The Acts of the Apostles

LANDS, NATIONS, CITIES, AND HOUSES 105
tricts of the province (vide supra), and his farewell
discourse to the Ephesian elders in Miletus is reported
as if it were a farewell to the whole of Asia. Of the
cities in the interior of the province Thyatira alone
is once cursorily mentioned (xvi. 14).
The province of Macedonia, whose churches stood
in the closest personal relationship to the Apostle, is
often mentioned in chaps, xvi.—xx. (see also XXVii. 2).
In xix. 21 Macedonia and Achaia stand together as in
Rom. XV. 26 and 1 Thess. i. 7, 8. Philippi is the
first Macedonian city—and at the same time the first
European city—to which St. Paul brought the Gospel.
It is also the only Christian community the history
of whose foundation is related in the we-sections. It
is therefore the more important that the planting of
the Church in this city proceeds mutatis mutandis in
the same way as that of the other churches (St. Paul
begins with the Jews). The details of the narrative
are, however, as might be expected, specially vivid
and trustworthy (the role which St. Luke assigns to
himself [he does not belong, as do Timothy and
Erastus, to the SiaKoiovvreg tw UavXw xix. 22], the
irpoa-ev-^ e^o) r?? ttJX;?? Trapa TroTajuLOv, Lydia the
7rop(pup67ra)Xi? TroAeo)? Qvarelpcop, the reception into
her house, the girl with the daemon, the a-Tpartjyoi).
Yet such traits are found only in the first half of the
account, the second half (the imprisonment and the
release of St. Paul) leaves much to be desired ;
but just
here the " we " is wanting. St. Luke had therefore
again left the Apostle ;
probably he had returned to
Asia. If he were at that time at home in Philippi, per-
haps temporarily, as Ramsay supposes—an hypothesis