The Acts of the Apostles

106 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
which is favoured by the fact that in XX. 6 he joins the
Apostle a second time at Philippi—he must at this
time have left the town for unknown reasons ; for he
was not involved in the fate which overtook St. Paul
and Silas in Philippi. It is unsafe to conclude that
the remarkable description of Philippi (rJTig ia-rlv
TTpcorrj t5? jmeptSos Ma/ce^owa? iroXig KoXcovla XVi. 12)
is due to special local patriotism on the part of
St. Luke. The import of this note, the interpreta-
tion of which is moreover not clear,^ is fairly obvious
if one considers that Philippi was by no means a very
important city and that its Jewish population was
only small. To explain why St. Paul came first to
this place (passing by Samothrace and Neapolis xvi.
11), all is said that could be said in favour of its
importance. At the same time it still remains unexplained
why St. Paul passed so hurriedly from
Galatia (!) straight to Philippi ; and it still remains
an attractive hypothesis that it was St. Luke, who,
having relations of some kind with Philippi, influ-
enced the Apostle to go to that city.
In reference to Thessalonica (xvii. 1, 11, 1-3), the
native city of Aristarchus and Secundus (xx. 4
XXVii. 2), which St. Paul reached by the great road
^ It contains an error if it was intended to signify that Philippi
was the capital of that district (/i^/sis) of Macedonia ; for Araphi-
polis was the capital. Perhaps the words may be translated *' the
most considerable city that was a colony in the particular district
of Macedonia." Blass's conjecture, irpwr-qs for irpuTrj r?;s, is in-
genious and elegant, yet scarcely right, seeing that irpQiTos in the
sense of "prominent" is usual with St. Luke {vide St. Luke xix.
47 ; Acts xiii. 50 ; xvii. 4 ; xxv. 2 ; xxviii. 7, 17) ; and on the other
hand, one does not expect so detailed a statement as " in the first
district."
;