erhaps to describe Philadelphia as part of the
atakekaumene, but this is aes accurate geo- graphically ; and his expression, on p. 579, that it was on the side of that district, must be taken strictly as denoting the outer side. That district was a broken, irregular country romaine part of the great plateau, but on a lower level, like a ste leading up to it. The Katakekaumene lay nort and north-east from Philadelphia. It derived ita
*Sospelt onacoin. Pliny has Cogamus.
PHILADELPHIA
name from the extraordinarily fresh and impressive traces of volcanic action which appear in it: great streams of lava, and vast heaps of cinders, loo cing as if they had just cooled yesterday, surround the three ‘funnels’ (as Strabo calls them, Devitt, or Ink-pots,* as the Turks now call them), which are the craters of volcanoes that were active down to & comparatively recent time. These blackened and bare rocks and cinder heaps encroach in irregu- lar outline on the rich, green, fertile glens and slopes of the luxuriant country, with its ten cities, from which it derived its other name, Decapolis. Strabo (xiii. p. 628) describes Philadelphia as being constantly subject to earthquakes, so that the walls and houses could hardly stand firm; but modern experience tends to show that there is considerable exaggeration in his picture. He also says that few people lived in the city, but that most lived in the open country, and were engaged in cultivating the very fertile land. This account would suggest a somewhat simple and rustic settle- ment; but that is hardly the ΠΟ ΤΕΕΕΙ͂ΟΝ that one gets from other facts. Philadelphia was evidently a oles of importance in the imperial organization of the province of Asia. It took the name Neo- kaisareia for a time in the Ist cent., being so styled on coins of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, and the name was evidently given to it under Tiberius, who aided it to recover from a great earthquake in A.D. 17. Under Vespasian it was honoured with the title Flavia. In the reign of Caracalla it received the honour of the Neokorate (see PERGAMUM).t Meetings of the Council of the province Asia, with the games called Kowa ᾿Ασίας, were held in it, at least in later time.
Philadelphia was the seat of one of the seven Churches to which were sent special messages through the mouth of John, in the opening of the Apocalypse. In all probability each of the seven is to be understood as the centre and head of a district ; and it would be quite a mistake to under- stand that there were only these seven Churches in the province. Laodicea is certainly to be taken as representative at least of the whole Lycus valley (where the Churches of Colosse and Hier- apolis had long existed), and probably also of southern Phrygia (see LAODICEA). Similarly Phila- delphia stands as representative of a district; Sth there can be no doubt that its district con- sisted of the neighbouring regions of the plateau, including parts of eastern Lydia and western
ia. Nace of the valley west of it could be in its district, for the Hermus cities would fall either under Sardis or under Thyatira.
These facts, and its abundant coinage, reveal to us rather a rich and powerful city, connected by trade with a large district towards the east and north, for which it formed a centre, and thus well suited to be one of the central Churches of Chris- tianized Asia. It is said that there has been ‘set before it a door opened’ (Rev 3°), and the ‘open door’ doubtless refers to its position on the threshold of the eastern country, and to the rapidity with which the new religion was spreading to the plateau through the cities connected with Philadelphia. On this sense of the ‘open door’ compare 2 Co 2,
But it is hardly possible, in our almost com- plete ignorance of the inner history and circum- stances of Philadelphia, to find an intimate con- nexion between them and the language of the address to the Church. It may, however, be
* Wrongly called, by almost all travellers and guide-books, Devlit.
tSee Buresch, Aus Lydien, p. 108 ff. Marquardt (δηι.
. 1. p. 341) is mistaken in saying that it was the seat
of a conventus ; but it was one of the places in the conventus
Sardianus where the court of the conventus might be held by
the 1 Yoconsul.
PHILADELPHIA 831
noticed that in the seven letters to these Churches, it is chiefly the faults which are associated with the local circumstances, and which derive light therefrom. In so far as a Church attained Chris- tian purity, its character rises to a higher plane; in so far as it degenerates from that high level, it becomes affected by its earthly surroundings. Now the two Churches which are addressed in terms of almost unmingled praise are Smyrna and Philadelphia ; and in those two addresses we find least reference to local history and situation. Philadelphia had kept the word, and not denied the name of God. It is described in Rev 3° as having ‘a little power’; and this is considered by some commentators to be explained and illustrated by Strabo’s description of the actual city as being small, But the allusion to its ‘little power’ seems rather to point to the Church being a recent foundation, which had not yet acquired great strength in the city, though there is a brilliant opening before it. Asa newly founded and small