Acts 16:12

ἐκεῖθέν τε εἰς Φ.: on or near the site of Krenides (Wells or Fountains), so called from its founder Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. Near Philippi, Octavius and Anthony had decisively defeated Brutus and Cassius, and to that event it owed the honour of being made a Roman colony with the jus Italicum (R.V., “a Roman colony”), or in other words, “a miniature likeness of the great Roman people,” cf. Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 51. Hence both in St. Luke's account of the place, and in St. Paul's Epistle we are constantly face to face with the political life of Rome, with the power and pride of Roman citizenship. But its geographical position really invested Philippi with its chief importance, thoroughfare as it was on the great Egnatian Way for the two continents of Europe and Asia. At Philippi we are standing at the confluence of the stream of Europe and Asiatic life; we see reflected in the evangelisation of Philippi as in a mirror the history of the passage of Christianity from the East to the West, Lightfoot, Phil., p. 49; Renan, St. Paul, p. 140; McGiffert, Apostolic Christianity, p. 239; Speaker's Commentary, vol. iii., 580; C. and H., p. 202 ff. πρώτη τῆς μερίδος, see Additional note. κολωνία : “a Roman colony,” R.V., there were many Greek colonies, ἀποικία or ἐποικία, but κολ. denoted a Roman colony, i.e., a colony enjoying the jus Italicum like Philippi at this time, governed by Roman law, and on the model of Rome; see “Colony” in B.D. 2 and Hastings' B.D. ἦμεν … διατρ., see above on Acts 1:10; characteristic Lucan construction.