1. Prominence of Women:
Of the churches of Macedonia in general, little need be said here. A striking fact is the prominence in them of women, which is probably due to the higher social position held by women in this province than in Asia Minor (Lightfoot, Philippians4, 55 ff). We find only two references to women in connection with Paul's previous missionary work; the women proselytes of high social standing take a share in driving him from Pisidian Antioch (Ac 13:50), and Timothy's mother is mentioned as a Jewess who believed (Ac 16:1). But in Macedonia all is changed. To women the gospel was first preached at Philippi (Ac 16:13); a woman was the first convert and the hostess of the evangelists (Ac 16:14-15); a slave girl was restored to soundness of mind by the apostle (Ac 16:18), and long afterward Paul mentions two women as having "labored with (him) in the gospel" and as endangering the peace of the church by their rivalry (Php 4:2-3). At Thessalonica a considerable number of women of the first rank appear among the earliest converts (Ac 17:4), while at Berea also the church included from the outset numerous Greek women of high position (Ac 17:12).
2. Marked Characteristics:
The bond uniting Paul and the Macedonian Christians seems to have been a peculiarly close and affectionate one. Their liberality and open-heartedness, their joyousness and patience in trial and persecution, their activity in spreading the Christian faith, their love of the brethren--these are a few of the characteristics which Paul specially commends in them (1 and 2 Thessalonians; Philippians; 2Co 8:1-8), while they also seem to have been much freer than the churches of Asia Minor from Judaizing tendencies and from the allurements of "philosophy and vain deceit."
3. Its Members:
We know the names of a few of the early members of the Macedonian churches--Sopater (Ac 20:4) or Sosipater (Ro 16:21: the identification is a probable, though not a certain, one) of Berea; Aristarchus (Ac 19:29; 20:4; 27:2; Col 4:10; Phm 1:24), Jason (Ac 17:5-9; Ro 16:21?) and Secundus (Ac 20:4) of Thessalonica; Clement (Php 4:3), Epaphroditus (Php 2:25; 4:18), Euodia (Php 4:2; this, not Euodias (the King James Version), is the true form), Syntyche (same place) , Lydia (Ac 16:14,40; a native of Thyatira), and possibly Luke (Ramsay, Paul the Traveler, 201 ff) of Philippi. Gaius is also mentioned as a Macedonian in Ac 19:29, but perhaps the reading of a few manuscripts Makedona is to be preferred to the Textus Receptus of the New Testament Makedonas in which case Aristarchus alone would be a Macedonian, and this Gaius would probably be identical with the Gaius of Derbe mentioned in Ac 20:4 as a companion of Paul (Ramsay, op. cit., 280). The later history of the Macedonian churches, together with lists of all their known bishops, will be found in Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, II, 1 ff; III, 1089 ff 1045 f.
LITERATURE.
General: C. Nicolaides, Macedonien, Berlin, 1899; Berard, La Macedoine, Paris, 1897; "Odysseus," Turkey in Europe, London, 1900. Secular History: Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon, London, 1897, and the histories of the Hellenistic period by Holm, Niese, Droysen and Kaerst. Ethnography and Language: O. Hoffmann, Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum, Gottingen, 1906. Topography and Antiquities: Heuzey and Daumet, Mission archeologique de Macedoine, Paris, 1876; Cousinery, Voyage dans la Macedoine, Paris, 1831; Clarke, Travels 4, VII, VIII, London, 1818; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, III, London, 1835; Duchesne and Bayet, Memoire sur une mission en Macedoine et au Mont Athos, Paris, 1876; Hahn, Reise von Belgrad nach Saloniki, Vienna, 1861. Coins: Head, Historia Nummorum, 193 f; British Museum Catalogue of Coins: Macedonia, etc., London, 1879. Inscriptions: CIG, numbers 1951-2010; CIL, III, 1 and III, Suppl.; Dimitsas,`H ... Athens, 1896.
M. N. Tod