44. Sermon on the Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor.
45. Acts xvi. "Philippi was a city of Macedonia near the confines of Thrace. It lies near the sea, as it were at the head of the Archipelago. It was so named from Philip, king' of Macedon, who repaired and enlarged it; but its more ancient name was Dathos. It was also called Crenides from its numerous springs, whence flowed the river mentioned Acts xvi. 13; κρηνη, kreenee, in Greek meaning a spring. Julius Cæsar is said to have planted there a Roman colony; and the neighbourhood of Philippi was the scene of conflict between him and Pompey, and afterward between his assassinators, Brutus and Cassius, and his partizans, Antony and Octavius. It is said still to retain some monuments of its former splendour, although it is much depopulated and sunk to decay." Bevan's Life of the Apostle Paul, p. 367.
46. For information on the subject of proselytes, consult Dr. Gill's "Dissertation concerning the Baptism of Jewish Proselytes," chap. i. in vol. iii, of his Body of Divinity.
47. GREGORY'S Evidences, Doctrines, and Duties of the Christian Religion, vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.
48. Bp. Taylor's Holy Living, Chap. i. sect. 3.
49. The purple die is called in I Maccab. iv. 23, purple of the sea, or sea purple; it being the blood or juice of a turbinated shell-fish, which the Jews call [Hebrew] Chalson; this they speak of as a shell-fish. Hence those words 'Go and learn of the Chalson, for all the while it grows, its shell grows with it:' and that purple was died with the blood of it, appears from the following instances: The best fruits in the land, Gen. xliii. 11, are interpreted, the things that are the most famous in the world, as the Chalson, &c., with whose blood, as the gloss on the passage says, they die purple: and the purple died with this was very valuable, and fetched a good price. The tribe of Zebulon is represented as complaining to God, that he had given to their brethren fields and vineyards, to them mountains and hills; to their brethren lands, to them seas and rivers: to which it is replied, All will stand in need of thee because of Chalson; as it is said, Deut. xxxiii. 19 They shall suck of the abundance of the seas; the gloss upon it, interpreting the word Chalson is, it comes out of the sea to the mountains, and with its blood they die purple, which is sold at a very dear price.... It may be further observed, that the fringes which the Jews wore upon their garments, had on them a riband of blue or purple. Numb. xv. 38, for the word there used is by the Septuagint rendered the purple, in Numb. iv. 7, and sometimes hyacinth; and the whole fringe was by the Jews called [Hebrew], purple. Hence it is said, 'Does not every one that puts on the purple (i.e. the fringes on his garments) in Jerusalem make men to wonder? and a little after, the former saints or religious men, when they had wove in it (the garment) three parts, they put on it [Hebrew], the purple. And there were persons who traded in these things, and were called, [Hebrew], sellers of purple, as here; that is, for the tzitzith, or fringes for the borders of the garments, on which the riband of blue or purple was put, as the gloss explains it. The Jews were very curious about the colour and the dying of it, that it should be a colour that would hold and not change, and that the riband be died on purpose for that use. Maimonides gives rules for the dying of it, and they were no less careful of whom they bought it; for they say that the purple was not to be bought, but of an approved person, or one that was authorized for that purpose; and a scruple is raised by one, whether he had done right or no in buying it of the family of a doctor deceased. Now, since Lydia might be a Jewess, or, at least, as appears by what follows, was a proselytess of the Jewish religion, this might he her business, to sell the purple for their fringes, and, it may be, the fringes themselves. GILL in loc.
50. Eighth Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society.