PHILIPPI
PHILIPPI
heard or unheeded ; but as he suffered scourging altogether not less than three times (τρὶς ἐραβδίσθην, 2 Co 11™), it is also possible that for the moment he was silent of set purpose about his citizenship. μι it could be supposed, in face of 1657: 88. that ilas was not a citizen, the motive of his silence would be obvious]. The prisoners were then re- manded with special instructions as to their safe ody; and the gaoler, no doubt rightly inter- ting this as a warning against too lenient a reatment, threw them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks.
The iverips φυλακή was surrounded entirely by the outer pany and spears to have had no light and no air except ‘ough the door: for illustrations of the inner prison and stocks, cf. (1) Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (4.0. 177: Eusebius, HE v. 1) τὼς κατὼ τὸν εἰρατὴν ἐν τὸ σκότι, καὶ τῷ χαλισντάτῳ χωρίῳ wus καὶ τὰς iy τῇ ξύλῳ διατάσιις τῶν ποδῶν ἐπ) πίματον διατεινομίνων τρύπημα ; (2) Acts of Perpetua (A.D. 202) § 8, post paucos dies recipimur in carcerem et expaui quia numquam experta eram tales tenebras, tb. paucis horis emissi in meliorem locum carceris; § 8, die quo in neruo mansimus ; (8) Acts of Pionius (4.p, 250) § 11, οἱ δωμοφύλαπις . . ὼ as τὸ ἰσώτιρον, but afterwards they were allow pers; (4) Eus. ΠῈ vi. 89, cf. Origen (c. a.p. 250), τάς τε σιδηρῷ πλοιῷ καὶ μυχοῖς εἰρκτῆς τιμωρίας καὶ ὡς... τοὺς πόδας ὑπὸ τίσσαρα τοῦ κολαστηρίου ξύλου «αὶ i διαστήματα κατασ- πώμενος κι τ.λ; (5) Cyprian, Ep. xxxvii. 8, squalorem carceris ac receptaculi poenalis horrorem; xxxix. 2, per decem nouem dies custodia carceris smptus in neruo ac ferro fuit. Of. Mommasen, Rémisches Strafrecht, p. 302.
At midnight Paul and Silas were singing at their prayers (προσευχόμενοι ὕμνουν : Jewish litur- giology is too obscure a subject for us to sa whether it formally included prayers for mid- night, but Ps 119°? should not ἐξ overlooked ; in any case, the ‘hymns’ may Erobebty have been from the Psalter), when an earthquake shook the prison so violently that the bars of all the doors and the fetters of the prisoners gave way. The gaoler, supposing naturally that his prisoners had taken the Epp eanity, to escape, and knowing that he would be held responsible for them, would have committed suicide if St. Paul had not been able to reassure him, and so turn him from his purpose. From that moment, if not before, it is clear that he attributed the convulsion of nature to the prayers and powers of his two prisoners ; and he at once professed himself their convert. From the inner prison he removed them to his own house,—a violation of the spirit rather than of the letter of the magistrates’ injunctions,—ministered to their temporal wants, and received from them spiritual instruction and baptism. As in Lydia’s case, the whole household came over to Christianity with its head.
As soon as day broke, the duoviri, doubtless thinking to avoid all further complications by seeing that the objects of the riot left Philippi before the excitement should burst out afresh, sent their lictors to the prison with an order terminating
er p' ings, which, as Roman prisons were used only as places of detention before or during trial, was equivalent to a direct order of release. St. Paul refused to leave in this undigni- fied fashion; he advertised the fact that he and Silas were citizens; and he demanded a personal acknowledgment of their error by the magistrates. This was willingly accorded as the price of the departure of the unwelcome strangers, whose citizenship not only rendered illegal the previous proceedings, but would complicate any future pro- ceedings that the owners or the populace might choose to press against them. St. Paul, though he would not forego a formal farewell to his hostess and his converts, did not further contest the demand that he should leave Philippi, where, indeed, his presence might for the moment hinder rather than further the work of the gospel. But the foundations of a flourishing Church had been laid; and Luke, the writer of the Acts, was (to
judge from the dropping of the first person plural
tween 167 and 20°) left in charge of it. _Five years later (perhaps in A.D. 55) St Paul, on his way to Corinth in the course of the third
missiona: journey, passed again through Mace- donia and exhorted at length the Christians of ‘those parts’ (παρακαλέσας αὐτοὺς λόγῳ πολλῷ, Ac
205. We may be certain that a visit to Philippi was included, for the time occupied in travellin from Ephesus to Corinth was apparently as muc as six months (cf. 1 Co 168 with Ac 905. ὦ, On his return from Corinth in the early spring he paid another and unintended visit (Ac 20°), the last of which we have a definite record; and though it delayed the journey to Jerusalem, which he was so anxious to accomplish by Pentecost (Ac 9015), he spent with the Philippian Church the last pascha which he was to enjoy in freedom for many years, while his (mostly Gentile?) com- nions went on and awaited him at Troas. At pile the ‘we-passages’ commence again (20°) : St. Luke appears to have joined St. Paul again at this point, and probably stayed by him during the rest of the period of the Acts.