Thessalonica and Berea
“As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”
“He might have filled hundreds of martyrologies with his sufferings;... all which he generously underwent with a soul as calm and serene as the morning sun. No spite or rage, no fury or storms, could ruffle and discompose his spirit; nay, those sufferings, which would have broken the back of an ordinary patience, did but make him rise up with the greater eagerness and resolution for the doing of his duty.” — Cave’s Life of St Paul, 1676.
-fr are soon to meet the Great Apostle in the streets and halls of the most polished and learned city of the Old World; but before we follow him thither, let us briefly track his steps from the city of Philippi, where we last left him, weary and faint with scourging, but his spirit full of joy at all the great things which God had done for him.
Travelling still along the Via Egnatia by Amphipolis and Apollonia, he reached, in three days, the city of Thessalonica. Thessalonica was the largest town at that time in Macedonia, and is one of considerable note at the present day, under the slightly-changed name of Salooica. It reckons, indeed, third in importance in the Ottoman empire in Europe. If you look at your map, you will observe that it is situated at the north of Greece, close by the shore near the head of the Thermaic Gulf. It occupies, as you will also see from the picture, the slope of a hill at the corner of the bay. It was built by Cassander, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who was struck with the beauty of the site,* and compelled, at the same time, the inhabitants round about to leave their own cities and villages, and take up their abode in the new seaport which he called, after his wife, Thessalonica. At the time of St Paul’s visit, it was the capital of the province — a Roman proconsul, with his lictors and officers, held his court there. It was what we may call the Liverpool of northern Greece — a great place for commerce — ships sailing from its harbour to all places of the known world. It became very soon a great Christian capital, and continued so for many hundred years; so that the truth of Paul’s words was not confined to his own age — “From you the Word of God hath sounded forth; not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place.” t Dr Clark visited the city in the year 1801, and describes many ruins of ancient buildings with Roman inscriptions. Among others, he mentions a Turkish mosque, containing an old and singular marble pulpit, from which, tradition says, Paul preached in a vault under ground.
On arriving at Thessalonica, we may follow in thought the weary apostles as, after their long journey of 90 or 100 miles, and still suffering under their recent tortures at Philippi, they approached the gates of its terraced walls. We cannot tell whether it may then have possessed the same striking appearance it presents to modern travellers, with its white-painted buildings, its walls glittering in the sun, and, in a calm day, casting their pearly shadows in the beautiful bay,
* Strabo. f l Thcss. i. 8.
which, whatever changes the city may have undergone, remains the same now as when Paul and his friend gazed on its sparkling waves.
On arriving in the city, they took up their abode with Jason, a Jewish convert; by some supposed to have been a relative of the apostle ;* by others, one of “the brethren” to whom the believers in Philippi had given him “letters of commendation.” For three successive Sabbaths (Jewish Sabbaths — our Saturday) Paul spoke in the synagogue. It seems to have been the place of worship to which the Jews all around resorted; for, in speaking of it, he does not say, “where there was a synagogue,” but “the synagogue.” The Israelites, at the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia, seem to have been too few or too poor to have a synagogue, or even a proseucha of their own, and to have attended, therefore, the one at Thessalonica.t We may picture to ourselves the Great Apostle, bearing in his body some new and recent “marks of the Lord Jesus,” standing up in this Jewish church, on the first Sabbath after his arrival, to speak to his “brethren according to the flesh.”
Thessalonica, I may add, is as celebrated at the present day, for its large Hebrew population, as it was then; for, out of 70,000 inhabitants, more than one half are Jews.J Of these, many are engaged in the manufacture of cloth for tents, — a circumstance which is curious in connexion with the employment of the apostle during his present residence, and to which wo shall immediately refer.
If you read the letters he wrote at an after period to the Thessalonians, you must be struck with a sub-
* Rom. xvi. 21. t Kuinoel. t Dr Kitto.
ject which he dwells much upon in these, viz., “the kingdom and second coming of the Lord Jesus.” You are aware that the Jews had long looked forward to the Messiah as a great temporal deliverer. Their country was now under the Roman yoke; but they clung to the fond hope that once more, under the promised “Prince of Peace,” it would regain the independence and glory it possessed under the reign of David and Solomon. One great object of the apostle, both now in his address in the synagogue and in his future epistles to the Thessalonians, was to correct these mistaken ideas about the nature of Christ’s kingdom. He proved to them from their own prophecies that He was to come, not as a triumphant, but as a lowly suffering Messiah; and that though a King, His kingdom was “not to be of this world:” it was to be a spiritual, not a temporal one. “He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures; opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom he preached unto them, was Christ.”*
As I have just hinted, he again found here the trade he learned in his boyhood at Tarsus of use to him. He did not wish to be “burdensome” to any, and though the converts at Philippi sent him on two occasions gifts and presents, he preferred doing what he could for his own support. It is interesting to think of him, evening after evening, when the labour of teaching and preaching was over, seated with his bundle of goats’ hair at his side, busy at the manufacture of the hair-cloth.
It is, indeed, a striking picture to see the holy man
* Acts xvii. 2, 3.
fHESSALONICA AND BE11EA. U(Jl
of God, the polished scholar, the great missionary, not considering himself demeaned in taking up this lowly occupation; and, though still severely smarting under the stripes he received at Philippi, bending with cheerfulness over his laborious task. It has been supposed, however, that at this time the apostle must have been in great bodily want. Historians of that period mention a famine which prevailed throughout Greece, and which raised provisions to six times their usual price — a peck of wheat costing in. their currency four shillings and sixpence.* But the many kind hearts Paul had left behind him in Philippi, would not allow him at present to fall into straits; and on two occasions afterwards, we shall find they sent some Christian messengers with a similar supply of money. “Now, ye Philippians, know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me, as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.” t
His success among his own Jewish countrymen does not appear to have been great at Thessalonica. His converts seem to have been principally heathens “who turned from dumb idols to serve the living God.”” How new and how comforting to them must have been the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead! What a contrast must this revelation of life and immortality have been to the hopeless lamentations of their own pagan funerals, and to the dismal teaching which we can still read in the sepulchral inscriptions of heathen Thessalonica, such as told the bystander that after death there is no revival, after the grave
* Eusebius. f Phil. iv. 15, 16.
no meeting of those who have loved each other on earth!”*
It is more than probable that Paul, in commending the new doctrine to these idolatrous pagans, made use of miracle in proof of his Divine commission. In writing afterwards to them, he says, “Our gospel came to you in power, and in the Holy Ghost.” That word “power” would seem to imply (as elsewhere) the use of extraordinary and miraculous agency. We know that he did not deceive them by any bright pictures of earthly or carnal glory. He did not say that if they left their dumb idols they would become great and powerful and glorious in the world. It was quite the reverse * for he writes thus afterwards, “Verily when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass, and ye know.”t
The envy of the Jews was stirred up against these “preachers of strange doctrine.” The scum and refuse of the city — “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” — that is, a number of those dangerous idlers who were always found in a place like Thessalonica, hanging about the pier and the forum ready to join in any tumult, — were easily prevailed on to take part in this assault on the innocent apostles. The house of Jason was stormed, but not finding their victims there (they having been previously warned of the attack), Jason and other Christians were seized by the mob, and dragged before the magistrates. They were accused of sedition and rebellion, of harbouring in their house those who were preaching treason against Caesar — speaking of another kingdom and another King, “one Jesus.“” They thus
* Howson and Couybeare, vol. i. p. 355.
t 1 Thess. iii. 3, 4. See Lewiu, vcl. i. p. 256.
THBSSALONIOA AND BEREA. 20o
easily perverted Paul’s words about the kingdom of Christ into a meaning to suit their own purposes. The magistrates bound them over to keep the peace, taking money from them as bail or security in the meantime, that the quiet of the town should not again be broken. Paul immediately saw with a sorrowful heart that it would be needful to withdraw elsewhere. The rage alike of the multitude and the Jews was roused, and if they remained, and continued to preach the gospel, their faithful friends, to whom they were indebted for a home, would be sure to become the victims of popular fury. He would, perhaps, leave behind him with his inquiring pagan disciples, as the only substitute for the preaching of the gospel, a copy of the Old Testament Scriptures, and probably the Gospel of St Matthew, the only one of the four inspired, histories which at that time was written. It is to this gospel he is supposed to allude, when he says in his future letter, “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” *
We are not told to what extent Jason and his friends afterwards suffered. Though the magistrates had accepted bail from them in the meantime, it is not probable they would be freed from a future trial, and the result, most likely, on a charge of aiding those guilty of treason, would be severe fining, or else the forfeiture of their goods. Be this as it may, we know that the danger of the apostles was so great that the very night of the assault they were obliged, under covert of darkness, to leave the city.
* 1 Thcss. v. 1, 2. Compare with this Matt. xxiv. 36-43.
Timothy, probably, may now have rejoined Paul. If so, he would accompany him and Silas at their departure. Passing out by the arch at the western gate, they proceeded fifty miles’ distance to the lovely city of Berea, situated, among its gardens, streams, and groves of palm and plane trees, on the eastern slope of the chain of mountains of which Olympus is the chief.
This town was founded by one Pheres, and called Pherea; but from a singular difficulty the Macedonians had in pronouncing the Ph, it was corrupted by them into Berea. The modern inhabitants, however, who work in the red marble quarries in its neighbourhood, seem able to pronounce what their forefathers could not, for it has resumed the name of Phcria*
Berea, at the time the apostle fled to it, was a ^ecluded place. It was a considerable distance from the great Roman road (the Via Egnatia), and probably was selected by him and his companions on that account. Moreover, being in another district of Macedonia, he was safe from the power of the proconsul of Thessalonica.
After the treatment he had received at the former city from his Jewish brethren, we could not have wondered, on reaching this new abode, if he had resolved in all time to come to preach only to the Gentiles. But no; he was far too true a patriot, to allow ingratitude or opposition to damp or cool his love for his countrymen; “apostle of the Gentiles” as he was, it was still with him “to the Jew first.” It is pleasing to be able to add, that the encouragement he met with among his countrymen at Berea was very different from that which he received at Thessalonica. He found the
t See Wetstein in loco, &c., quoted by Lewin, vol. i. p. 265.
Jews there “more noble” than those of the former city, because they did not, like the others, shut their ears against the truth, but “searched the Scriptures” every day, comparing the prophecies about the Messiah with their alleged fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth.
Let us picture to ourselves the scene in the Berean synagogue. The Rabbis and ministers, attired in their flowing robes, hold in their hands the well-thumbed scrolls of parchment containing the writings of Moses and the Prophets. The apostle directs them in these to reference after reference, proving that Jesus was indeed the Christ. May we not imagine him saying, “Turn to your roll containing our old prophet Micatis predictions — you will find there mentioned the birthplace of the Messiah.” The presiding minister reads aloud — “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, fromeverlasting.”* “Jesus,” Paul maybe supposed to say, “was born there.”
“Turn again to your Pentateuch-scroll, and you will find his predicted tribe, — ‘The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.’t Our Jesus,” Paul might add, “was born of the tribe of Judah. Turn again,” might he not say,” to our great prophet, and see what Isaiah’s roll says about his royal line, — ‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a
Branch shall grow out of his roots: And in
that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall
* Micahv. 2. f Gen. xlix. 10.
stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.’* Jesus was born of the Virgin Mar?/, the lineal descendant of David! Turn again to the prophet of Babylon — unroll the parchment of DanieVs prophecies — see what was the time your Messiah was foretold to come, — ‘Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.’ t Above all, turn again to Isaiah’s prophetic roll, and read the very history of this Jesus whom I have embraced as the true Messiah, — ‘For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see
* Isaiah xi. 1, 10. t Daniel ix. 24-27.
him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.’”*
Many were converted; and among these, Greeks and heathens as well as Jews, and several females of higher rank.
But the apostle was learning every day to “cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils.” He was becoming more familiar with the “much tribulation” through which every saint, and more especially every faithful minister, must enter into glory. The “less noble” Jews at a distance, stirred up with envy on hearing of his success, compelled him to leave a city which gave promise of much fruit. He saw that it would be hopeless, from the furious hatred of his own countrymen, to remain for the present longer in Macedonia. They were tracking, like bloodhounds, his footsteps from place to place; he would be sure, humanly speaking, to fall a victim to their malice; he resolved, therefore, to quit it altogether, and make for the nearest point at sea where he could take a vessel to some other field of labour. It was judged advisable to leave Timothy and Silas behind, to nurse the good seed which had been scattered. But how could the persecuted apostle — perhaps, too, at this time suffering from his eyesight — start by night and travel through an unknown country all alone? He was wearied and pained both in mind and body — his stripes, his blindness, his mental sorrow at the sadder spiritual blindness of his brethren, — all forbade a solitary journey. His friends
* Isaiah liii. 2, 3.
at Berea, in these circumstances, undertook to convoy him to the sea-shore. They conducted him, doubtless by the nearest road, close by the woods and olive-groves of the great Olympus. Olympus was the spot celebrated in all ancient song as the seat of the gods. Jupiter, whose name is now familiar to us from his temple at Lystra, was thought to have his throne there, and other divinities haunted its groves and temples. Thousands upon thousands of Pagans revered that spot as the most sacred on earth. Christians may look back with interest at this moment of which I am now speaking, not to the snow-capped mountain as the haunt of false deities, but to one who was now passing in a little skiff under its shadow. It was a Jew of Tarsus who, by the power of the great God of heaven and earth, was to shatter in pieces many a shrine and temple of Olympian Jupiter — “to turn,” in a sense the Thessalonian Jews never dreamt of, “the world upside down,” and to demonstrate that there was “none other name given under heaven among men by which the sinner could be saved, but the name of Jesus.” Paul’s companions from Berea had now returned to their own city, taking from him a special message to Silas and Timothy to lose no time in following him to the south.