PHILIPPI
PHILIPPI
215
Literature.— W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1806 ; R. B. Rackham, Ads of the Apostles, 1901 ; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and Phileman^, 1879 ; A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909. W. A. SPOONEK.
PHILIPPI (*/Xnriroi).— Pliilippi was a city in the E. of Maiedonia, re-founded in the middle of tlie 4th cent. B.C. by Phili]) of Macedon, wlio made it one of his frontier strongholds. IJuilt on an out- lying spur of the Pangiean range (' Panga-a nivosis cana jugis' [Lucan, Phar. i. 680]), and separated by that range from its seaport Neapolis, it looked Westward and northward over a vast green plain watered by many springs, from which it derived its original name of Crcnides (Strabo, vii. p. 331). In 168 B.C. Macedonia was subdued by the Romans, who broke up her national unity by dividing the country into four districts, the inhabitants of which were forbidden to marry or hold property outside their respective boundaries (Livy, xlv. 29). Philippi was included in the first region, of which Aniphipolis was the capital. In 42 B.C. the Roman Republic made its last stand on the plains of Philippi, and to commemorate the victory of Imperialism the city was re-founded by Octavian uniler the name of Colonia Julia Augusta Victrix PltUippensiuiii. Receiving the Jus Italicum, it became a miniature Rome, enjoying equal privi- leges with the mother-city. After the battle of Actium it provided a home for the defeated veterans of Mark Antony. Even the Greek natives (incolfe), who still probably outnumbered the co/oni, caught the now prevailing spirit and gloried in being Roman (Ac 16"'). Latin was the official language of the colonia, whose magistrates, chosen by a senate of the citizens, were attended by lictors ('sergeants,' 16'°) bearing fasces. The Via Egnatia, the second part of the great overland route between Rome and Asia, passed through the city.
Christianity first came to Philippi in the autumn of A.D. 50 (so Turner; Harnack, 48; Ramsay, 51 [see HDB i. 424]). In response to the appeal of ' the man of Macedonia,' whom Ramsay wishes to identify with St. Luke, St. Paul crossed the Mgeaji to Neapolis, took the Egnatian Way over Mt. Symbolum, and reached the colonia. The change from ' they ' to ' we ' in the narrative after the departure from Troas (Ac 16'°) indicates that the historian accompanied the Apostle on this journey into Europe.
Philippi is described as ' a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roiiian colony ' (16''^ RV). The words irpwrri r^s fieplSos form an exegetical crux. (1) Conybeare and Howson hold that they ' must certainly mean the first city in its geographi- cal relation to St. Paul's journey ' (The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, i. 341), i.e. the first he came to in the district ; but this seems a feeble observa- tion for a first-rate historian to make, and more- over one not strictly accurate, as Neapolis, which had just been left behind, belonged to the same fiipts as Philippi. (2) F. Blass [Philology of the Gospels, 1898, p. 68) and others emend the text (though it is found in NAC) into Trpdrris /leplSoi, so that Philippi would be described as ' a city of the first region of Macedonia' ; but it is unlikely that St. Luke wished to refer to the old and now almost forgotten division of the country into tetrarchies. (3) Van Manen {EBi iii. 3702) thinks that Philippi was a 'first' city in the same sense in which Ephesus, Pergamus, and Smyrna bore that distinction — a ' first-class ' city ; but it does not appear that this phraseology was used outside the Commune of Asia. (4) WH's ingenious proposal (Appendix, p. 97) to read llifploos for fiepioos — ' a city of Pierian Macedonia' — has not commended itself. (5) It is best to take the phrase as an obiter dictum of St. Luke, who unofficially con-
firms the great Roman colony's estimate of itself as the most important city of the district. ' Of old Aniphipolis had been the chief city of the division, to which both belonged. Afterwards Philipjii (juile outstripped its rival ; but it was at that time in such a position that Am|>hipolis was ranked first by general consent, Philippi first by its own con- sent'(Ra.msa,y, St. Paul, p. 206 i.).
Had there been a synagogue in Philippi, .St. Paul would, according to his invariable practtici-, have visited it without delay. But a military colony did not offer the same attractions as a com- mercial city to the Jews of the Diaspora, and apparently the sojourners in Philippi were few. There was, however, a ■n-po(T€vxn, or jilace of jirayer, outside the gate by the side of the river — the Ganges or Gangites, a tributary of the Strymon — where some women were in the habit of meeting on the Sabbath (Ac 16"- '"). -rpoafvxv evidently denotes something simpler than a fully organized avvayuyi] with all the proper officials and appoint- ments. It is true that Philo and Josephus employ the two terms as synonymous (Schiirer, HJP II. ii. [1885] 68-73). The latter, e.g., describes the irpouevxr) of Tiberias as ixiyiorov otKijtua nai ttoXvv ix^"" etndi^aaBai Svyd/ievov ( Vita, 54). But the fact that St. Luke everywhere else uses the word ' syna- gogue ' indicates a distinction in his own mind. Only women attended the Philippian irpoireuxv, whereas the presence of at least ten adult male persons Avas required for the conduct of the regu- lar worship of the synagogue. The Philippian worshippers had doubtless some enclosure which marked oflF their meeting-place as sacred, but no roofed building like a synagogue. The river-side gave them the means of Levitical washings, as well as a refuge from the interior of a city tainted with idolatry. Philo (in Flaccum, 14) mentions the instinctive desire of Jews residing in a foreign city to pray in KadapaTaTiji, in the purest place they could find. It was in green pastures and beside still waters that St. Paul won his first European convert, the proselyte (ae^oixivri rbv 0i6v, Ac 16''') Lydia.