Ii. The City And Its Christian Community
II. THE CITY AND ITS CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
Thessalonica (sometimes Saloniki) is one of the several Mediterranean cities that has had a continuous history from the Greco-Roman period to the present, mostly because of its strategic location at the northernmost point of the Thermaic Gulf (Gulf of Salonica), while sitting astraddle the Egnatian Way, the main thoroughfare between Byzantium (now Istanbul) in the east and the Adriatic ports in the west. According to the Greek historian Strabo (d. 23 CE), the present city was founded by Cassander in the fourth century BCE and was named after his wife Thessalonice (= “victory of Thessaly”), who was a daughter of Philip and half-sister of Alexander the Great. In 167 BCE, when Macedonia was annexed by Rome and divided into four parts, Thessalonica became capital of the second district. When the province was reorganized in 148 BCE, it became the capital of the province of Macedonia. In the give-and-take of history, the city was fortunate enough to side with Octavian (later Augustus) in the Roman civil war (42 BCE) and thus in victory was awarded the status of a “free city.” At the same time, of course, as with Philippi, this assured loyalty to the emperor — and the imperial benefits that went with such loyalty.
According to Luke’s account in Acts 17:6, the local government was administered by “politarchs,” a word found on inscriptions, but only in Luke in known literature. Apparently there were five “politarchs” at the time of Paul. Because of its strategic geographical location, it almost certainly had a population mix similar to that of Corinth, making it an especially cosmopolitan city, in comparison, for example, with an interior town like Philippi. The majority would have been Greeks, but cities like Thessalonica and Corinth experienced a considerable influx of immigrants from everywhere, including especially Diaspora Jews. It was also a city where, unlike more truly Roman cities, women held places of honor and authority. These various realities also meant that it had a considerable mix of trade guilds and religions.
The founding of the church itself, recorded in Acts 17:1-9 and referred to in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-10, probably took place ca. 49-50 CE. As was Paul’s habit, the missionary trio (Paul, Silas, and Timothy) began their proclamation not in the Agora, but in the Jewish synagogue, which according to the account in Acts lasted only three sabbaths. What happened next in terms of time and length of stay is shrouded in mystery, since the next event recorded by Luke, hard on the heels of the preceding narrative, is their being hustled out of Thessalonica in the dead of night by “the believers” there. But the evidence of the two Thessalonian letters, both Paul’s own references to his teaching them4 and the degree of Christian maturity the letters reveal, suggests that the believing community had been more sufficiently grounded than one would normally expect to have happened in two weeks. And since Luke’s time reference had to do with the length of Paul’s ministry in the Jewish synagogue, not with his stay in Thessalonica as such, one should probably posit a stay of several weeks or months.
Indeed, everything else in 1 Thessalonians, plus a passing note in Philippians 4:16, indicates a stay of longer than three weeks. In 1:8 Paul reminds them that news about their own “faith” had preceded him to his next stops (Berea/Athens/Corinth), something that would seem to require time to have developed. In 2:9-12, 17 and 19-20 Paul reminds them of the high degree of mutual affection that existed between him (and Silas and Timothy) and these believers, which again would take more time than two weeks would have normally allowed. Likewise in 2 Thessalonians 3:7-10, Paul further reminds them that he had worked “with his own hands” so as not to be a burden to them and thus also to offer them an example to follow. These kinds of behavioral models would be difficult to establish in two weeks. But the ultimate proof of a longer stay comes from a passing reference in Philippians 4:16, where Paul reminds that congregation that “once and again” they had ministered to his needs while he was in Thessalonica. The “once and again” by itself pushes the time frame far beyond two weeks. But having said all that, we still remain in the dark as to the actual length of stay — probably some six or more months, but who is to know?
According to the Acts account (17:4), the overall result of Paul’s stay in Thessalonica was the conversion of “some of the Jews, . . . a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.” This picture fits our two letters quite well. Although the evidence from these letters for Jewish presence is nearly nonexistent, that is most likely the result of the heavy predominance of Gentile converts. Moreover, even though the believing community began, as usual, among “God-fearers,” the picture that emerges in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 is one of more purely pagans turning to Christ (1:9); and the issue with the unruly-idle in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-11, which is taken up in greater detail in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, is most likely related to Gentile sociology, probably reflecting a degree of tension between tradespeople and more wealthy householders. The implication in all of these cases is that Paul and his companions had been with the nascent believing community for a stay of several months, not just two weeks.
Finally, we should note that as elsewhere the nascent Christian faith tended to cut across all of these various sociological and commercial boundaries, which was very likely one of the reasons it was suspect and thus destined for its share of persecution, as the (very brief) narrative in Acts 17 indicates. But this is also one of the reasons for some of the tensions that emerge in both of the Thessalonian letters, especially the issue of the “unruly-idle,” whose apparent misunderstanding of one’s place in Christ led to their attempt to live off the largesse of others.