PHILIPPI (CXL7r7rot), a celebrated city of Ma cedonia, visited by the apostle Paul, and the seat of the earliest Christian church 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 ground.
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 rill a-tans rap& where a meeting for prayer was accustomed to be' (Acts xvi. t3). 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 pro bable 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 1600 feet in height, sepa rated 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 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 (Acts xx. 6).
Philippi was in the province of Macedonia, while Neapolis was in Thrace. Paul, on his first jour ney, landed at the latter, and proceeded across the mountain road to the former, which Luke calls the first city of the division of Macedonia' (a-pthrn izepiSos rijs MaKESopias zr6Xes, Acts xvi. 12). The word zrp6rn does not, as represented in the A. V., signify `chief.' Thessalonica was the chief
city of all Macedonia, and Amphipolis of that divi sion (uyis) of it in which Philippi was situated (see Wieseler, Chron. des Apost. Zeit., p. 37). IIpofIrn simply means that Philippi was the first' city of Macedonia to which Paul came (Alford in loc. ; Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, i. 3t1, note). In descending the mountain-path toward 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.
Strabo tells us that the old name of Philippi was Krenides (vii. p. 331) ; and Appian adds, that it was so called from the number of little fountains' (tcpnp(Ses) 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., iv. io5). 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. 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., xlvi.; Appian, /. c.) In honour, and as a memorial of his great victory, Augustus made Philippi a Roman colony, and its coins bear the legend Goiania Au gusta yi IL Philippensis (Conybeare and Howson, I. 312). The emperor appears to have founded the new quarter in the plain along the banks of the Gangites. As a colony (KoXcovicc, Acts xvi. 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 Prtors (in Greek ; ver. 2o), who exercised a kind of mili tary authority, and were independent of the pro vincial governor.