciting the jealousy of the court. These he opposes to such as "preached Christ" (ἐκήρυξαν) loyally, and consoles himself with the reflection that, at all events, the story circulated, whatever the motives of those who circulated it. See Walch, Acta Pruli Philippensia (Jen. 1726); Todd, The Church at Philippi (Lond. 1864). SEE PHILIPPIANS, EPISTLE TO
2. Ancient History. — Strabo tells us that the old name of Philippi was Krenides (7:331); and Appian adds that it was so called from the number of "little fountains" (κρηνίδες) around the site. He also says that it had another name, Datus; but that Philip of Macedon, having taken it from the Thracians, made it a frontier fortress, and gave it his own name (De Bell. Civ. 4:105). Philip's city stood upon a hill, probably that seen a little to the south of the present ruins, which may have always formed the citadel, but was in all probability in its origin a factory of the Phoenicians, who were the first that worked the gold-mines in the mountains here, as iin the neighboring Thasos. Appian says that those were in a hill (λόφος) not far from Phiiippi, that the hill was sacred to Dionysus, and that the mines went by the name of "the sanctuary" (τὰ ἄσυλα). But he shows himself quite ignorant of the locality, to the extent of believing the plain of Philippi to be open to the river Strymon, whereas the massive wall of Pangseus is really interposed..between them. In all probability the "hill of Dionysus" and the "sanctuary" are the temple of Dionysus high up the mountains among the Satrie, who preserved their independence against all invaders down to the time of Herodotus at least. It is more likely that the gold-mines coveted by Philip were the same as those at Scapte Hyle, which was certainly in this immediate neighborhood. Before the great expedition of Xerxes, the Thasians had a number of settlements on the main, and this among the number, which produced them eighty talents a year as rent to the state. In the year B.C. 463 they ceded their possessions on the continent to the Athenians: but the colonists, 10,000 in number, who had settled on the Strymon and pushed their encroachments eastward as far as this point, were crushed by a simultaneous effort of the Thracian tribes (Thucydides, 1:100; 4:102; Herodotus, 9:75; Pausanias, 1:29, 4). From that time until the rise of the Macedonian power, the mines seem to have remained in the hands of native chiefs; but when the affairs of Southern Greece became thoroughly embroiled by the policy of Philip, the Thasians made an attempt to repossess themselves of this valuable territory, and sent a colony to the site, then going by the name of "the Springs" (Κρηνίδες). Philip, however, aware of the importance of the position, expelled them and founded Philippi, the last of all his creations. The mines at that time, as was not wonderfil under the circumstances, had become, almost insignificant in their produce; but their new owner contrived to extract more than a thousand talents a year from them, with which he minted the gold coinage called by his name. The proximity of the gold-mines was of course the origin ,of so large a city as Philippi, but the plain in which it lies is one of extraordinary fertility. The position too was on the main road from Rome to Asia, the Via Egnatia, which from Thessalonica to Constantinople followed the same course as the existing post-road. The usual course was to take ship at Brundisium and land at Dyrrachium, from whence a route led across Epirus to Thessalonica. Ignatius was carried to Italy by this route, when sent to Rome to be cast to wild beasts. See Strabo, Fragnment. lib. 7; Thucyd. 1:100; 4:102; Herod. 9:75; Diod. Sic. 16:3 sq.; Appian, Bell. Civ. 4:101 sq.; Pausan. 1:28, 4.
The famous battle of Philippi, in which the Roman republic was overthrown, was fought on this plain in the year B.C. 42 (Dio. Cass. 46; Appian, l.c.). In honor, and as a memorial of his great victory, Augustus made Philippi a Roman “colony," and its coins bear the legend Colonia Augusta Jul. Philippensis (Conybeare and Howson, 1:312). The emperor appears to have founded the new quarter in the plain along the banks of the Gangites. As a colony (κολωνία, Act_16:12) it enjoyed peculiar privileges. Its inhabitants were Roman citizens, most of them being the families and descendants of veteran soldiers, who had originally settled in the place to guard the city and province. They were governed by their own magistrates, called Duumviri or Pretors (in Greek στρατηγοί; Act_16:20), who exercised a kind of military authority, and were independent of the provincial governor.
3. Present Site. — Philippi (now called by the Turks Felibejik) is cut off from the interior by a steep line of hills, anciently called Symbolum, connected towards the N.E. with the western extremity of Haemus, and to;wards the S.W., less continuously, with the eastern extremity of Pangaeus. Between the foot of Symbolurn :and the site of Philippi two T'urlish cemeteries are passed, the gravestones of which are all derived from the ruins of the ancient city, anti in the immediate neighborhood of the one first reached is the modern Turkish village Bereketli. This is the nearest village to the ancient ruins. Near the second cemetery are some ruins on a slight eminence, and also a khan, kept by a Greek family. Here is a large monumental block of marble, twelve feet high and seven feet square, apparently the pedestal of a statue, as on the top a hole exists which was obviously intended for its reception. This hole is pointed out by local tradition as the crib out of which Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, was accustomed to eat his oats. On two sides of the block is a mutilated Latin inscription, in which the names of Caius Vibiuls and Cornelius Quartus may be deciphered. A stream employed in turning a mill bursts out from a sedgy pool in the neighborhood, and probably finds its way to the marshy ground mentioned as existing in the S.W. portion of the plain. After about twenty minutes' ride from the khan, over ground thickly strewed with fragments of marble columns, and slabs that have been employed in building, a river-bed sixty-six feet wide is crossed, through which the stream rushes with great force, and immediately on the other side the walls of the ancient Philippi may be traced. Their direction is adjusted to the course of the stream; and at only three hundred and fifty feet from its margin there appears a gap in their circuit, indicating the former existence of a gate. This is, no doubt, as above seen, the gate out of which the apostle and his companion passed to the "prayer-meeting" on the banks of a river, where they made the acquaintance of Lydia, the Thyatiran .seller of purple. The locality, just outside the walls, and with a plentiful supply of water for their animals, is exactly the one which would be appropriated as a market for itinerant traders, "quorum cophinus foenumque supellex," as will appear from the parallel case of the Egerian fountain near Rome, of whose desecration Juvenal complains (Sat. 3:13).
Lydia had an establishment in Philippi for the reception of the dyed goods which were imported from Thyatira and the neighboring towns of Asia, and were dispersed by means of packanimals among the mountain clans of the Haemus and Pangaeus, the agents being doubtless in many instances her own coreligionists. High tup in Haemus lay the tribe of the Satrae, where was the oracle of Dionysusnot the rustic deity of the Attic vinedressers, but the prophet-god of the Thracians (ὁ θρῃξὶ μάντις, Eurip. Hecub. 1267). The "damsel with the spirit of divination" (παιδίσκη ἔχουσα πνεῦμα πύθωνα) may probably be regarded as one of the hierodules of this establishment, hired by Philippian citizens, and frequenting the country-market to practice her art upon the villagers who brought produce for the consumption of the town. The fierce character of the mountaineers would render it imprudent to admit them within the wails of the city; just as in some of the towns of North Africa the Kabyles are not allowed to enter, butt have a market allotted to them outside the walls for the sale of the produce they bring. Over such an assemblage only a summary jurisdiction can be exercised; and hence the proprietors of the slave, when they considered themselves injured, and hurried Paul and Silas into the town, to the agora — the civic market where the magistrates (ἄρχοντες) sat — were at once turned over to the military authorities (στρατηγοί), and these, naturally assuming that a stranger frequenting the extra-mural market must be a Thracian mountaineer or an itinerant trader, proceeded to inflict upon the ostensible cause of a riot (the merits of which they would not attempt to understand) the usual treatment in such cases. The idea of the apostle possessing the Roman franchise, and consequently an exemption from corporal outrage, never occurred to the rough soldier who ordered him to be scourged; and the whole transaction seems to have passed so rapidly that he had no time to plead his citizenship, of which the military authorities first heard the next day. But the illegal treatment (ὕβοις) obviously made a deep impression on the mind of its victim, as is evident not only from his refusal to take his discharge from prison the next morning (Act_16:37), but from a passage in the Epistle to the Church at Thessalonica (1Th_2:2), in which he reminds them of the circumstances under which he first preached the Gospel to them (προπαθόντες καὶ ὑβρισθέντες, Καθώς οἴδατε, ἐν Φιλίπποις). Subsequently at Jerusalem, under parallel circumstances of tumult, he warns the officer (to the great surprise of the latter) of his privilege (Acts 22:55).
Philippi is now an uninhabited ruin. The remains are very extensive, but present no striking feature except two gateways, which are considered to belong to the time of Claudius. The foundations of a theatre can be traced; also the walls, gates, some tombs, and numerous broken columns'and heaps of rubbish. The ruins of private dwellings are visible on every part of the site; and at one place is a mound covered with columns and broken fragments of white marble; where a palace, temple, or perhaps a forum once stood. Inscriptions both in the Latin and Greek languages, but more generally in the former, are found. See Clarke, Travels, volume 3; Leake, Northern Greece, volume 3; Cousinery, Voyage dans la Maced.; and especially Hacket, Journey to Philippi in the Bible Union Quarterly, August 1860; Smith Dict. of Class. Geog. s.v.; Lewin, St. Paul, 1:206 sq. SEE MACEDONIA.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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