Μνημονεύετε γὰρ ἀδελφοὶ τόν κόπον ἠμῶν καὶ τὸν μόχθον (1 Thess. 2:9). “In oppidum devium Beroeam profugisti” (Cic. inPis. 36).
LEAVING Philippi, with its mingled memories of suffering and happiness, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus took an easy day’s journey of about three–and–thirty miles to the beautiful town of Amphipolis. It lies to the south of a splendid lake, under sheltering hills, three miles from the sea, and on the edge of a plain of boundless fertility. The strength of its natural position, nearly encircled by a great bend of the river, the mines which were near it, and the neighbouring forests, which furnished to the Athenian navy so many pines, fit
“To be the mast
Of some great Ammiral,”
made it a position of high importance during the Peloponnesian wars. If St. Paul had ever read Herodotus he may have thought with horror of the human sacrifice of Xerxes1—the burial alive at this place of nine youths and nine maidens; and if he had read Thucydides—which is excessively doubtful, in spite of a certain analogy between their forms of expression—he would have gazed with peculiar interest on the sepulchral mound of Brasidas, and the hollowing of the stones in the way–worn city street which showed the feet of men and horses under the gate, and warned Kleon that a sally was intended.2 If he could read Livy, which is by no means probable, he would recall the fact that in this town Paulus Æmilius3—one of the family from whom his own father or grandfather may have derived his name—had here proclaimed, in the name of Rome, that Macedonia should be free. But all this was little or nothing to the Jewish missionaries. At Amphipolis there was no synagogue, and therefore no ready means of addressing either Jews or Gentiles.4 They therefore proceeded the next day thirty miles farther, through scenery of surpassing loveliness, along the Strymonic Gulf, through the wooded pass of Aulon, where St. Paul may have looked at the tomb of Euripides, and along the shores of Lake Bolbe to Apollonia. Here again they rested for a night, and the next day, pursuing their journey across the neck of the promontory of Chalcidice, and leaving Olynthus and Potidæa, with their heart–stirring memories, far to the south, they advanced nearly forty miles farther to the far–famed town of Thessalonica, the capital of all Macedonia, and though a free city,5 the residence of the Roman Proconsul.
Its position on the Egnatian road, commanding the entrance to two great inland districts, and at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, had made it an important seat of commerce. Since the days when Cassander had re–founded it, and changed its name from Therma to Thessalonica in honour of his wife, who was a daughter of Philip of Macedon, it had always been a flourishing city, with many historic associations. Here Cicero had spent his days of melancholy exile.6 Here a triumphal arch, still standing, commemorates the victory of Octavianus and Antony at Philippi. From hence, as with the blast of a trumpet, not only in St. Paul’s days,7 but for centuries afterwards, the Word of God sounded forth among the neighbouring tribes. Here Theodosius was guilty of that cruel massacre, for which St. Ambrose, with heroic faithfulness, kept him for eight months from the cathedral of Milan. Here its good and learned Bishop Eustathius wrote those scholia on Homer, which place him in the first rank of ancient commentators. It received the title of “the orthodox city,” because it was for centuries a bulwark of Christendom, but it was taken by Amurath II. in 1430. Saloniki is still a great commercial port of 70,000 inhabitants, of whom nearly one–third are Jews; and the outrage of Mohammedan fanaticism which has brought its name into recent prominence is but the beginning of events which will yet change the map and the destinies of Southern Europe.
At this city—blighted now by the curse of Islam, but still beautiful on the slopes of its vine–clad hills, with Pelion and Olympus full in view—the missionaries rested, for here was the one Jewish synagogue which sufficed for the entire district.8 After securing the means of earning their daily bread, which was no easy matter, they found a lodging in the house of a Jew, who had Græcised the common name of Jesus into Jason.9 Even if their quarters were gratuitously allowed them, St. Paul, accepting no further aid, was forced to daily and nightly labour of the severest description10 to provide himself with the small pittance which alone sufficed his wants. Even this was not sufficient. Poor as he was—for if he ever possessed any private means he had now lost them all11—the expenses of the journey from Philippi had probably left him and his companions nearly penniless, and but for the timely liberality of the Philippians it would have fared hardly with the Apostle, and he might even have been left without means to pursue his further journeys.12 There is no contradiction between the two contributions from Philippi and the Apostle’s account of his manual labours; for there is nothing to show that he only stayed in Thessalonica a little more than three weeks.13 In addition to the fact that the second contribution would be partly wanted for his new journeys, we find that at this time a famine was raging, which caused the price of wheat to rise to six times its usual rate.14 However much this famine may have enhanced the difficulties of St. Paul and his companions, it must have confirmed him in the purpose of placing the motives of his ministry above suspicion by making it absolutely gratuitous. Such disinterestedness added much to the strength of his position, especially in the “deep poverty” which must have prevailed in such times among the low–born proselytes of a despised religion. If St. Paul did not refuse the contributions from Philippi, it was because they came spontaneously, at an hour of bitter need, from those who could spare the money, and who, as he well knew, would be pained by any refusal of their proffered aid. Yet all who knew him knew well that the aid came unsought, and that, as far as Paul’s own personal life was concerned, he was utterly indifferent to privations, and set the example of an unflinching endurance rendered easy by a perfect trust in God.15
For three Sabbaths in succession he went to the synagogue, and argued with the Jews. It might well have been that the outrage at Philippi, and its still lingering effects, would have damped his zeal, and made him shrink from another persecution. But, fresh as he was from such pain and peril, he carried on his discussions with undiminished force and courage,16 explaining the prophecies, and proving from them that the Messiah was to suffer, and to rise from the dead, and that “this is the Messiah, Jesus, whom I am preaching to you.”17 The synagogue audience was mainly composed of Jews, and of these some were convinced and joined the Church.18 Conspicuous among them for his subsequent devotion, and all the more conspicuous as being almost the only warmly–attached convert whom St. Paul won from the ranks of “the circumcision,” was Aristarchus, the sharer of St. Paul’s perils19 from mob–violence at Ephesus, of his visit to Jerusalem, of his voyage and shipwreck, and of his last imprisonment. A larger number, however, of proselytes and of Greeks accepted the faith,20 and not a few women, of whom some were in a leading position. This inveterate obstinacy of the Jews, contrasting sadly with the ready conversion of the Gentiles, and especially of women, who in all ages have been more remarkable than men for religious earnestness, is a phenomenon which constantly recurs in the early history of Christianity. Nor is this wholly to be wondered at. The Jew was at least in possession of a religion, which had raised him to a height of moral superiority above his Gentile contemporaries; but the Gentile of this day had no religion at all worth speaking of. If the Jew had more and more mistaken the shell of ceremonialism for the precious truths of which that ceremonialism was but the integument, he was at least conscious that there weredeep truths which lay enshrined behind the rites and observances which he so fanatically cherished. But on what deep truths could the Greek woman rest, if her life were pure, and if her thoughts had been elevated above the ignorant domesticism which was the only recognised virtue of her sex? What comfort was there for her in the cold grey eyes of Athene, or the stereotyped smile of the voluptuous Aphrodite? And when the Thessalonian Greek raised his eyes to the dispeopled heaven of the Olympus, which towered over the blue gulf on which his city stood—when his imagination could no longer place the throne of Zeus, and the session of his mighty deities, on that dazzling summit where Cicero had remarked with pathetic irony that he saw nothing but snow and ice—what compensation could he find for the void left in his heart by a dead religion?21 By adopting circumcision he might become, as it were, a Helot of Judaism; and to such a sacrifice he was not tempted. But the Gospel which Paul preached had no esoteric doctrines, and no supercilious exclusions, and no repellent ceremonials; it came with a Divine Example and a free gift to all, and that free gift involved all that was most precious to the troubled and despondent soul. No wonder, then, that the Church of Thessalonica was mainly Gentile, as is proved by the distinct language of St. Paul,22 and the total absence of any Old Testament allusion in the two Epistles. In the three weeks of synagogue preaching, St. Paul had confined his argument to Scripture; but to Gentile converts of only a few months’ standing such arguments would have been unintelligible, and they were needless to those who had believed on the personal testimony to a risen Christ.
After mentioning the first three Sabbaths, St. Luke furnishes us with no further details of the stay at Thessalonica. But we can trace several interesting facts about their further residence from the personal allusions of St. Paul’s Epistles. The First Epistle to the Thessalonians— the earliest of all his letters which have come down to us— was written within a month or two of his departure. We trace in it the tone of sadness and the yearning for a brighter future which were natural to one whose habitual life at this time was that of a hated and hunted outcast. We see that the infant Church was remarkable for a faithfulness, love, and patience which made it famous as a model church in all Macedonia and Achaia.23 It shone all the more brightly from the fierce afflictions which from the first encompassed the brethren, but failed either to quench their constancy or dim their joy.24 St. Paul dwells much on his own bearing and example among them; the boldness which he showed in spite of present opposition and past persecutions; the total absence of all delusive promises in a teaching which plainly warned them that to be near Christ was to be near the fire;25 the conviction wrought by the present power of the Holy Spirit testifying to his words;26 the simplicity and sincerity which enabled him to appeal to them as witnesses that his Gospel was not stained by the faintest touch of deceitful flattery, or guilty motive, or vain–glorious self–seeking;27 the independence which he had maintained;28 the self–sacrificing tenderness which he had showed; the incessant severity of his industry;29 the blameless purity of his life; the individual solicitude of his instructions.30 And this high example had produced its natural effects, for they had embraced his teaching with passionate whole–heartedness as a divine message,31 and inspired him with an affection which made their image ever present to his imagination, though untoward hindrances had foiled a twice–repeated attempt to visit them again.
The Epistle also throws light on that special feature of St. Paul’s teaching which was ultimately made the ground for the attack upon him. His sufferings had naturally turned his thoughts to the future; the cruelty of man had tended to fix his faith yet more fervently on the help of God; the wickedness of earthly rulers, and the prevalence of earthly wrongs, had combined with circumstances on which we shall touch hereafter, to fill his teaching with the hopes and prophecies of a new kingdom and a returning King. His expectation of the rapid revelation of that Second Advent had been a theme of encouragement under incessant afflictions.
Few indeed were the untroubled periods of ministry in the life of St. Paul. The jealousy and hatred which had chased him from city to city of Pisidia and Lycaonia pursued him here. The Jews from first to last—the Jews for whom he felt in his inmost heart so tender an affection—were destined to be the plague and misery of his suffering life. At Antioch and Jerusalem, Jews nominally within the fold of Christ opposed his teaching and embittered his days; in all other cities it was the Jews who contradicted and blasphemed the holy name which he was preaching. In the planting of his Churches he had to fear their deadly opposition; in the watering of them, their yet more deadly fraternity. The Jews who hated Christ sought his life; the Jews who professed to love Him undermined his efforts. The one faction endangered his existence, the other ruined his peace. Never, till death released him, was he wholly free from their violent conspiracies or their insidious calumnies. Without, they sprang upon him at every opportunity like a pack of wolves; within, they hid themselves in sheep’s clothing to worry and tear his flocks. And at Thessalonica he had yet a new form of persecution against which to contend. It was not purely Jewish as in Palestine, or purely Gentile as at Philippi, or combined as at Iconium, but was simply a brutal assault of the mob, hounded on by Jews in the background. Jealous,32 as usual, that the abhorred preaching of a crucified Messiah should in a few weeks have won a greater multitude of adherents than they had won during many years to the doctrines of Moses—furious, above all, to see themselves deprived of the resources, the reverence, and the adhesion of leading women—they formed an unholy alliance with the lowest dregs of the Thessalonian populace. Owing to the dishonour in which manual pursuits were held in ancient days,33 every large city had a superfluous population of worthless idlers—clients who lived on the doles of the wealthy, flatterers who fawned at the feet of the influential, the lazzaroni of streets, mere loafers and loiterers, the hangers–on of forum,34 the claqueurs of law–courts, the scum that gathered about the shallowest outmost waves of civilisation. Hiring the assistance of these roughs and scoundrels,35 the Jews disturbed the peace of the city by a fanatical riot, and incited the mob to attack the house of Jason, in order to bring the Apostles before the popular Assembly. But Paul had received timely warning, and he and his companions were in safe concealment. Foiled in this object, they seized Jason and one or two others whom they recognised as Christians, and dragged them before the Politarchs,36 or presiding magistrates of the free city of Thessalonica. “These fellows,” they shouted, “these seditious agitators of the civilised world37 have found their way here also. Jason has received them. The whole set of them ought to be punished on a crimen majestatis, for they go in the teeth of Cæsar’s decrees, and say that there is a different king, namely Jesus.”38 But the mob did not altogether succeed in carrying their point. In dealing with the seven Politarchs, under the very shadow of the proconsular residence, they were dealing with people of much higher position, and much more imbued with the Roman sense of law, than the provincial duumviriof Philippi. Neither the magistrates nor the general multitude of the city liked the aspect of affairs. It was on the face of it too ludicrous to suppose that hard–working artisans like Jason and his friends could be seriously contemplating revolutionary measures, or could be really guilty of laesa majestas.39 A very short hearing sufficed to show them that this was some religious opinion entertained by a few poor people, and so far from taking strong measures or inflicting any punishment, they contented themselves with making Jason and the others give some pecuniary security40 that they would keep the peace, and so dismissed them. But this was a sufficient sign that for the present further mission work would be impossible. No magistrates like the presence of even an innocently disturbing element in their jurisdiction, and if Paul and Silas were brought in person before them, they might not escape so easily. Nor, in the defective police regulations of antiquity, was it at all certain that the moderation of the magistrates would be an efficient protection to two poor Jews from the hatred and violence of a mob. In any case it is probable that they would be unwilling to run the risk of impoverishing Jason and their other friends by causing a forfeiture of the scant and much–needed earnings which they had been obliged to pledge. The brethren, therefore, devised means to secure the escape of Paul and Silas by night. It is not impossible that Timotheus stayed among them for a time, to teach and organise the Church, and to add those last exhortations which should nerve them to bear up against the persecutions of many years.41 For in the Church of the Thessalonians, which was in some respects the fairest gain of his mission, St. Paul felt an intense solicitude, manifested by the watchful care with which he guarded its interests.42
When night had fallen over the tumult which had been surging through the streets of Thessalonica, news of the issue of the trial before the Politarchs was brought to Paul and Silas in their concealment. The dawn might easily witness a still more dangerous outbreak, and they therefore planned an immediate escape. They gathered together their few poor possessions, and under the cover of darkness stole through the silent and deserted streets under the triumphal Arch of Augustus, and through the western gate. Whither should they now turn? From Philippi, the virtual capital of Macedonia Prima, they had been driven to Thessalonica, the capital of Macedonia Secunda. An accidental collision with Gentile interests had cost them flagellation, outrage, and imprisonment in the colony; the fury of Jewish hatred had imperilled their lives, and caused trouble and loss to their friends in the free city. Should they now make their way to Pella, the famous birthplace of the young Greek who had subdued the world, and whose genius had left an indelible impress on the social and political conditions which they everywhere encountered? To do this would be obviously useless. The Jewish synagogues of the dispersion were in close connexion with each other, and the watchword would now be evidently given to hound the fugitives from place to place, and especially to silence Paul as the arch–apostate who was persuading all men everywhere, as they calumniously asserted, to forsake the Law of Moses. Another and less frequented road would lead them to a comparatively unimportant town, which lay off the main route, in which their presence might, for a time at any rate, remain unsuspected. Striking off from the great Via Egnatia to one which took a more southerly direction, the two fugitives made their way through the darkness. A night escape of at least fifty miles, along an unknown road, involving the dangers of pursuit and the crossing of large and frequently flooded rivers like the Axius, the Echidorus, the Lydias, and some of the numerous affluents of the Haliacmon, is passed over with a single word. Can we wonder at the absence of all allusion to the beauties, delights, and associations of travel in the case of one whose travels were not only the laborious journeys, beset with incessant hardships, of a sickly Jewish artisan, but also those of one whose life in its endless trials was a spectacle unto the universe, to angels and to men?43
The town which they had in view as a place of refuge was Berœa,44 and their motive in going there receives striking and unexpected illustration from a passage of Cicero. In his passionate philippic against Piso he says to him that after his gross maladministration of Macedonia, he was so unpopular that he had to slink into Thessalonica incognito, and by night;45 and that from thence, unable to bear the concert of wailers, and the hurricane of complaints, he left the main road and fled to the out–of–the–way town of Berœa. We cannot doubt that this comparatively secluded position was the reason why Paul and Silas chose it as safer than the more famous and frequented Pella.
And as they traversed the pleasant streets of the town— “dewy,” like those of Tivoli, “with twinkling rivulets”—it must have been with sinking hearts, in spite of all their courage and constancy, that Paul and Silas once more made their way, as their first duty, into the synagogue of the Jews. But if the life of the Christian missionary has its own breadths of gloom, it also has its lights, and after all the stroms which they had encountered they were cheered in their heaviness by a most encouraging reception. The Jews of this synagogue were less obstinate, less sophisticated, than those whom St. Paul ever found elsewhere. When he had urged upon them those arguments from the Psalms, and from Isaiah, and from Habakkuk, about a Messiah who was to die, and suffer, and rise again, and about faith as the sole means of justification, the Jews, instead of turning upon him as soon as they understood the full scope and logical conclusions of his arguments, proved themselves to be “nobler”46 than those of Thessalonica—more generous, more simple, more sincere and truth–loving. Instead of angrily rejecting this new Gospel, they daily and diligently searched the Scriptures to judge Paul’s arguments and references by the word and the testimony. The result was that many Jews believed, as well as Greeks—men and women of the more respectable classes. They must have spent some weeks of calm among these open–minded Berœans, for twice during the stay St. Paul conceived the design of going back to his beloved Thessalonians. Untoward obstacles prevented this,47 and so heavily did the interests of the persecuted Church rest on his mind that either from Berœa, or subsequently from Athens, he sent Timothy to inquire into and report their state. One permanent friend, both to St. Paul and to Christianity, was gained in the person of Sopater, of Berœa.
But it would have been too much to hope that all should be thus open to conviction, and the news was soon unfavourably reported to the Synagogue of Thessalonica. The hated name of Paul acted like a spark on their inflammable rage, and they instantly despatched emissaries to stir up storms among the mob of Berœa.48 Once more Paul received timely notice from some faithful friend. It was impossible to face this persistent and organised outburst of hatred which was now pursuing him from city to city. And since it was clear that Paul, and not Silas, was the main object of persecution, it was arranged that, while Paul made good his escape, Silas and Timothy—who may have joined his companions during their residence at Berœa—should stay to set in order all that was wanting, and water the good seed which had begun to spring.
And so—once more in his normal condition of a fugitive—St. Paul left Berœa. He was not alone, and either from the weakness of his eyesight or from his liability to epilepsy, all his movements were guided by others. “The brethren” sent him away to go seawards,49 and there can be little doubt that they led him sixteen miles to the colony of Dium,50 whence he sailed for Athens. That he did not proceed by land seems certain. It was the longer, the more expensive, the more dangerous, and the more fatiguing route. If St. Paul was so little able to make his way alone that, even by the sea route, some of the Berœan brethren were obliged to accompany him till they left him safe in lodgings at Athens, it is clear that by the land route their difficulties, to say nothing of the danger of pursuit, would have been much increased. The silence of St. Luke as to any single town visited on the journey is conclusive,51 and we must suppose that some time in autumn, St. Paul embarked on the stormy waves of the Mediterranean, and saw the multitudinous and snowy peaks of Olympus melt into the distant blue. He sailed along shores of which every hill and promontory is voiceful with heroic memories; past Ossa and Pelion, past the coast of Thermopylæ, along the shores of Eubœa,52 round the “marbled steep” of Sunium, where the white Temple still stood entire, until his eye caught the well–known glimpse of the crest and spear–head of Athene Promachos on the Acropolis,53—the helm was turned, and, entering a lovely harbour, his ship dropped anchor in full sight of the Parthenon and the Propylæa.
Book VIII
CHRISTIANITY IN ACHAIA
Ὠ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι
Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι, δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον.—PIND. Fr. 47.
Τοιοῦτον αὐτοῖς Ἄρεος εὔβουλον πάγον
ἐγὼ συνήδη χθόνιον ὄνθʼ, ὅς οὐκ ἐᾷ
Τοιούσδʼ ἀλήτας τῇδʼ ὁμοῦ ναίειν πόλει.—SOPH. Œd.Col. 947.
Ποῦ νῦν τῆς Ἑλλάδος ὁ τῦφος; ποῦ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν τὸ ὄνομα; ποῦ τῶν φιλοσόφων ὁ λῆρος; ὁ ἀπὸ Γαλιλαίας, ὁ ἀπὸ Βηθσαΐδα, ὁ ἄγροικος πάντων ἐκείνων περιεγένετο.— CHRYS. Hom. iv. inAct. iii. (Opp. ix. 38, ed. Montfaucon).