| Word | American Tract Society - Definition |
| PHILADELPHIA | A city of Lydia, in Asia Minor, where was one of the seven Asiatic churches, highly praised by Christ for its fidelity, Re 3:7- 13. Philadelphia as so called from Attalus Philadelphus, king of Pergamos, by whom it was founded. It stood between the river Hermus and Mount Tmolus, about twenty-eight miles southeast of Sardis. It suffered greatly by frequent earthquakes, and it was anciently matter of surprise that the city was not on this account abandoned. It is now a mean and ill-built town, of large extent, with a population of 12,000, including about 1,000 Greek Christians, who have a resident bishop and about twenty inferior clergy. There are five churches, and six mosques, one of which the native Christians believe to have been the church in which worshipped the primitive Christians whom John addressed. |