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PHILIPPI

A city of proconsular Macedonia, so called from Philip king of Macedon, who repaired and beautified it; whence it lost its former name of Dathos. It was constituted a Roman “colony” by Augustus, and as such possessed certain peculiar privileges, which made it a “chief city of that part of Macedonia.” This expression however, is supposed to mean, in Mal 16:12, that it was the first city the traveler met after landing at its port Neapolis, from which it lay ten miles northwest on an extensive plain. Here was fought the celebrated battle in which Brutus and Cassius were overthrown by Octavius and Antony, B. C. 42.Here, too, Paul first preached the gospel on the continent of Europe; A. D. 52, having been led hither from Troas by a heavenly vision. The first convert was Lydia; and the church which at one sprang up here was characterized by the distinguished traits of this generous and true-hearted Christian woman. Having cast out a spirit of divination from a young damsel here, Paul and Silas were seized and cruelly scourged and imprisoned. But their bounds were miraculously loosed, their jailer converted, and they permitted to pass on to Amphipolis. Luke appears to have remained here, and to have rejoined Paul when he again visited Philippi on his fifth journey to Jerusalem, A. D. 58, Mal 16:8-40 20:3-6. The site is now strown with ruins.Paul’s EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS, written during his first imprisonment at Rome, A. D. 62, gratefully and warmly acknowledges the receipt of their gift by the hand of Epaphroditus, and their continued affection towards him; also their irreproachable Christian walk, and their firmness under persecution, Phi 1:7 4:23 2:12 4:10-15. See also 2Co 8:1-2 .

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Philippi

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Philippi was a city in the E. of Macedonia, re-founded in the middle of the 4th cent. b.c. by Philip of Macedon, who made it one of his frontier strongholds. Built on an outlying spur of the Pangaean range (Pangaea 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 Crenides (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 Amphipolis 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 under the name of Colonia Julia Augusta Victrix Philippensium. Receiving the Jus Italicum, it became a miniature Rome, enjoying equal privileges with the mother-city. After the battle of Actium it provided a home for the defeated veterans of Mark Antony. Even the Greek natives (incolae), who still probably outnumbered the coloni, caught the now prevailing spirit and gloried in being Roman (Act 16:21). Latin was the official language of the colonia, whose magistrates, chosen by a senate of the citizens, were attended by lictors (sergeants, Act 16:35) 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 aegean 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 (Act 16:10) 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 Roman colony (Act 16:12 RV_). The words form an exegetical crux. (1) Conybeare and Howson hold that they must certainly mean the first city in its geographical relation to St. Pauls 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 observation for a first-rate historian to make, and moreover one not strictly accurate, as Neapolis, which had just been left behind, belonged to the same as Philippi. (2) F. Blass (Philology of the Gospels, 1898, p. 68) and others emend the text (though it is found in AC) into , 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) WHs_ ingenious proposal (Appendix, p. 97) to rend for -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 confirms the great Roman colonys estimate of itself as the most important city of the district. Of old Amphipolis had been the chief city of the division, to which both belonged. Afterwards Philippi quite outstripped its rival; but it was at that time in such a position that Amphipolis was ranked first by general consent, Philippi first by its own consent (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 206 f.).

Had there been a synagogue in Philippi, St. Paul would, according to his invariable practice, have visited it without delay. But a military colony did not offer the same attractions as a commercial city to the Jews of the Diaspora, and apparently the sojourners in Philippi were few. There was, however, a , or place of prayer, 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 (Act 16:13; Act 16:16). evidently denotes something simpler than a fully organized with all the proper officials and appointments. It is true that Philo and Josephus employ the two terms as synonymous (Schrer, HJP_ II. ii. [1885] 68-73). The latter, e.g., describes the of Tiberias as (Vita, 54). But the fact that St. Luke everywhere else uses the word synagogue indicates a distinction in his own mind. Only women attended the Philippian , whereas the presence of at least ten adult male persons was required for the conduct of the regular worship of the synagogue. The Philippian worshippers had doubtless some enclosure which marked off 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 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 ( , Act 16:14) Lydia.

Another Philippian woman, who was attracted by the Apostle and his message, was well known in the city as a soothsayer (Act 16:16). She was in the hands of a syndicate of masters who exploited her strange powers, advertising her as the possessor of a Python. According to Plutarch (de Defec. Orac. 9), Python was a name assumed by (ventriloquists), persons whom the LXX_ identifies with diviners. Popularly regarded as inspired by the Pythian Apollo, the girl was evidently no mere impostor, but a person of abnormal gifts and temperament, perhaps with symptoms of epilepsy, who believed herself to be the mouthpiece of a divine power, and gave free expression to her intuitions, often astonishing those who consulted her by the justice and truth of her oracular words. She was irresistibly drawn to the evangelists, rightly divining that they had brought to Philippi another and greater power than that of Apollo. She calls them servants of God the Most High-an expression widespread in paganism, as Ramsay notes (St. Paul, p. 215). St. Pauls mode of saving her is an example of the mighty workings () of which he speaks (1Co 12:28). An authoritative word in the name of Christ broke the spell of her unhappy possession, and liberated her to serve a new Master.

Her conversion was the signal for an outburst of pagan hatred, to which St. Paul alludes years afterwards ( [1Th 2:2; cf. Php 1:30]). Enraged at the loss of their income ( , business, gain), the girls owners avenged themselves by contriving to get the apostles charged with disturbing the peace and teaching a religio illicita. St. Paul and Silas were dragged before the magistrates, scourged without a hearing, and flung into the innermost prison. Weizscker (p. 285) thinks that the story is rendered impossible by the conduct of Paul; he lets himself be chastised illegally, in order afterwards to secure greater satisfaction. Paul could not have acted so. But in the tumult he may well have made a protest which was drowned by a babel of hostile voices. Or who will blame him if he sometimes chose to suffer in silence- (2Co 11:25)-like ordinary Christians, who could not shelter themselves under the aegis of the Roman citizenship?

The magistrates of Philippi are first called (Act 16:19) and then (Act 16:20; Act 16:22; Act 16:35-36; Act 16:38). Ramsay (St. Paul, p. 217) thinks that the two clauses, dragged them into the agora before the rulers, and brought them before the magistrates (Act 16:19-20), mean the same thing, and holds that if St. Luke had revised his narrative he would have struck out the one or the other. Blass says, non licet distinguere inter et (Acta Apostolorum, 1895, p. 180). The former is the ordinary term for the supreme board of magistrates in a Greek town, the latter the popular equivalent of praetores. St. Luke knew no doubt that in a colonia like Philippi the highest governing power was in the hands of duumviri (see inscriptions in J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 51), the exact translation of which would have been , but he preferred good Greek to slavishly technical accuracy on such a point. His use of , therefore, does not prove either that the magistrates of Philippi had duly received the dignity of the praetorship, or that they had assumed it without leave, as provincial duumviri were said sometimes to do (Cicero, de Leg. Agr. ii. 34).

St. Luke is characteristically careful to make it clear that the majesty of Roman law might have been invoked against the Philippian authorities and on behalf of the apostles. By illegally punishing Roman citizens-Silas was apparently one as well as St. Paul (Act 16:37)-the magistrates had rendered themselves liable to be degraded and counted unfit ever to hold office again (Cicero, in Verr. II. v. 66). The scourging and imprisoning were acts of high-handed violence. The accused were subjected to these indignities without a trial; that is the meaning of the word , which is translated uncondemned (Act 16:37). In the end the magistrates saved themselves by begging the prisoners to leave the town quietly, and the historians point is that in acceding to this request the apostles forfeited the unquestionable right to appeal against a gross maladministration of justice.

Many writers regard the story of the earthquake and the conversion of the jailer as legendary. H. J. Holtzmann asserts that this is the view of the whole critical school (Apostelgeschichte in Hand-Kom. zum NT i. [1889] 389). The interpretation of such a passage is naturally affected by ones whole attitude to the miraculous. The older view is defended by Ramsay, whose acquaintance with Turkish prisons helps him to remove some of the difficulties of the narrative (St. Paul, pp. 220-222).

Five years later, probably in the autumn of a.d. 55, St. Paul re-visited Macedonia, giving the believers much exhortation (Act 20:2); and in the spring of the following year, having unexpectedly to begin his journey from Greece to Palestine by land instead of by sea, he had the happiness of keeping the Passover with the brethren of Philippi (Act 20:6). None of his converts gave him the same unalloyed satisfaction as the Philippians, his beloved and longed for, his joy and crown (Php 4:1). He repeatedly showed his confidence in them by accepting at their hands favours which he refused from every other church. To Thessalonica, and again to Corinth, their messengers followed him with the tokens of their love (Php 4:16, 2Co 11:9); and when he was a prisoner in Rome, Epaphroditus of Philippi made a journey of 700 miles over land and sea to bring him yet another gift, which was acknowledged in the most affectionate letter St. Paul ever wrote (see Philippians, Epistle to the).

The prestige of women in the Church of Philippi, as in the other Macedonian churches (Act 17:4; Act 17:12) is a striking fact, only to be compared with their prominence at an earlier date in the personal ministry of our Lord (Lightfoot, op. cit. p. 57). St. Pauls first Philippian audience consisted entirely of women (Act 16:13); his first convert was a woman of influence, whose familia was baptized with her, and who became his hostess (Act 16:14-15); and the only element in the Philippian Church which called for reproof in his letter was the variance of two prominent Christian ladies, both of whom he remembered gratefully as his fellow-workers in the gospel (Php 4:2-3). Lightfoot (op. cit. p. 56) quotes a number of Macedonian inscriptions which seem to assign to the sex a higher social influence than is common among the civilised nations of antiquity.

In the time of Trajan-i.e., before a.d. 117-Philippi became a stage in the triumphal progress of St. Ignatius from Antioch to Rome, where he was to die in the arena. His visit made so deep an impression on the Philippian Church that they soon after requested the martyrs young friend Polycarp to write them and send them copies of St. Ignatius own letters. Polycarps Epistle to the Philippians was the response, and it is still extant. The writer congratulates the Church of Philippi on the sturdy root of their faith, famous from the earliest days (1), warns them against certain doctrinal and practical errors, and sets before them the example of apostles and saints who have gone to their rest. The later history of this remarkable church is almost a blank.

The village of Filibedjik (Little Philippi) is all that remains of the once famous city.

Literature.-W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, 1835, iii. 215-223; J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians4, 1878, p. 47 f.; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, new ed., 1877, i. 341 f.; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1895, p. 213 f., The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 158 f.; C. von Weizscker, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church2, Eng. tr._, i. [1897] 279 ff.; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 239 f.

James Strahan.

Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church

Philippi

City of ancient Macedonia near the River Gangites, named for Philip II of Macedon who conquered it, 358 B.C. Ruins of an acropolis, amphitheatre, and temple remain. In 42 B.C. the senatorial party under Brutus and Cassius was defeated by Antony and Octavius, and Philippi became the Roman colony of Julia Philippensis, and received the jus Italicum. It was the first city of Europe to be visited by Saint Paul the Apostle, 53. To the inhabitants he addressed his “Epistle to the Philippians.” The see was originally suffragan to Thessalonica, but later became a metropolitan see.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Philippi

(Gr. Phílippoi, Lat. Philippi).

Philippi was a Macedonian town, on the borders of Thracia. Situated on the summit of a hill, it dominated a large and fertile plain, intersected by the Egnatian Way. It was north-west of Mount Pangea, near the River Gangites, and the Ægean Sea. In 358 B. C. it was taken, enlarged, and fortified by the King of Macedonia, Philip II, hence its name Philippi. Octavius Augustus (42 B. C.) conferred on it his jus Italicum (Acts 14:12), which made the town a miniature Rome, and granted it the institutions and privileges of the citizens of Rome. That is why we find at Philippi, along with a remnant of the Macedonians, Roman colonists together with some Jews, the latter, however, so few that they had no synagogue, but only a place of prayer (proseuché). Philippi was the first European town in which St. Paul preached the Faith. He arrived there with Silas, Timothy, and Luke about the end of 52 A. D., on the occasion of his second Apostolic voyage. The Acts mention in particular a woman called Lydia of Thyatira, a seller of purple, in whose house St. Paul probably dwelt during his stay at Philippi. His labours were rewarded by many conversions (Acts 16), the most important taking place among women of rank, who seem to have retained their influence for a long time. The Epistle to the Philippians deals in a special manner with a dispute that arose between two of them, Evodia and Syntyche (iv, 2). In a disturbance of the populace, Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and cast into prison, from which being miraculously delivered, they set out for Thessalonica. Luke, however, continued to work for five years.

The Philippians remained very attached and grateful to their Apostle and on several occasions sent him pecuniary aid (twice to Thessalonica, Philippians 4:14-16; once to Corinth, 2 Corinthians 11:8-9; and once to Rome, Philippians 4:10-18). See EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS). Paul returned there later; he visited them on his second journey, about 58, after leaving Ephesus (Acts 20:1-2). It is believed that he wrote his Second Epistle to the Corinthinas at Philippi, whither he returned on his way back to Jerusalem, passing Easter week there (Acts 20:5-6). He always kept in close communication with the inhabitants. Having been arrested at Cæsarea and brought to Rome, he wrote to them the Epistle we have in the New Testament, in which he dwells at great length on his predilection for them (i, 3, 7; iv, 1; etc.). Paul probably wrote them more letters than we possess; Polycarp, in his epistle to the Philippians (II, 1 sq.), seems to allude to several letters (though the Greek word, ’epistolaí, is used also in speaking of a single letter), and Paul himself (Phil., iii, 1) seems to refer to previous writings. He hoped (i, 26; ii, 24) to revisit Philippi after his captivity, and he may have written there his First Epistle to Timothy (Tim., i, 3). Little is known of the subsequent history of the town. Later it was destroyed by the Turks; to-day nothing remains but some ruins.

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For bibliography see EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS.

A. VANDER HERREN Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Philippi (1)

A titular metropolitan see in Macedonia. As early as the sixth century B. C. we learn of a region called Datos, overrun by the inhabitants of Thasos, in which there was an outlying post called Crenides (the little springs), and a seaport, Neapolis or Cavala. About 460 B. C. Crenides and the country lying inland fell into the hands of the Thracians, who doubtless were its original inhabitants. In 360 B. C. the Thasians, aided by Callistratus the Athenian and other exiles, re-established the town of Datos, just when the discovery of auriferous deposits was exciting the neighbouring peoples. Philip of Macedonia took possession of it, and gave it his name, Philippi in the plural, as there were different sections of the town scattered at the foot of Mount Pangæus. He erected there a fortress barring the road between the Pangæus and the Hæmus. The gold mines, called Asyla, which were energetically worked, gave Philip an annual revenue of more than 1000 talents. In 168 B. C. the Romans captured the place. In the autumn of 42 B. C. the celebrated battle between the triumvirs and Brutus and Cassius was fought on the neighbouring marshy plain. In the first conflict Brutus triumphed over Octavius, whilst Antony repulsed Cassius, who committed suicide. Unable to maintain discipline in his army, and defeated twenty days later, Brutus also took his life. The same year a Roman colony was established there, which after the battle of Actium took the name of Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis. When St. Ignatius of Antioch and the martyrs Zosimus and Rufus were passing through Philippi, St. Ignatius told the Christians of that town to send a letter of congratulation to the faithful of Antioch. They therefore wrote to Polycarp of Smyrna, asking him at the same time for the writings of St. Ignatius. Polycarp answered them in a letter, still extant, which was written before the death of St. Ignatius.

Although the Church of Philippi was of Apostolic origin, it was never very important; it was a suffragan bishopric of Thessalonica. Towards the end of the ninth century it ranked as a metropolitan see and had six suffragan dioceses; in the fifteenth century it had only one, the See of Eleutheropolis. The Archdiocese of Cavala was reunited to the metropolis in December, 1616. In 1619, after a violent dispute with the Metropolitan of Drama, Clement, the titular of Philippi, got permission to assume the title of Drama also, and this was retained by the Metropolitan of Philippi until after 1721, when it was suppressed and the metropolis of Drama alone continued. In the “Echos d’Orient”, III, 262-72, the writer of this article compiled a critical list of the Greek titulars of Philippi, containing sixty-two names, whereas only eighteen are given in Le Quien, “Oriens christianus”, II, 67-70. Some Latin titulars are cited in Eubel, “Hierarchia catholica medii ævi”, I, 418; II, 238; III, 291; Le Quien, op. cit., III, 1045. In the middle of the fourteenth century, Philippi is mentioned in connexion with the wars between John V, Palæologus, and Cantacuzenus, who has left a description of it (P. G., CLIV, 336). The ruins of Philippi lie near the deserted hamlet of Filibedjik, fifteen kilometres from Cavala, in the vilayet of Salonica; they contain the remains of the acropolis, a theatre anterior to the Roman occupations, a temple of Sylvanus, and numerous sculptured rocks bearing inscriptions.

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LEAKE, Northern Greece, III, 215-23; SMITH, Dict, of Gr. and Rom. Geog., s. v.; SEGNITZ, De Philippensibus tanquam luminaria in mundo (Leipzig, 1728); HOOG, De cœtus christianorum Philippensis conditione prima (Leyden, 1823); HEUZEY, Mission archéologique de Macédoine (Paris, 1876), 1-124; MERTZIDÈS, Philippes (Constantinople, 1897), in Greek; TOMASCHEK, Zur Kunde der Hœmus-Halbinsel (Vienna, 1897), 77; FILLION in Dict. de la Bible. s. v.

S. VAILHÉ. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Philippi

(, plur. of Philip), a celebrated city of Macedonia, visited by the apostle Paul, and the seat of the earliest Christian Church formally established in Europe. The double miracle wrought there, and the fact that to the saints in Philippi” the great apostle of the Gentiles addressed one of his epistles, must ever make this city holy groulnd. The following account of it combines the ancient notices with modern investigations.

1. Apostolic Associations. St. Paul, when, on his first visit to 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 (Act 16:11). The Philippi of Paul’s day was situated in a plain, on the banks of a deep and rapid stream called Gangites (now Angista). The ancient walls followed the course of the stream for some distance; and in this section of the wall the site of a gate is seen, with the ruins of a bridge nearly opposite. In the narrative of Paul’s visit it is said: “On the Sabbath we went out of the gate by the river ( ),where a meeting for prayer was accustomed to be” (Act 16:13). It was doubtless by this gate they went out, and by the side of this river the prayer-meeting was held. As Philippi was a military colony, it is probable that the Jews had no synagogue, and were not permitted to hold their worship within the walls. Behind 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 connecting Philippi with Neapolis. Though the distance between the two was nine miles, yet Neapolis was to Philippi what the Piroeus 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 (Act 20:6).

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 mountainroad to the former, which Luke calls “the first city of the division of Macedonia” ( , Act 16:12). The word does not, as represented in the A.V., signify “chief.” Thessalonica was the chief city of all Macedonia, and Amphipolis of that division () of it in which Philippi was situated (see Wieseler, Chron. des Apost. Zeit. page 37). simply means that Philippi was the “first” city of Macedonia to which Paul came (Alford, ad loc.; Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, 1:311, note). In descending the mountain-path towards Philippi the apostle had before him a vast and beautiful panorama. The whole plain, with its green meadows, and clumps of trees, and wide reaches of marsh, and winding streams, lay at his feet; and away beyond it the dark ridges of Macedonia.

The missionary visit of Paul and Silas to Philippi was successful. They found an eager audience in the few Jews and proselytes who frequented the prayerplace on the banks of the Gangites. Lydia, a trader from Thyatira, was the first convert. Her whole house followed her example. It was when going and returning from Lydia’s house that “the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination” met the apostles. Paul cast out the spirit, 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 the haste and roughness of martial law, ordered them to be scourged and thrown into prison. Even this gross act of injustice redounded in the end to the glory of God: for the jailer and his whole house were converted, and the very magistrates were compelled to make a public apology to the apostles, and to set them at liberty, thus declaring theit innocence. The scene in the prison of Philippi was one of the most cheering, as it was one of the most remarkable 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 of the manufacturers of silver shrines for Artemis. By this time the hostile relation in which the Christian doctrine necessarily stood to all purely ceremonial religions was perfectly manifest; and wherever its teachers appeared, popular tumults were to be expected, and the jealousy of the Roman authorities, who dreaded civil disorder above everything else, to be feared. It seems. not unlikely that the second visit of the apostle to Philippi was made specially with the view of counteracting this particular danger. He appears to have remained in the city and surrounding country a considerable time (Act 20:1-2).

When Paul passed through Philippi a third time hie does not appear to have made any considerable stay there (Act 20:6). He and his companion are somewhat loosely spoken of as sailing from Philippi; but this is because in the common apprehension of travellers the city and its port were regarded as one. Whoever embarked at the Piraeus might in the same way be said to set out on a voyage from Athens. On this occasion the voyage to Troas took the apostle five days, the vessel being probably obliged to coast in order to avoid the contrary wind, until coming off the headland of Sarpedon, whence she would be able to stand across to Troas with an E. or E.N.E. breeze, which at that time of year (after Easter) might be looked for.

The Christian community at Philippi distinguished itself in liberality. On the apostle’s first visit he was hospitably entertained by Lydia, and when he afterwards went to Thessalonica, where his reception appears to have been of a very mixed character, the Philippians sent him supplies more than once. and were the only Christian community that did so (Php 4:15). They also contributed readily to the collection made for the relief of the poor at Jerusalem, which Paul conveyed to them at his last visit (2Co 8:1-6). It would seem as if they sent further supplies to the apostle after his arrival at Rome. The necessity for these appears to have been urgent, and some delay to have taken place in collecting the requisite funds; so that Epaphroditus, who carried them, risked his life in the endeavor to make tup for lost time ( , , Php 2:30). The delay, however, seems to have somewhat stung the apostle at the time, who fancied his beloved flock had forgotten him (see 4:10-17). Epaphroditus fell ill with fever from his efforts, and nearly died. On recovering he became homesick, and wandering in mind () from the weakness which is the sequel of fever; and Paul although intending soon to send Timothy to the Philippian Church, thought it desirable to let Epaphroditus go without delay to them, who had already heard of his sickness. and carry with him the letter which is included in the canon one which was written after the apostle’s imprisonment at Rome had lasted a considerable time. Some domestic troubles connected with religion had already broken out in the community. Euodias and Svntyche, who appear to be husband and wife, are exhorted to agree with one another in the matter of their common faith; and the former is implored to extend his sympathy to certain females (obviously familiar both to Paul and to him) who did good service to the apostle in his trials at Philippi, and who in some way or other appear to be the occasion of the disagreement between the pair. Possibly a claim on the part of these females to superior insight in spiritual matters may have caused some irritation; for the apostle immediately goes on to remind his readers that the peace of God is something superior to the highest intelligence ( ).

It would seem, as Alford says, that the cruel treatment of the apostle at Philippi had combined with the charm of his personal fervor of affection to knit up a bond of more than ordinary love between him and the Philippian Church. They alone, of all churches, sent subsidies to relieve his temporal necessities” (Php 4:10; Php 4:15; Php 4:18; 2Co 11:9; 1Th 2:2; Alford, Greek Test., Prol. 3:29). The apostle felt their kindness; and during his imprisonment at Rome wrote to them that epistle which is still in our canon. This epistle indicates that at that time some of the Christians there were in the custody of the military authorities as seditious persons, through some proceedings or other connected with their faith ( , , Php 1:29). The reports of the provincial magistrates to Rome would of course describe Paul’s first visit to Philippi as the origin of the troubles there; and if this were believed, it would be put together with the charge against him by the Jews at Jerusalem which induced him to appeal to Caesar, and with the disturbances at Ephesus and elsewhere; and the general conclusion at which the government would arrive might not improbably be that he was a dangerous person and should be got rid of. This will explain the strong exhortation of the first eighteen verses of chapter 2, and the peculiar way in which it winds up. The Philippian Christians, who are at the same time suffering for their profession, are exhorted in the most earnest manner, not to firmness (as one might have expected), but to moderationi, to abstinence from all provocation and ostentation of their own sentiments ( , Php 1:3), to humility, and consideration for the interests of others. They are to achieve their salvation with fear and trembling, and without quarrelling and disputing, in order to escape all blame from such charges, that is, as the Roman colonists would bring against them. If with all this prudence and temperance in the profession of their faith, their religion is still made a penal offence, the apostle is well content to take the consequence to precede them in martyrdom for it to be the libation poured out upon them the victims ( , Php 1:17). Of course the Jewish formalists in Philippi were the parties most likely to misrepresent the conduct of the new converts; and hence (after a digression on the subject of Epaphroditus) the apostle reverts to cautions against them, such precisely as he had given before-consequently by word of mouth: “Beware of those dogs” (for they will not be children at the table, but eat the crumbs underneath) “those doers (and bad doers too) of the law-those flesh-manglers (for circumcised I won’t call them, we being the true circumcision, etc.”) (3:2, 3). Some of these enemies Paul found at Rome, who “told the story of Christ insincerely” ( , 1:17) in the hope of increasing the severity of his imprisonment by exciting the jealousy of the court. These he opposes to such as “preached Christ” () loyally, and consoles himself with the reflection that, at all events, the story circulated, whatever the motives of those who circulated it. See Walch, Acta Pruli Philippensia (Jen. 1726); Todd, The Church at Philippi (Lond. 1864). SEE PHILIPPIANS, EPISTLE TO

2. Ancient History. Strabo tells us that the old name of Philippi was Krenides (7:331); and Appian adds that it was so called from the number of “little fountains” () around the site. He also says that it had another name, Datus; but that Philip of Macedon, having taken it from the Thracians, made it a frontier fortress, and gave it his own name (De Bell. Civ. 4:105). Philip’s city stood upon a hill, probably that seen a little to the south of the present ruins, which may have always formed the citadel, but was in all probability in its origin a factory of the Phoenicians, who were the first that worked the gold-mines in the mountains here, as iin the neighboring Thasos. Appian says that those were in a hill () not far from Phiiippi, that the hill was sacred to Dionysus, and that the mines went by the name of “the sanctuary” ( ). But he shows himself quite ignorant of the locality, to the extent of believing the plain of Philippi to be open to the river Strymon, whereas the massive wall of Pangseus is really interposed..between them. In all probability the “hill of Dionysus” and the “sanctuary” are the temple of Dionysus high up the mountains among the Satrie, who preserved their independence against all invaders down to the time of Herodotus at least. It is more likely that the gold-mines coveted by Philip were the same as those at Scapte Hyle, which was certainly in this immediate neighborhood. Before the great expedition of Xerxes, the Thasians had a number of settlements on the main, and this among the number, which produced them eighty talents a year as rent to the state. In the year B.C. 463 they ceded their possessions on the continent to the Athenians: but the colonists, 10,000 in number, who had settled on the Strymon and pushed their encroachments eastward as far as this point, were crushed by a simultaneous effort of the Thracian tribes (Thucydides, 1:100; 4:102; Herodotus, 9:75; Pausanias, 1:29, 4). From that time until the rise of the Macedonian power, the mines seem to have remained in the hands of native chiefs; but when the affairs of Southern Greece became thoroughly embroiled by the policy of Philip, the Thasians made an attempt to repossess themselves of this valuable territory, and sent a colony to the site, then going by the name of “the Springs” (). Philip, however, aware of the importance of the position, expelled them and founded Philippi, the last of all his creations. The mines at that time, as was not wonderfil under the circumstances, had become, almost insignificant in their produce; but their new owner contrived to extract more than a thousand talents a year from them, with which he minted the gold coinage called by his name. The proximity of the gold-mines was of course the origin ,of so large a city as Philippi, but the plain in which it lies is one of extraordinary fertility. The position too was on the main road from Rome to Asia, the Via Egnatia, which from Thessalonica to Constantinople followed the same course as the existing post-road. The usual course was to take ship at Brundisium and land at Dyrrachium, from whence a route led across Epirus to Thessalonica. Ignatius was carried to Italy by this route, when sent to Rome to be cast to wild beasts. See Strabo, Fragnment. lib. 7; Thucyd. 1:100; 4:102; Herod. 9:75; Diod. Sic. 16:3 sq.; Appian, Bell. Civ. 4:101 sq.; Pausan. 1:28, 4.

The famous battle of Philippi, in which the Roman republic was overthrown, was fought on this plain in the year B.C. 42 (Dio. Cass. 46; Appian, l.c.). In honor, and as a memorial of his great victory, Augustus made Philippi a Roman colony,” and its coins bear the legend Colonia Augusta Jul. Philippensis (Conybeare and Howson, 1:312). The emperor appears to have founded the new quarter in the plain along the banks of the Gangites. As a colony (, Act 16:12) it enjoyed peculiar privileges. Its inhabitants were Roman citizens, most of them being the families and descendants of veteran soldiers, who had originally settled in the place to guard the city and province. They were governed by their own magistrates, called Duumviri or Pretors (in Greek ; Act 16:20), who exercised a kind of military authority, and were independent of the provincial governor.

3. Present Site. Philippi (now called by the Turks Felibejik) is cut off from the interior by a steep line of hills, anciently called Symbolum, connected towards the N.E. with the western extremity of Haemus, and to;wards the S.W., less continuously, with the eastern extremity of Pangaeus. Between the foot of Symbolurn :and the site of Philippi two T’urlish cemeteries are passed, the gravestones of which are all derived from the ruins of the ancient city, anti in the immediate neighborhood of the one first reached is the modern Turkish village Bereketli. This is the nearest village to the ancient ruins. Near the second cemetery are some ruins on a slight eminence, and also a khan, kept by a Greek family. Here is a large monumental block of marble, twelve feet high and seven feet square, apparently the pedestal of a statue, as on the top a hole exists which was obviously intended for its reception. This hole is pointed out by local tradition as the crib out of which Alexander’s horse, Bucephalus, was accustomed to eat his oats. On two sides of the block is a mutilated Latin inscription, in which the names of Caius Vibiuls and Cornelius Quartus may be deciphered. A stream employed in turning a mill bursts out from a sedgy pool in the neighborhood, and probably finds its way to the marshy ground mentioned as existing in the S.W. portion of the plain. After about twenty minutes’ ride from the khan, over ground thickly strewed with fragments of marble columns, and slabs that have been employed in building, a river-bed sixty-six feet wide is crossed, through which the stream rushes with great force, and immediately on the other side the walls of the ancient Philippi may be traced. Their direction is adjusted to the course of the stream; and at only three hundred and fifty feet from its margin there appears a gap in their circuit, indicating the former existence of a gate. This is, no doubt, as above seen, the gate out of which the apostle and his companion passed to the “prayer-meeting” on the banks of a river, where they made the acquaintance of Lydia, the Thyatiran .seller of purple. The locality, just outside the walls, and with a plentiful supply of water for their animals, is exactly the one which would be appropriated as a market for itinerant traders, “quorum cophinus foenumque supellex,” as will appear from the parallel case of the Egerian fountain near Rome, of whose desecration Juvenal complains (Sat. 3:13).

Lydia had an establishment in Philippi for the reception of the dyed goods which were imported from Thyatira and the neighboring towns of Asia, and were dispersed by means of packanimals among the mountain clans of the Haemus and Pangaeus, the agents being doubtless in many instances her own coreligionists. High tup in Haemus lay the tribe of the Satrae, where was the oracle of Dionysusnot the rustic deity of the Attic vinedressers, but the prophet-god of the Thracians ( , Eurip. Hecub. 1267). The “damsel with the spirit of divination” ( ) may probably be regarded as one of the hierodules of this establishment, hired by Philippian citizens, and frequenting the country-market to practice her art upon the villagers who brought produce for the consumption of the town. The fierce character of the mountaineers would render it imprudent to admit them within the wails of the city; just as in some of the towns of North Africa the Kabyles are not allowed to enter, butt have a market allotted to them outside the walls for the sale of the produce they bring. Over such an assemblage only a summary jurisdiction can be exercised; and hence the proprietors of the slave, when they considered themselves injured, and hurried Paul and Silas into the town, to the agora the civic market where the magistrates () sat were at once turned over to the military authorities (), and these, naturally assuming that a stranger frequenting the extra-mural market must be a Thracian mountaineer or an itinerant trader, proceeded to inflict upon the ostensible cause of a riot (the merits of which they would not attempt to understand) the usual treatment in such cases. The idea of the apostle possessing the Roman franchise, and consequently an exemption from corporal outrage, never occurred to the rough soldier who ordered him to be scourged; and the whole transaction seems to have passed so rapidly that he had no time to plead his citizenship, of which the military authorities first heard the next day. But the illegal treatment () obviously made a deep impression on the mind of its victim, as is evident not only from his refusal to take his discharge from prison the next morning (Act 16:37), but from a passage in the Epistle to the Church at Thessalonica (1Th 2:2), in which he reminds them of the circumstances under which he first preached the Gospel to them ( , , ). Subsequently at Jerusalem, under parallel circumstances of tumult, he warns the officer (to the great surprise of the latter) of his privilege (Acts 22:55).

Philippi is now an uninhabited ruin. The remains are very extensive, but present no striking feature except two gateways, which are considered to belong to the time of Claudius. The foundations of a theatre can be traced; also the walls, gates, some tombs, and numerous broken columns’and heaps of rubbish. The ruins of private dwellings are visible on every part of the site; and at one place is a mound covered with columns and broken fragments of white marble; where a palace, temple, or perhaps a forum once stood. Inscriptions both in the Latin and Greek languages, but more generally in the former, are found. See Clarke, Travels, volume 3; Leake, Northern Greece, volume 3; Cousinery, Voyage dans la Maced.; and especially Hacket, Journey to Philippi in the Bible Union Quarterly, August 1860; Smith Dict. of Class. Geog. s.v.; Lewin, St. Paul, 1:206 sq. SEE MACEDONIA.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Philippi

(1.) Formerly Crenides, “the fountain,” the capital of the province of Macedonia. It stood near the head of the Sea, about 8 miles north-west of Kavalla. It is now a ruined village, called Philibedjik. Philip of Macedonia fortified the old Thracian town of Crenides, and called it after his own name Philippi (B.C. 359-336). In the time of the Emperor Augustus this city became a Roman colony, i.e., a military settlement of Roman soldiers, there planted for the purpose of controlling the district recently conquered. It was a “miniature Rome,” under the municipal law of Rome, and governed by military officers, called duumviri, who were appointed directly from Rome. Having been providentially guided thither, here Paul and his companion Silas preached the gospel and formed the first church in Europe. (See LYDIA) This success stirred up the enmity of the people, and they were “shamefully entreated” (Acts 16:9-40; 1 Thess. 2:2). Paul and Silas at length left this city and proceeded to Amphipolis (q.v.).

(2.) When Philip the tetrarch, the son of Herod, succeeded to the government of the northern portion of his kingdom, he enlarged the city of Paneas, and called it Caesarea, in honour of the emperor. But in order to distinguish it from the Caesarea on the sea coast, he added to it subsequently his own name, and called it Caesarea-Philippi (q.v.).

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Philippi

A city of Macedon, in a plain between the Pangaeus arid Haemus ranges, nine miles from the sea. Paul from the port Neapolis (Kavalla) on the coast (Act 16:11) reached Philippi by an ancient paved road over the steep range Symbolum (which runs from the W. end of Haemus to the S. end of Pangaeus) in his second missionary journey, A.D 51. The walls are traced along the stream; at 350 ft. from it is the site of the gate through which Paul went to the place of prayer by the river’s (Gangites) side, where the dyer Lydia was converted, the firstfruits of the gospel in Europe. (See LYDIA.) Dyed goods were imported from Thyatira to the parent city Philippi, and were dispersed by pack animals among the mountaineers of Haemus and Pangaeus. The Satriae tribe had the oracle of Dionysus, the Thracian prophet god. The “damsel with the spirit of divination” may have belonged to this shrine, or else to Apollo’s (as the spirit is called “Pythoness,” Greek), and been hired by the Philippians to divine for hire to the country folk coming to the market.

She met Paul several days on his way to the place of prayer, and used to cry out on each occasion “these servants of the most high God announce to us the way of salvation.” Paul cast out the spirit; and her owners brought him and Silas before the magistrates, the duumvirs, who inflicted summary chastisement, never imagining they were Romans. Paul keenly felt this wrong (Act 16:37), and took care subsequently that his Roman privilege should not be set at nought (Act 22:25; 1Th 2:2). Philippi was founded by Philip of Macedon, in the vicinity of the famed gold mines, on the site “the springs” (Kremides). Augustus founded the Roman “colony” to commemorate his victory over Brutus and Cassius Act 16:12), Act 16:42 B.C., close to the ancient site, on the main road from Europe to Asia by Brundusium, Dyrrachium, across Epirus to Thessalonica, and so forward by Philippi. Philippi was “the first (i.e. farthest from Rome and first which Paul met in entering Macedon) city of the district” called Macedonia Prima, as lying farthest eastward, not as KJV “the chief city.”

Thessalonica was chief city of the province, and Amphipolis of the district “Macedonia Prima.” A “colony” (accurately so named by Luke as distinguished from the Greek apoikia) was Rome reproduced in miniature in the provinces (Jul. Gellius, 16:13); its inhabitants had Roman citizenship, the right of voting in the Roman tribes, their own senate and magistrates, the Roman law and language. That the Roman “colonia,” not the Greek apoikia is used, marks the accuracy of Act 16:12. Paul visited Philippi again on his way from Ephesus into Macedon (Act 20:1), and a third time on his return from Greece (Corinth) to Syria by way of Macedon (Act 20:3; Act 20:6). The community of trials for Christ’s sake strengthened the bond which united him and the Philippian Christians (Phi 1:28-30). They alone supplied his wants twice in Thessalonica soon after he left them (Phi 4:15-16); a third time, through Epaphroditus, just before this epistle (Phi 4:10; Phi 4:18; 2Co 11:9).

Few Jews were in Philippi to sow distrust between him and them. No synagogue, but merely an oratory (proseuchee), was there. The check to his zeal in being forbidden by the Spirit to enter Asia, Bithynia, and Mysia, and the miraculous call to Macedon, and his success in Philippi and the love of the converts, all endeared it to him. Yet the Philippians needed to be forewarned of the Judaizing influence which might assail their church at any time as it had crept into the Galatian churches (Phi 3:2). The epistle (Phi 4:2-3), in undesigned coincidence with the history (Act 16:13-14), implies that females were among the prominent church members.

Its people were poor, but most liberal (2Co 8:1-2); persecuted, but faithful: only there was a tendency to dissension which Paul reproves (Phi 1:27; Phi 2:1-4; Phi 2:12; Phi 2:14; Phi 4:2). In A.D. 107 the city was visited by Ignatius, who passed through on his way to martyrdom at Rome. Immediately after Polycarp wrote to the Philippians, sending at their request a copy of all the letters of Ignatius which the church of Smyrna had; so they still retained the same sympathy with sufferers for Christ as in Paul’s days. Their religion was practical and emotional, not speculative; hence but little doctrine and quotation of the Old Testament occur in the epistle of Paul to them. The gold mines furnished the means of their early liberality, but were a temptation to covetousness, against which Polycarp warns them. Their graces were doubtless not a little helped by the epistle and the oral teaching of the great apostle.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

PHILIPPI

The city of Philippi was an important administrative centre in Macedonia, the northern part of Greece. (For map see MACEDONIA.) It was named after Philip of Macedon (the father of Alexander the Great), who conquered it about 356 BC and made it into one of his strategic cities. During the Roman civil war, Philippi was the scene of a vital battle in 31 BC, after which the victor gave the city the status of a Roman colony (Act 16:12). (For the privileges that citizens of a Roman colony enjoyed see ROME, sub-heading Roman citizenship.)

Philippi was on the main route from Rome to Asia Minor. Its port was Neapolis (Act 16:11-12). Paul and Silas visited Philippi on Pauls second missionary journey, and found their first converts among a group of God-fearing Gentiles who met for prayer at the river bank (Act 16:13-15). When the missionaries healed a demonized girl, their opponents stirred up trouble and had them thrown into prison (Act 16:16-24). But this resulted in more people turning to Christ (Act 16:31-34). Though released the next day, Paul and Silas had to leave the city, but they left behind the beginnings of the church in Philippi (Act 16:39-40).

Paul appears to have visited Philippi twice on his third missionary journey once when travelling through Macedonia south to Achaia (Act 20:1-2), and once when returning through Macedonia to Troas (Act 20:6). He probably visited Philippi again after release from his first Roman imprisonment (1Ti 1:3).

The Philippian church saw itself as a partner with Paul in his missionary work and helped support him financially (Php 1:7-8; Php 4:14-18). The church brought Paul much joy and drew from him warm expressions of true friendship (Php 1:4; Php 4:1; see PHILIPPIANS, LETTER TO THE).

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Philippi

PHILIPPI was a city situated E. of Mt. Pangus, on the E. border of Macedonia, about 10 miles from the coast. It was originally (under the name of Crenides) a settlement of Thasians, who mined the gold of Mt. Pangus; but one of the early acts of Philip of Macedon was to assure himself of revenue by seizing these mines and strongly fortifying the city, to which he gave his own name. The mines are said to have yielded him 1000 talents a year. Philippi passed with the rest of Macedonia to the Romans in b.c. 168. Until b.c. 146 Macedonia was divided into four regions, with separate governments, and so divided that a member of one could not marry or hold property in another. But in 146 it received the more regular organization of a province. The great Eastern road of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, after crossing the Strymon at Amphipolis, kept N. of Mt. Pangus to Philippi and then turned S.E. to Neapolis, which was the port of Philippi. Philippi stood on the steep side of a bill, and immediately S. of it lay a large marshy lake.

The Church at Philippi was founded by St. Paul on his second missionary journey. With Silas, Timothy, and Luke he landed at Neapolis, and proceeded to Philippi, which St. Luke describes as a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roman colony. Philippi was not the capital city of either of the regions into which Macedonia had been divided in 168, but the most natural explanation of the phrase first of the district is that the province had at this time a division for official purposes of which we do not know. Other explanations are that it means the first city we arrived at (which the Greek could scarcely mean), or that Philippi claimed a pre-eminence in much the same way that Pergamus, Smyrna, Ephesus all claimed to be the first city of Asia. It had become a Roman colony after the battle of Philippi, b.c. 42, when Octavian and Antony, having vanquished Brutus and Cassius, settled a number of their veterans there. Another body of veterans was settled there after Actium, b.c. 31. As a colony its constitution was modelled on the ancient one of Rome, and its two chief magistrates had not only lictors (EV [Note: English Version.] Serjeants), but also a jurisdiction independent of that of the governor of the province. It was the first essentially Roman town in which St. Paul preached. There was no synagogue, but on the Sabbath, says St. Luke, we went forth without the gate by a river-side where we supposed there was a place of prayer. At this place, therefore, St. Paul found a number of women assembled, Jewesses or proselytes, one of whom named Lydia (wh. see), a merchant in purple from Thyatira, was immediately converted and baptized. For the subsequent Incidents see Python, Magistrate, etc.

It is probable that the Church at Philippi was left in charge of St. Luke, for at this point in the narrative of the Acts the first person is dropped until St. Paul passes through Macedonia on his return from the third missionary journey (Luk 20:5). The Church flourished, and always remained on terms of peculiar affection with St. Paul, being allowed to minister to his needs more than once. See art. Philippians [Epistle to], which was probably written during his first imprisonment at Rome. From 1Ti 1:3 we assume at least one later visit of the Apostle to Philippi.

Before a.d. 117 Ignatius passed through Philippi on his journey from Antioch to his martyrdom in Rome. He was welcomed by the Church, and they wrote a letter of consolation to the Church of Antioch and another to Polycarp of Smyrna, asking for copies of any letters that Ignatius had written in Asia. Polycarp wrote his Epistle to the Philippians in answer. In the 4th and 5th centuries we read of the bishop of Philippi as present at Councils, but apart from this the Church passes out of history.

A. E. Hillard.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Philippi

A city of Macedon, rendered memorable from Paul the apostle having preached the gospel to the people there by the direction of a vision, and having sent that blessed Epistle there which we have still preserved in the New Testament, and made so truly blessed to the church. See the Epistle to the Philippians (Php 1:1 – Php 4:23).

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Philippi

fi-lip (, Phlippoi, ethnic , Philippesios, Phi 4:15):

1. Position and Name:

A city of Macedonia, situated in 41o 5 North latitude and 24o 16 East longitude. It lay on the Egnatian Road, 33 Roman miles from Amphipolis and 21 from Acontisma, in a plain bounded on the East and North by the mountains which lie between the rivers Zygactes and Nestus, on the West by Mt. Pangaeus, on the South by the ridge called in antiquity Symbolum, over which ran the road connecting the city with its seaport, NEAPOLIS (which see), 9 miles distant. This plain, a considerable part of which is marshy in modern, as in ancient, times, is connected with the basin of the Strymon by the valley of the Angites (Herodotus vii. 113), which also bore the names Gangas or Gangites (Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 106), the modern Anghista. The ancient name. of Philippi was Crenides (Strabo vii. 331; Diodorus xvi. 3, 8; Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 105; Stephanus Byz. under the word), so called after the springs which feed the river and the marsh; but it was refounded by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, and received his name.

2. History:

Appian (Bell. Civ. iv. 105) and Harpocration say that Crenides was afterward called Daton, and that this name was changed to Philippi, but this statement is open to question, since Daton, which became proverbial among the Greeks for good fortune, possessed, as Strabo tells us (vii. 331 fr. 36), admirably fertile territory, a lake, rivers, dockyards and productive gold mines, whereas Philippi lies, as we have seen, some 9 miles inland. Many modern authorities, therefore, have placed Daton on the coast at or near the site of Neapolis. On the whole, it seems best to adopt the view of Heuzey (Mission archeologique, 35, 62 ff) that Daton was not originally a city, but the whole district which lay immediately to the East of Mt. Pangaeus, including the Philippian plain and the seacoast about Neapolis. On the site of the old foundation of Crenides, from which the Greek settlers had perhaps been driven out by the Thracians about a century previously, the Thasians in 360 BC founded their colony of Daton with the aid of the exiled Athenian statesman Callistratus, in order to exploit the wealth, both agricultural and mineral, of the neighborhood. To Philip, who ascended the Macedonian throne in 359 BC, the possession of this spot seemed of the utmost importance. Not only is the plain itself well watered and of extraordinary fertility, but a strongly-fortified post planted here would secure the natural land-route from Europe to Asia and protect the eastern frontier of Macedonia against Thracian inroads. Above all, the mines of the district might meet his most pressing need, that of an abundant supply of gold. The site was therefore seized in 358 BC, the city was enlarged, strongly fortitled, and renamed, the Thasian settlers either driven out or reinforced, and the mines, worked with characteristic energy, produced over 1,000 talents a year (Diodorus xvi. 8) and enabled Philip to issue a gold currency which in the West soon superseded the Persian darics (G.F. Hill, Historical Greek Coins, 80 ff). The revenue thus obtained was of inestimable value to Philip, who not only used it for the development of the Macedonian army, but also proved himself a master of the art of bribery. His remark is well known that no fortress was impregnable to whose walls an ass laden with gold could be driven. Of the history of Philippi during the next 3 centuries we know practically nothing. Together with the rest of Macedonia, it passed into the Roman hands after the battle of Pydna (168 BC), and fell in the first of the four regions into which the country was then divided (Livy xlv. 29). In 146 the whole of Macedonia was formed into a single Roman province. But the mines seem to have been almost, if not quite, exhausted by this time, and Strabo (vii. 331 fr. 41) speaks of Philippi as having sunk by the time of Caesar to a small settlement ( , katoika mikra). In the autumn of 42 BC it witnessed the death-struggle of the Roman republic. Brutus and Cassius, the leaders of the band of conspirators who had assassinated Julius Caesar, were faced by Octavian, who 15 years later became the Emperor Augustus, and Antony. In the first engagement the army of Brutus defeated that of Octavian, while Antony’s forces were victorious over those of Cassius, who in despair put an end to his life. Three weeks later the second and decisive conflict took place. Brutus was compelled by his impatient soldiery to give battle, his troops were routed and he himself fell on his own sword. Soon afterward Philippi was made a Roman colony with the title Colonia Iulia Philippensis. After the battle of Actium (31 BC) the colony was reinforced, largely by Italian partisans of Antony who were dispossessed in order to afford allotments for Octavian’s veterans (Dio Cassius li. 4), and its name was changed to Colonia Augusta Iulia (Victrix) Philippensium: It received the much-coveted iusItalicum (Digest L. 15, 8, 8), which involved numerous privileges, the chief of which was the immunity of its territory from taxation.

3. Paul’s First Visit:

In the course of his second missionary journey Paul set sail from Troas, accompanied by Silas (who bears his full name Silvanus in 2Co 1:19; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1), Timothy and Luke, and on the following day reached Neapolis (Act 16:11). Thence he journeyed by road to Philippi, first crossing the pass some 1,600 ft. high which leads over the mountain ridge called Symbolum and afterward traversing the Philipplan plain. Of his experiences there we have in Acts 16:12-40 a singularly full and graphic account. On the Sabbath, presumably the first Sabbath after their arrival, the apostle and his companions went out to the bank of the Angites, and there spoke to the women, some of them Jews, others proselytes, who had come together for purposes of worship.

One of these was named Lydia, a Greek proselyte from Thyatira, a city of Lydia in Asia Minor, to the church of which was addressed the message recorded in Rev 2:18-29. She is described as a seller of purple (Act 16:14), that is, of woolen fabrics dyed purple, for the manufacture of which her native town was famous. Whether she was the agent in Philippi of some firm in Thyatira or whether she was carrying on her trade independently, we cannot say; her name suggests the possibility that she was a freedwoman, while from the fact that we hear of her household and her house (Act 16:15; compare Act 16:40), though no mention is made of her husband, it has been conjectured that she was a widow of some property. She accepted the apostolic message and was baptized with her household (Act 16:15), and insisted that Paul and his companions should accept her hospitality during the rest of their stay in the city. See further LYDIA.

All seemed to be going well when opposition arose from an unexpected quarter. There was in the town a girl, in all probability a slave, who was reputed to have the power of oracular utterance. Herodotus tells us (vii. III) of an oracle of Dionysus situated among the Thracian tribe of the Satrae, probably not far from Philippi; but there is no reason to connect the soothsaying of this girl with that worship. In any case, her masters reaped a rich harvest from the fee charged for consulting her. Paul, troubled by her repeatedly following him and those with him crying, These men are bondservants of the Most High God, who proclaim unto you a way of salvation (Act 16:17 margin), turned and commanded the spirit in Christ’s name to come out of her. The immediate restoration of the girl to a sane and normal condition convinced her masters that all prospect of further gain was gone, and they therefore seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the forum before the magistrates, probably the duumviri who stood at the head of the colony. They accused the apostles of creating disturbance in the city and of advocating customs, the reception and practice of which were illegal for Rom citizens. The rabble of the market-place joined in the attack (Act 16:22), whereupon the magistrates, accepting without question the accusers’ statement that Paul and Silas were Jews (Act 16:20) and forgetting or ignoring the possibility of their possessing Rom citizenship, ordered them to be scourged by the attendant lictors and afterward to be imprisoned. In the prison they were treated with the utmost rigor; they were confined in the innermost ward, and their feet put in the stocks. About midnight, as they were engaged in praying and singing hymns, while the other prisoners were listening to them, the building was shaken by a severe earthquake which threw open the prison doors. The jailer, who was on the point of taking his own life, reassured by Paul regarding the safety of the prisoners, brought Paul and Silas into his house where he tended their wounds, set food before them, and, after hearing the gospel, was baptized together with his whole household (Act 16:23-34).

On the morrow the magistrates, thinking that by dismissing from the town those who had been the cause of the previous day’s disturbance they could best secure themselves against any repetition of the disorder, sent the lictors to the jailer with orders to release them. Paul refused to accept a dismissal of this kind. As Rom citizens he and Silas were legally exempt from scourging, which was regarded as a degradation (1Th 2:2), and the wrong was aggravated by the publicity of the punishment, the absence of a proper trial and the imprisonment which followed (Act 16:37). Doubtless Paul had declared his citizenship when the scourging was inflicted, but in the confusion and excitement of the moment his protest had been unheard or unheeded. Now, however, it produced a deep impression on the magistrates, who came in person to ask Paul and Silas to leave the city. They, after visiting their hostess and encouraging the converts to remain firm in their new faith, set out by the Egnatian Road for Thessalonica (Act 16:38-40). How long they had stayed in Philippi we are not told, but the fact that the foundations of a strong and flourishing church had been laid and the phrase for many days (Act 16:18) lead us to believe that the time must have been a longer one than appears at first sight. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 226) thinks that Paul left Troas in October, 50 AD, and stayed at Philippi until nearly the end of the year; but this chronology cannot be regarded as certain.

Several points in the narrative of these incidents call for fuller consideration. (1) We may notice, first, the very small part played by Jews and Judaism at Philippi.

There was no synagogue here, as at Salamis in Cyprus (Act 13:5), Antioch in Pisidia (Act 13:14, Act 13:43), Iconium (Act 14:1), Ephesus (Act 18:19, Act 18:26; Act 19:8), Thessalonica (Act 17:1), Berea (Act 17:10), Athens (Act 17:17) and Corinth (Act 18:4). The number of resident Jews was small, their meetings for prayer took place on the river’s bank, the worshippers were mostly or wholly women (Act 16:13), and among them some, perhaps a majority, were proselytes. Of Jewish converts we hear nothing, nor is there any word of Jews as either inciting or joining the mob which dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates. Further, the whole tone of the epistle. to this church seems to prove that here at least the apostolic teaching was not in danger of being undermined by Judaizers. True, there is one passage (Phi 3:2-7) in which Paul denounces the concision, those who had confidence in the flesh; but it seems that in this warning he was thinking of Rome more than of Philippi; and that his indignation was aroused rather by the vexatious antagonism which there thwarted him in his daily work, than by any actual errors already undermining the faith of his distant converts (Lightfoot).

(2) Even more striking is the prominence of the Rom element in the narrative. We are here not in a Greek or Jewish city, but in one of those Rom colonies which Aulus Gellius describes as miniatures and pictures of the Rom people (Noctes Atticae, xvi. 13).

In the center of the city is the forum (, agora, Act 16:19), and the general term magistrates (, archontes, English Versions of the Bible, rulers, Act 16:19) is exchanged for the specific title of praetors (, stratego, English Versions of the Bible magistrates, Act 16:20, Act 16:22, Act 16:35, Act 16:36, Act 16:38); these officers are attended by lictors (, rhabdouchoi, English Versions sergeants, Act 16:35, Act 16:38) who bear the fasces with which they scourged Paul and Silas (, rhabdzo, Act 16:22). The charge is that of disturbing public order and introducing customs opposed to Roman law (Act 16:20, Act 16:21), and Paul’s appeal to his Roman civitas (Act 16:37) at once inspired the magistrates with fear for the consequences of their action and made them conciliatory and apologetic (Act 16:38, Act 16:39). The title of praetor borne by these officials has caused some difficulty. The supreme magistrates of Roman colonies, two in number, were called duoviri or duumviri (iuri dicundo), and that this title was in use at Philippi is proved by three inscriptions (Orelli, Number 3746; Heuzey, Mission archeologique, 15, 127). The most probable explanation of the discrepancy is that these magistrates assumed the title Of praetor, or that it was commonly applied to them, as was certainly the case in some parts of the Roman world (Cicero De lege agraria ii. 34; Horace Sat. i. 5, 34; Orelli, Number 3785).

(3) Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 200 ff) has brought forward the attractive suggestion that Luke was himself a Philippian, and that he was the man of Macedonia who appeared to Paul at Troas with the invitation to enter Macedonia (Act 16:9).

In any case, the change from the 3rd to the 1st person in Act 16:10 marks the point at which Luke joined the apostle, and the same criterion leads to the conclusion that Luke remained at Philippi between Paul’s first and his third visit to the city (see below). Ramsay’s hypothesis would explain (a) the fullness and vividness of the narrative of Acts 16:11-40; (b) the emphasis laid on the importance of Philippi (Act 16:12); and (c) the fact that Paul recognized as a Macedonian the man whom he saw in his vision, although there was nothing either in the language, features or dress of Macedonians to mark them out from other Greeks. Yet Luke was clearly not a householder at Philippi (Act 16:15), and early tradition refers to him as an Antiochene (see, however, Ramsay, in the work quoted 389 f).

(4) Much discussion has centered round the description of Philippi given in Act 16:12. The reading of Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, etc., followed by Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, the Revised Version (British and American), etc., is:

, hetis estn prote tes merdos Makedonas polis kolona. But it is doubtful whether Makedonias is to be taken with the word which precedes or with that which follows, and further the sense derived from the phrase is unsatisfactory. For prote must mean either (1) first in political importance and rank, or (2) the first which the apostle reached. But the capital of the province was Thessalonica, and if tes meridos be taken to refer to the easternmost of the 4 districts into which Macedonia had been divided in 168 BC (though there is no evidence that that division survived at this time), Amphipolis was its capital and was apparently still its most important city, though destined to be outstripped by Philippi somewhat later. Nor is the other rendering of prote (adopted, e.g. by Lightfoot) more natural. It supposes that Luke reckoned Neapolis as belonging to Thrace, and the boundary of Macedonia as lying between Philippi and its seaport; moreover, the remark is singularly pointless; the use of estin rather than en is against this view, nor is prote found in this sense without any qualifying phrase. Lastly, the tes in its present position is unnatural; in Codex Vaticanus it is placed after, instead of before, meridos, while D (the Bezan reviser) reads , kephale tes Makedonas. Of the emendations which have been suggested, we may notice three: (a) for meridos Hort has suggested Pierdos, a chief city of Pierian Macedonia; (b) for prote tes we may read protes, which belongs to the first region of Macedonia; (c) meridos may be regarded as a later insertion and struck out of the text, in which case the whole phrase will mean, which is a city of Macedonia of first rank (though not necessarily the first city).

4. Paul’s Later Visits:

Paul and Silas, then, probably accompanied by Timothy (who, however, is not expressly mentioned in Acts between Act 16:1 and Act 17:14), left Philippi for Thessalonica, but Luke apparently remained behind, for the we of Act 16:10-17 does not appear again until Act 20:5, when Paul is once more leaving Philippi on his last journey to Jerusalem. The presence of the evangelist during the intervening 5 years may have had much to do with the strength of the Philippian church and its stealfastness in persecution (2Co 8:2; Phi 1:29, Phi 1:30). Patti himself did not revisit the city until, in the course of his third missionary journey, he returned to Macedonia, preceded by Timothy and Erastus, after a stay of over 2 years at Ephesus (Act 19:22; Act 20:1). We are not definitely told that he visited Philippi on this occasion, but of the fact there can be little doubt, and it was probably there that he awaited the coming of Titus (2Co 2:13; 2Co 7:5, 2Co 7:6) and wrote his 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians (2Co 8:1 ff; 2Co 9:2-4). After spending 3 months in Greece, whence he intended to return by sea to Syria, he was led by a plot against his life to change his plans and return through Macedonia (Act 20:3). The last place at which he stopped before crossing to Asia was Philippi, where he spent the days of unleavened bread, and from (the seaport of) which he sailed in company with Luke to Troas where seven of his companions were awaiting him (Act 20:4-6). It seems likely that Paul paid at least one further visit to Philippi in the interval between his first and second imprisonments. That he hoped to do so, he himself tells us (Phi 2:24), and the journey to Macedonia mentioned in 1Ti 1:3 would probably include a visit to Philippi, while if, as many authorities hold, 2Ti 4:13 refers to a later stay at Troas, it may well be connected with a further and final tour in Macedonia. But the intercourse between the apostle and this church of his founding was not limited to these rare visits. During Paul’s first stay at Thessalonica he had received gifts of money on two occasions from the Philippian Christians (Phi 4:16), and their kindness had been repeated after he left Macedonia for Greece (2Co 11:9; Phi 4:15). Again, during his first imprisonment at Rome the Philippians sent a gift by the hand of one of their number, Epaphroditus (Phi 2:25; Phi 4:10, Phi 4:14-19), who remained for some time with the apostle, and finally, after a serious illness which nearly proved fatal (Phi 2:27), returned home bearing the letter of thanks which has survived, addressed to the Philippian converts by Paul and Timothy (Phi 1:1). The latter intended to visit the church shortly afterward in order to bring back to the imprisoned apostle an account of its welfare (Phi 2:19, Phi 2:23), but we do not know whether this plan was actually carried out or not. We cannot, however, doubt that other letters passed between Paul and this church besides the one which is extant, though the only reference to them is a disputed passage of Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians (iii. 2), where he speaks of letters (, epistola) as written to them by Paul (but see Lightfoot’s note on Phi 3:1).

5. Later History of the Church:

After the death of Paul we hear but little of the church or of the town of Philippi. Early in the 2nd century Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was condemned as a Christian and was taken to Rome to be thrown to the wild beasts. After passing through Philadelphia, Smyrna and Troas, he reached Philippi. The Christians there showed him every mark of affection and respect, and after his departure wrote a letter of sympathy to the Antiochene church and another to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, requesting him to send them copies of any letters of Ignatius which he possessed. This request Polycarp fulfilled, and at the same time sent a letter to the Philippians full of encouragement, advice and warning. From it we judge that the condition of the church as a whole was satisfactory, though a certain presbyter, Valens, and his wife are severely censured for their avarice which belied their Christian profession. We have a few records of bishops of Philippi, whose names are appended to the decisions of the councils held at Sardica (344 AD), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), and the see appears to have outlived the city itself and to have lasted down to modern times (Le Quien, Oriens Christ., II, 70; Neale, Holy Eastern Church, I, 92). Of the destruction of Philippi no account has come down to us. The name was perpetuated in that of the Turkish hamlet Felibedjik, but the site is now uninhabited, the nearest village being that of Raktcha among the hills immediately to the North of the ancient acropolis. This latter and the plain around are covered with ruins, but no systematic excavation has yet been undertaken. Of the extant remains the most striking are portions of the Hellenic and Hellenistic fortification, the scanty vestiges of theater, the ruin known among the Turks as Derekler, the columns, which perhaps represents the ancient thermae, traces of a temple of Silvanus with numerous rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions, and the remains of a triumphal arch (Kiemer).

Literature.

The fullest account of the site and antiquities is that of Heuzey and Daumet, Mission archeologique de Macedoine, chapters i through v and Plan A; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, III, 214-25; Cousinery, Voyage dana la Macedoine, II, 1 ff; Perrot, Daton. Neapolis. Les ruines de Philippos, in Revue archeologique, 1860; and Hackett, in Bible Union Quarterly, 1860, may also be consulted. For the Latin inscriptions see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, III, 1, numbers 633-707; III, Suppl., numbers 7337-7358; for coins, B.V. Head, Historia Numorum, 192; Catalogue of Coins in the British Museum: Macedonia, etc., 96. For the history of the Philippian church and the narrative of Acts 16:12-40 see Lightfoot, Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, 47-65; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, 202-26; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of Paul, chapter ix; Farrar, Life and Work of Paul, chapter xxv; and the standard commentaries on the Acts – especially Blass, Acta Apostolorum – and on Philippians.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Philippi

Philippi, a city of the proconsular Macedonia, situated eastward of Amphipolis, within the limits of ancient Thrace (Act 16:12; Act 20:6; Php 1:1). It was anciently called Krenides (fountains) from its many fountains; but having been taken and fortified by Philip of Macedon, he named it, after himself, Philippi. In the vicinity were mines of gold and silver; and the spot eventually became celebrated for the battle in which Brutus and Cassius were defeated. Paul made some stay in this place on his first arrival in Greece, and here founded the church to which he afterwards addressed one of his epistles. It was here that the interesting circumstances related in Acts 16 occurred; and the city was again visited by the Apostle on his departure from Greece (Act 20:6). In the former passage (Act 16:12) Philippi is called a colony, and this character it had in fact acquired through many of the followers of Antony having been colonized thither by Augustus (Dion. Cass, xlvii. 432). The fact that Philippi was a colony was formerly disputed; but its complete verification has strongly attested the minute accuracy of the sacred narrative. The plain in which the ruins of Philippi stand is embraced by the parallel arms of mountains extended from the Necrokop, which pour into the plain many small streams, by which it is abundantly watered and fertilized. The acropolis is upon a mount standing out into the plain from the north-east, and the city seems to have extended from the base of it to the south and south-west. The remains of the fortress upon the top consist of three ruined towers and considerable portions of walls of stone, brick, and very hard mortar. The plain below does not now exhibit anything but ruinsheaps of stone and rubbish, overgrown with thorns and briars; but nothing of the innumerable busts and statues, thousands of columns, and vast masses of classic ruins, of which the elder travelers speak. Ruins of private dwellings are still visible; also something of a semicircular shape, probably a forum or market-place, ‘perhaps the one where Paul and Silas received their undeserved stripes.’ The most prominent of the existing remains is the remainder of a palatial edifice, the architecture of which is grand, and the materials costly. The pilasters, chapiters, etc. are of the finest white marble, and the walls were formerly encased with the same stone. These marble blocks are gradually knocked down by the Turks, and ‘wrought into their silly gravestones.’ The travelers were informed that many of the ruins are now covered by stagnant water, at the bottom of which they may be seen; but they did not visit this spot.

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Philippi

[Philip’pi]

City in the east of Macedonia. It was founded by Philip the father of Alexander the Great, from whom it derived its name. It was the first European city visited by Paul. His preaching was blessed to the conversion of Lydia and others. On his casting out a spirit of divination from the young woman who followed him, a tumult was raised, and Paul and Silas were scourged and cast into prison; but this happily led to the conversion of the jailer and his household. Act 16:12-40. Paul visited the place for a short time afterwards. Act 20:6. To the church gathered there the Epistle to the Philippians was written. Php 1:1; 1Th 2:2. Extensive ruins are all that are left of the ancient city, now called Kavalla. It was the chief city, not of all Macedonia, but of that part of it.

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Philippi

A city of Macedonia.

Paul preaches in

Act 16:12-40; Act 20:1-6; 1Th 2:2

Contributes to the maintenance of Paul

Phi 4:10-18

Paul sends Epaphroditus to

Phi 2:25

Paul writes a letter to the Christians of

Phi 1:1

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Philippi

Philippi (f-lp’p). A city of Macedonia. It was on the borders of Thrace, 83 Roman miles northeast of Amphipolis, and about ten miles from Neapolis its port, where Paul landed. It was built on the site of a village, called. Krenides (also Datos), by Philip king of Macedon, and made a strong military station. From the New Testament history Philippi appears to have been the first city in Europe which heard the gospel. The account of Paul’s visit and of his founding of a church there is given in Act 16:1-40.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

Philippi

Philip’pi. (named from Philip of Macedonia). A city of Macedonia about nine miles from the sea, to the northwest of the island of Thasos, which is twelve miles distant from its port Neapolis, the modern Kavalla. It is situated in a plain between the ranges of Pangaeus and Haemus. The Philippi which St. Paul visited was a Roman colony founded by Augustus after the famous battle of Philippi, fought here between Antony and Octavius and Brutus and Cassius, B.C. 42. The remains which strew the ground near the modern Turkish village Bereketli are, no doubt, derived from that city. The original town, built by Philip of Macedonia, was probably not exactly on the same site.

Philip, when he acquired possession of the site, found there a town named Datus or Datum, which was probably in its origin a factory of the Phoenicians, who were the first that worked the gold-mines in the mountains here, as in the neighboring Thasos. The proximity of the goldmines was of course the origin of so large a city as Philippi, but the plain in which it lies is of extraordinary fertility. The position, too, was on the main road from Rome to Asia, the Via Egnatia, which from Thessalonica to Constantinople followed the same course as the existing post-road.

On St. Paul’s visits to Philippi, see Philippians, The Epistle to The. At Philippi, the gospel was first preached in Europe. Lydia was the first convert. Here too, Paul and Silas were imprisoned. Act 16:23. The Philippians sent contributions to Paul to relieve his temporal wants.

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

PHILIPPI

a city of Macedonia

Act 16:12; Act 20:6; 1Th 2:2

Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible

Philippi

one of the chief cities of Macedonia, lying on the north-west of Neapolis, and formerly called Datum or Datos, but afterward taking its name from Philip, the celebrated king of Macedon, by whom it was repaired and beautified. In process of time, it became a Roman colony. It was the first place at which St. Paul preached the Gospel upon the continent of Europe, A.D. 51. He made many converts there, who soon afterward gave strong proofs of their attachment to him, Php 4:15. He was at Philippi a second time, but nothing which then occurred is recorded. The Philippian Christians having heard of St. Paul’s imprisonment at Rome, with their accustomed zeal, sent Epaphroditus to assure him of the continuance of their regard, and to offer him a supply of money. His epistle was written in consequence of that act of kindness; and it is remarkable for its strong expressions of affection. As the Apostle tells the Philippians that he hoped to see them shortly, Php 2:24, and there are plain intimations in this epistle of his having been some time at Rome, Php 1:12; Php 2:26, it is probable that it was written A.D. 62, toward the end of his confinement.

It is a strong proof, says Chrysostom, of the virtuous conduct of the Philippians, that they did not afford the Apostle a single subject of complaint; for, in the whole epistle which he wrote to them,

there is nothing but exhortation and encouragement, without the mixture of any censure whatever.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary

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