1. Apostolic Associations. —St. Paul, when, on bis first visit i" 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 < Acts \>i. 1 1 1. The Philippi of rani'.- day was situated in a plain, on the banks ofadeepand rapid stream called m.w Angista i. The ancient walls followed the course of the stream for some distance; and in this sec- tion of the wall the site of a gate is seen, with the ruins of a bridge marly opposite, in the narrative of Paul's visit it is said: "On the Sabbath w< went out qftfo gaU by tin river (tZqXSoutv r»}c nv\nc irapa Korauav), where a meeting lor prayer was accustomed to be" (ver. 13). It was doubtless by this gate they wont (/in, ami by the side of this river the prayer- meeting was Inld. As Philippi was a military colony, it is prob- able Hi it the Jews had no synagogue, and were not permitted to hold their worship within the walls. Be- hind 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 icting
Philippi with Neapolis. Though the distance between the two wa- nine miles, yel Neapolis was to Philippi what the Piraeus 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 (xx, 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 mountain- road to the former, which Luke calls "the first city of the division of Macedonia'' | -iH.iri) rije. uepiSoc. ti)< MaKtSoviag ttoXic, Acts \vi. 12). The word -n-pwrij as represented in the A. V., signify "chief." Thessalonica was the chief city of all Macedonia, and Araphipolis of that division (jitplc) of it in which Phi- lippi was situated (see Wieseler, Chron, des Apost. Zeit. Upwri] Bimply means that Philippi was the "first" citj of Macedonia to which Paul came i AIford,ad toe; Conybeare and Howsou, Lift of St. Paul, i. 311, noti [n descending the mountain-path towards Phi- lippi the apostle had before him a vast and beautiful panorama. The wholt plain, with its green meadows. ami clumps of trees, and wide reaches of marsh, .-md winding his fe< i ; and away beyond i<
the dark ridges of Macedonia.
The missionary visit of Paul and Silas to Philippi essful. They found an eager audience in the few Jews and proselytes who frequented the prayer- the hank- of the Gangites. Lydia, a trader from Thyatira, was the first convert. Her « hole house followed het example. Ii was when going and return- ing from Lydia's house that " the dam-el possessed with a spirit of divination" met the apostles, Paul cast out the -pint, 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 thehasteand rough- ness of martial law, ordered them to be Bcourged and thrown into prison. Even this gross act of injustice redounded in the end to the glorj of God; for the jailer and his whole house were converted, and the very mag-; i-irate- were compelled to make a public apology to the
philippi
apostli -. and to set them at liberty, thus declaring their i . The scene in the prison of Philippi was one of the most cheering, as it was one of the most remark- able 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 ofthe manufacturers of silver shriues for Arte- mis. By this time the hostile relation in which the Christian doctrine necessarily stood to all purely cere-
i ial religions was perfectly manifest; and wherever
ii- teachers appeared, popular tumults were to be ex- pected, and the jealousy of the Human authorities, who dreaded civil disorder above everything else, to be feared. Ii seems not unlikely that the second visit of the apostle to Philippi was made specially with the view of counteracting this particular danger. He ap- pears to have remained in the city ami surrounding country a considerable time i Acts \\. i. ".' i.
When Paul passed through Philippi a third time lie .Iocs not appear to have made any considerable stay there (ver. 6). He and his companion arc somewhat loosely -poken of a- sailing from Philippi; but this is because in the common apprehension of travellers the city and it- port ueiv regarded a- one. Whoever em- barked ai the Piraeus might in the same way be said to set out on a voyage from Allien-. On this occasion the voyage to Troas took the apostle five days, the ves- sel being probably obliged to coast in order to avoid the contrary wind, until coming off the headland of Sarpe- don, w hence -he would be able to stand across to I roas with an E. or E.N.E. breeze, \\ hich at that time of 1 1 ar ( after Easter) might be looked for.