Philip´pi, a city of the proconsular Macedonia, situated eastward of Amphipolis, within the limits of ancient Thrace (;; ). 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 (). In the former passage () 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 ruins—heaps 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.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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