Acts 16:13 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And on the sabbath we went out, &c.— It should seem that there were but few Jews settled in this city, and those chiefly women, who could not afford to have a synagogue; but where they could not have a synagogue, they used to have an oratory, or a proseucha; that is, "an open court of prayer," commonly built upon the sea-side, or on the banks of a river, which they probably preferred, as being more retired. Some of the Latin poets make mention of proseuchas: (see Juven. Sat. 3: 50. 215.) and into one of them our Saviour is supposed to have gone; Luke 6:12. Some render the Greek here, where, as usual, there was an oratory. These proseuchas differed from the synagogues in several particulars: For, first, in the synagogues the prayers were offered up in public forms, in common for the whole congregation; but in the proseuchas they prayed, as in the courts of the temple, every one apart. Secondly, the synagogues were covered houses; but the proseuchas were open courts, like the forums, which were inclosures open at the top, or like the court of the women, before the temple of Jerusalem. Thirdly, synagogues were generally built within the cities to which they belonged; whereas the proseuchas were commonly out of the city, either by a river, or by the sea-side, and often upon a hill or mountain. One of these being near Philippi, St. Paul and his assistants, well knowing that it was the custom of the Jews to assemble there for their devotion on the sabbath-days, attended there on the first sabbath after their arrival; and though the proseuchas were commonly used only for private prayers, and there was no reading of the law or the prophets in them, nor anydiscourses usually made there, yet they sat down, after the manner of the Jewish doctors, and discoursed concerning the gospel doctrine to the women who assembled there, and who were partly Jews, and partly proselytes of the gate; for it was the custom of the great apostle of the Gentiles every where to begin with such, and first to offer the gospel to them.