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<p>The Acts of the Apostles report an earthquake that hit Philippi (NE Macedonia, Greece), a region of low seismicity, during the imprisonment of Apostles Paul and Silas after the first Christian community was established in European land circa AD 50. This earthquake, famous in the Christian religious tradition, is described as a miracle that led to the liberation of the Apostles. However, the seismological significance of this information is a matter of debate. This article presents new literary, historical, and archaeological evidence that the whole scene of the Philippi earthquake reported in the Acts, known as the scene of prison escape, resembles the prison scene of the ancient Greek tragedy <i>Bacchae</i> by Euripides. Furthermore, the prison in Philippi was described as similar to the prison of St Peter in Rome (“<i>Tullianum</i>”), while a cistern built about 100&#xa0;years later is indicated by tradition as the prison of St Paul in Philippi. These results, in combination with the textual differences of the surviving Codices of the Acts and their inferred history, imply that the Philippi earthquake reflects a later editorial change in the original manuscript, not unusual for an ancient Codex, and of no seismological significance. This result has important implications for many other earthquakes described as a divine intervention (“providentialism”). The seismological evaluation of such cases requires: (i) the study of earthquake information within their context, and in combination with the available commentaries; (ii) the study of the ancient sources as a function of time; and (iii) the examination of editorial selections to produce a compound text using the various surviving Codes which differ from each other because of scribe errors and addition or removal of small or large parts of texts, and because of poor preservation of ancient manuscripts.</p>

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The Philippi (Eastern Macedonia, Greece) earthquake ca. AD50: New evidence for a debated event and implications for ancient earthquakes assigned to divine intervention

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月11日

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  • Stathis C. Stiros

摘要

The Acts of the Apostles report an earthquake that hit Philippi (NE Macedonia, Greece), a region of low seismicity, during the imprisonment of Apostles Paul and Silas after the first Christian community was established in European land circa AD 50. This earthquake, famous in the Christian religious tradition, is described as a miracle that led to the liberation of the Apostles. However, the seismological significance of this information is a matter of debate. This article presents new literary, historical, and archaeological evidence that the whole scene of the Philippi earthquake reported in the Acts, known as the scene of prison escape, resembles the prison scene of the ancient Greek tragedy Bacchae by Euripides. Furthermore, the prison in Philippi was described as similar to the prison of St Peter in Rome (“Tullianum”), while a cistern built about 100 years later is indicated by tradition as the prison of St Paul in Philippi. These results, in combination with the textual differences of the surviving Codices of the Acts and their inferred history, imply that the Philippi earthquake reflects a later editorial change in the original manuscript, not unusual for an ancient Codex, and of no seismological significance. This result has important implications for many other earthquakes described as a divine intervention (“providentialism”). The seismological evaluation of such cases requires: (i) the study of earthquake information within their context, and in combination with the available commentaries; (ii) the study of the ancient sources as a function of time; and (iii) the examination of editorial selections to produce a compound text using the various surviving Codes which differ from each other because of scribe errors and addition or removal of small or large parts of texts, and because of poor preservation of ancient manuscripts.