hurch it was more likely to escape notice and
rsecution ; and hence it is to be ‘ aoe from the
our of trial,’ 319, It is stated in 3° that there was a synagogue in Philadelphia. The Jews of this synagogue degenerated greatly from the strictness of Hebrew morality and religion, had complied with the pagan customs and ways of living, and had become ‘the synagogue of Satan.’ Yet this synagogue was to recognize the love that God had bestowed on this Church, and to bow down before it. This apparently implies that the Jews of Philadelphia were in process of rallying to the Christian side. The Church on the whole is rebuked for no faults or weakness; but is exhorted to continue strong and energetic, as it has hitherto been; and to ‘hold fast what it has.’* Great rewards are promised to those who are steadfast and win the victory. The name of God, and the name of His city, the new Jerusalem, and the new name of the writer who addresses them, are to be written on all who overcome (on this see PERGAMUM).
Philadelphia was a bishopric under the metro- politan see of Sardis, in the Byzantine period, mentioned in all the lists immediately after Sardis. It grew steadily as the A2gean coast cities tended to ernie and the central regions of Asia Minor to grow more important in the Byzantine period. In the last centuries of the empire it rose to a lofty pitch of heroism. It was long the bulwark of the Christians against the encroachments of the Turkish power, whose centre was at Konia or Iconium. Frederick Barbarossa was permitted to enter the city alone by its inhabitants, though they fought for two days against his army, as he was marching across Asia Minor on the fourth crusade in 1190. Andronicus Palwologus (1283- 1328) recognized its importance by raising it to the rank of a metropolitan archbishopric, and making it tenth in ‘the order of dignity.’ This probably implies that it now became practically the Christian centre of Lydia (in place of Sardis), although the official lists (Notitia Episcopatuum), with their usual conservatism (see PERGA), continue to mention it, as before, in the list of bishoprics subject to Sardis (sometimes with the added note, ‘which was promoted to the rank of a metropolis,’ as in Not. xiii.). In 1306 it stood a long siege by the Seljuk Turks; but, after suffering terribly from hunger, it was relieved by Roger de Flor with his
Catalan troops. Again in 1324 it suffered a similar siege, and even greater extreme of hunger ; but again was relieved by the Byzantine general,
Alexius Philanthropenus, As the Turkish power * On the Jows in Phrygia and Lydia see Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ch. xv Ἶ ἡ See Parthey, Notitia Episcop. xi. No. 11, p. 536.
832 PHILEMON
PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO
spread westward, Philadelphia was entirely isolated, bat still maintained its proud independence as a free Christian city in a Turkish land, until it was conquered by a combined army of Ottoman Turks and Byzantine imperial ae sent by the submissive emperor, in a year which is given variously between 1379 and 1390.* In 1403 it is said to is been captured by Tamerlane, who built a wall with corpses (the situation of which is still pointed out).
It is remarkable that the city whose noble Christian career is intimated in the message Rev 35. should have had the most glorious history of all the cities of Asia Minor in the long struggle against the Turks. Perhaps the only city that could vie with it was Smyrna (also highly praised in Rev); but the resistance of Smyrna was due in part to European aid, while Philadelphia main- tained itself with native steadfastness and vigour. It is still to a large extent Christian. ‘He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the sanc- tuary of my God, and he shall go out thence no more,’ Rev 313,
The modern name of Philadelphia is Ala-Sheher, the ‘reddish city’ (or rather parti-coloured, with a reddish-brown tinge), so called from the colour of the hillside that slopes away backwards and up- wards behind the city. It was by a mere error, due to a smattering of Turkish, that older travellers reported its name as Allah-Sheher, the City of God, which has led to a good deal of mistaken moralizing. W. M. Ramsay.
PHILEMON (Φιλήμων). -- ΤῊ correspondent to whom St. Paul addressed the charming letter which bears his name (see the following article). The name occurs with considerable frequency in in- scriptions, and is found twice in literature in con- nexion with Phrygia, viz. in the beautiful legend of Philemon an ucis (Ovid, Metam. viii. 631), and in Aristoph. Aves, 762. St. Paul’s corre- spondent was most probably a native of Colosse (cf. Philem? with Col 4!7); and in Theodoret’s time his house was pointed out in thatcity. Tra- dition speaks of him as bishop of Colosse (Apost. Const. vii. 46), and the Menea of Nov. 22 record his martyrdom there, by stoning, in company with Apphia, Archippus, and Onesimus, in the reign of Nero. In the case of such facts as these, local tradition may generally be regarded as trust- worthy, and here it falls in with the documentary evidence, for the idea that Philemon was of Laodicea is a mere guess.