A Long-Ago Business Woman

1935

One curious fact always pops into my mind in connection with Lydia, Paul's first European convert, and a business woman. That is the persistence of women's commercial activity in her native city of Thyatira. It will be recalled that Thyatira was one of the "Seven Churches of Asia," addressed by John in the Book of the Revelation. It is an inland Turkish town; and when I visited it, I was struck by the extraordinary proportion of women in the market place as merchants. It seems as if today a large part of the business of Thyatira is managed by women.

Lydia's line was Tyrian purple dyes and cloth. That links her to the interesting relics which a traveller may find outside of both Sidon and Tyre — the great heaps of tiny murex shells, from which the famous Tyrian purple was extracted, one drop from each shell. This was the royal color; and in a robe so dyed, Jesus was mockingly arrayed at His trial.

Because of the fame and value of Tyrian purple, the trade in it had spread over the whole Roman world. So it was at far Philippi that Paul found Lydia, the dealer in this precious dye. To many students of the New Testament, Lydia's name is the outstanding one in connection with the City of Philippi, a case of a woman's stealing the fame of the city of Philip of Macedon, and his greater son. Alexander, conqueror of the world.

—Daily News, Huntingdon, PA, Sept. 6, 1935, p. 8.