Thessalonica
VIEW:18 DATA:01-04-2020
victory against the Thessalians
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
THESSALONICA (modern Saloniki).An important city of the Roman province Macedonia, situated on the Via Egnatia, the overland route from Italy to the E., and at the north-eastern corner of the Thermaic Gulf. Its buildings rose above one another in tiers on the slopes of the hills. The situation is in every respect admirable, and must have been early occupied. This city was founded about b.c. 315, and named after a stepsister of Alexander the Great. Its greatness under Macedonian rule was even extended under Roman rule. It became the capital of the Roman province Macedonia, constituted b.c. 146. It was made a free city in b.c. 42 (Act_17:5 knows this fact), and was ruled by its own magistrates under the rather rare title politarchs, who were 5 or 6 in number. There were many Jews here, as the possession of a synagogue shows (Act_17:1), and a number of proselytes (Act_17:4). The enemies of St. Paul raised a cry of treason, and a serious riot resulted. Some of Pauls friends had to give security that this would not be repeated. This forced Paul to leave the city. Members of the church here were Jason, Gaius, Secundus, Aristarchus. See Thessalonians.
A. Souter.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
A town of Macedonia on the Thermaic gulf, now the gulf of Saloniki. Therma was its original name, which Cossander changed into Thessalonica in honour of his wife, Philip's daughter. It rises from the end of the basin at the head of the gulf up the declivity behind, presenting a striking appearance from the sea. After the battle of Pydna Thessalonica fell under Rome and was made capital of the second region of Macedonia. Afterward, when the four regions or governments were united in one province, Thessalonica became virtually the metropolis. Situated on the Via Ignatia which traversed the S. coast of Macedonia and Thrace, connecting thereby those regions with Rome, Thessalonica, with its harbour on the other hand connecting it commercially with Asia Minor, naturally took the leading place among the cities in that quarter. Paul was on the Via Ignatia at Neapolis and Philippi, Amphipolis and Apollonia (Act_16:11-40; Act_17:1), as well as at Thessalonica. The population of Saloniki is even now 60,000, of whom 10,000 are Jews.
Trade in all ages attracted the latter to Thessalonica, and their synagogue here was the starting point of Paul's evangelizing. Octavius Augustus rewarded its adhesion to his cause in the second civil war by making it "a free city" with a popular assembly ("the people") and "rulers of the city" (politarchs: Act_17:1; Act_17:5; Act_17:8); this political term is to be read still on an arch spanning the main street, from it we learn there were seven politarchs. Its commercial intercourse with the inland plains of Macedonia on the N., and on the S. with Greece by sea, adapted it admirably as a center from whence the gospel word "sounded out not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place" (1Th_1:8). Paul visited T. on his second missionary tour. (See PAUL and JASON on this visit.) Other Thessalonian Christians were Demas perhaps, Gaius (Act_19:29), Secundus, and Aristarchus (Act_20:4; Act_27:2; Act_19:29).
On the same night that the Jewish assault on Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas his guests took place, the latter two set out for Berea. Again Paul visited Thessalonica (Act_20:1-3), probably also after his first imprisonment at Rome (1Ti_1:3, in accordance with his hope, Php_1:25-26; Php_2:24). Thessalonica was the mainstay of Eastern Christianity in the Gothic invasion in the third century. To Thessalonica the Sclaves and the Bulgarians owed their conversion; from whence it was called "the orthodox city." It was taken by the Saracens in 904 A.D., by the Crusaders in 1185 A.D., and by the Turks in 1430; and the murder of the foreign consuls in 1876 had much to do with the last war of 1876-1877, between Russia and Turkey. Eustathius, the critic of the 12th century, belonged to Thessalonica. The main street still standing is the old Via Ignatia, running E. and W., as is shown by the two arches which span it, one at the E. the other at the W. end; on that at the E. end are figures in low relief representing the triumphs of a Roman emperor.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Thessaloni'ca. The original name of this city was Therma; and that part of the Macedonian shore, on which it was situated, retained through the Roman period, the designation of the Thermaic Gulf. Cassander, the son of Antipater, rebuilt and enlarged Therma, and named it after his wife, Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great. The name ever since, under various slight modifications, has been continuous, and the city itself has never ceased to be eminent. Saloniki is still the most important town of European Turkey, next after Constantinople. Strabo, in the first century, speaks of Thessalonica as the most populous city in Macedonia.
Visit of Paul. ? St. Paul visited Thessalonica, (with Silas and Timothy), during his second missionary journey, and introduced Christianity there. The first scene of the apostle's work at Thessalonica was the synagogue. Act_17:2-3. It is stated that the ministrations among the Jews, continued for three weeks. Act_17:2. Not that we are obliged to limit to this time, the whole stay of the apostle at Thessalonica. A flourishing church was certainly formed there; and the Epistles show that its elements were more Gentile than Jewish. [For persecution and further history, See Paul.]
Circumstances which led Paul to Thessalonica. ? Three circumstances must here be mentioned, which illustrate, in an important manner, this visit, and this journey, as well as the two Epistles to the Thessalonians.
This was the chief station on the great Roman road called the Via Egnatia, which connected Rome with the whole region to the north of the Aegean Sea.
Placed as if was on this great road, and in connection with other important Roman ways, Thessalonica was an invaluable centre, for the spread of the gospel. In fact, it was nearly, if not quite, on a level with Corinth and Ephesus, in its share of the commerce of the Levant.
The circumstance noted in Act_17:1, that here was the synagogue of the Jews in this part of Macedonia, had evidently much to do with the apostle's plans, and also, doubtless, with his success. Trade would inevitably bring Jews to Thessalonica; and it is remarkable that they have, ever since, had a prominent place in the annals of the city.
Later ecclesiastical history. ? During several centuries, this city was the bulwark, not simply of the later Greek empire, but of Oriental Christendom, and was largely instrumental, in the conversion of the Slavonians and Bulgarians. Thus, it received the designation of "the orthodox city;" and its struggles are very prominent, in the writings of the Byzantine historians.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
a celebrated city in Macedonia, and capital, of that kingdom, standing upon the Thesmaic Sea. Stephen of Byzantium says that it was improved and beautified by Philip, king of Macedon, and called Thessalonica in memory of the victory that he obtained over the Thessalians. Its old name was Thesma. The Jews had a synagogue here, and their number was considerable, Acts 17.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
After Alexander the Great established the Greek Empire (fourth century BC), the Greeks built many magnificent cities. One of these was Thessalonica in Alexanders home state of Macedonia. When the Greek Empire was later replaced by the Roman, Macedonia was made a Roman province, with Thessalonica as its political centre. The city was on the main route from Rome to Asia Minor, and is still an important city today.
There is only one recorded occasion on which Paul visited Thessalonica. This was on his second missionary journey, when he founded the church there, despite much opposition from the Jews. The church consisted mainly of Gentiles (Act_17:1-7; 1Th_1:9). Although Paul worked to help support himself while in Thessalonica (1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:7-8), he received additional support from another Macedonian church, Philippi (Php_4:16).
The church continued to grow after Paul left, and within a short time had spread the gospel throughout the surrounding countryside (1Th_1:6-8; 1Th_2:13-14). An important man in the church at Thessalonica was Aristarchus, who later went with Paul to Rome and remained there during Pauls imprisonment (Act_20:4; Act_27:1-2; Col_4:10; Philem 24). (For an area map and for details of the two letters Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, see THESSALONIANS, LETTERS TO THE.)
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
thes-a-lṓ-nı̄?ka (Θεσσαλονίκη, Thessalonı́kē, ethnic Θεσσαλονικεύς, Thessalonikeús):
1. Position and Name:
One of the chief towns of Macedonia from Hellenistic times down to the present day. It lies in 40 degrees 40 minutes North latitude, and 22 degrees 50 minutes East longitude, at the northernmost point of the Thermaic Gulf (Gulf of Salonica), a short distance to the East of the mouth of the Axius (Vardar). It is usually maintained that the earlier name of Thessalonica was Therma or Therme, a town mentioned both by Herodotus (vii. 121 ff, 179 ff) and by Thucydides (i. 61; ii. 29), but that its chief importance dates from about 315 BC, when the Macedonian king Cassander, son of Antipater, enlarged and strengthened it by concentrating there the population of a number of neighboring towns and villages, and renamed it after his wife Thessalonica, daughter of Philip II and step-sister of Alexander the Great. This name, usually shortened since medieval times into Salonica or Saloniki, it has retained down to the present. Pliny, however, speaks of Therma as still existing side by side with Thessalonica (NH, iv. 36), and it is possible that the latter was an altogether new foundation, which took from Therma a portion of its inhabitants and replaced it as the most important city on the Gulf.
2. History:
Thessalonica rapidly became populous and wealthy. In the war between Perseus and the Romans it appears as the headquarters of the Macedonian navy (Livy xliv. 10) and when, after the battle of Pydna (168 BC), the Romans divided the conquered territory into four districts, it became the capital of the second of these (Livy xlv. 29), while later, after the organization of the single Roman province of Macedonia in 146 BC, it was the seat of the governor and thus practically the capital of the whole province. In 58 BC Cicero spent the greater part of his exile there, at the house of the quaestor Plancius (Pro Plancio 41, 99; Epistle Ad Att, iii. 8-21). In the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Thessalonica took the senatorial side and formed one of Pompey's chief bases (49-48 BC), but in the final struggle of the republic, six years later, it proved loyal to Antony and Octavian, and was rewarded by receiving the status and privileges of a ?free city? (Pliny, NH, iv. 36). Strabo, writing in the reign of Augustus, speaks of it as the most populous town in Macedonia and the metropolis of the province (vii. 323, 330), and about the same time the poet Antipater, himself a native of Thessalonica, refers to the city as ?mother of all Macedon? (Jacobs, Anthol. Graec., II, p. 98, number 14); in the 2nd century of our era Lucian mentions it as the greatest city of Macedonia (Asinus, 46). It was important, not only as a harbor with a large import and export trade, but also as the principal station on the great Via Egnatia, the highway from the Adriatic to the Hellespont.
3. Paul's Visit:
Paul visited the town, together with Silas and Timothy, on his 2nd missionary journey. He had been at Philippi, and traveled thence by the Egnatian Road, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia on the way (Act_17:1). He found at Thessalonica a synagogue of the Jews, in which for three successive Sabbaths he preached the gospel, basing his message upon the types and prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures (Act_17:2, Act_17:3). Some of the Jews became converts and a considerable number of proselytes and Greeks, together with many women of high social standing (Act_17:4). Among these converts were in all probability Aristarchus and Secundus, natives of Thessalonica, whom we afterward find accompanying Paul to Asia at the close of his 3rd missionary journey (Act_20:4). The former of them was, indeed, one of the apostle's most constant companions; we find him with Paul at Ephesus (Act_19:29) and on his journey to Rome (Act_27:2), while in two of his Epistles, written during his captivity, Paul refers to Aristarchus as still with him, his fellow-prisoner (Col_4:10; Phm_1:24). Gaius, too, who is mentioned in conjunction with Aristarchus, may have been a Thessalonian (Act_19:29). How long Paul remained at Thessalonica on his 1st visit we cannot precisely determine; certainly we are not to regard his stay there as confined to three weeks, and Ramsay suggests that it probably extended from December, 50 AD, to May, 51 AD (St. Paul the Traveler, 228). In any case, we learn that the Philippines sent him assistance on two occasions during the time which he spent there (Phi_4:16), although he was ?working night and day? to maintain himself (1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:8). Paul, the great missionary strategist, must have seen that from no other center could Macedonia be permeated with the gospel so effectively as from Thessalonica (1Th_1:8).
But his success roused the jealousy of the Jews, who raised a commotion among the dregs of the city populace (Act_17:5). An attack was made on the house of Jason, with whom the evangelists were lodging, and when these were not found Jason himself and some of the other converts were dragged before the magistrates and accused of harboring men who had caused tumult throughout the Roman world, who maintained the existence of another king, Jesus, and acted in defiance of the imperial decrees. The magistrates were duly alive to the seriousness of the accusation, but, since no evidence was forthcoming of illegal practices on the part of Jason or the other Christians, they released them on security (Act_17:5-9). Foreseeing further trouble if Paul should continue his work in the town, the converts sent Paul and Silas (and possibly Timothy also) by night to Berea, which lay off the main road and is referred to by Cicero as an out-of-the-way town (oppidum devium: in Pisonem 36). The Berean Jews showed a greater readiness to examine the new teaching than those of Thessalonica, and the work of the apostle was more fruitful there, both among Jews and among Greeks (Act_17:10-13). But the news of this success reached the Thessalonian Jews and inflamed their hostility afresh. Going to Berea, they raised a tumult there also, and made it necessary for Paul to leave the town and go to Athens (Act_17:14, Act_17:15).
Several points in this account are noteworthy as illustrating the strict accuracy of the narrative of the Acts. Philippi was a Roman town, military rather than commercial; hence, we find but few Jews there and no synagogue; the magistrates bear the title of praetors (Act_16:20, Act_16:22, Act_16:35, Act_16:36, Act_16:38 the Revised Version margin) and are attended by lictors (Act_16:35, Act_16:38 the Revised Version margin); Paul and Silas are charged with the introduction of customs which Romans may not observe (Act_16:21); they are beaten with rods (Act_16:22) and appeal to their privileges as Roman citizens (16:37, 38). At Thessalonica all is changed. We are here in a Greek commercial city and a seaport, a ?free city,? moreover, enjoying a certain amount of autonomy and its own constitution. Here we find a large number of resident Jews and a synagogue. The charge against Paul is that of trying to replace Caesar by another king; the rioters wish to bring him before ?the people,? i.e. the popular assembly characteristic of Greek states, and the magistrates of the city bear the Greek name of politarchs (Act_17:5-9). This title occurs nowhere in Greek literature, but its correctness is proved beyond possibility of question by its occurrence in a number of inscriptions of this period, which have come to light in Thessalonica and the neighborhood, and will be found collected in AJT (1898, 598) and in M. G. Dimitsas, (Μακεδονία, Makedonia), 422 ff. Among them the most famous is the inscription engraved on the arch which stood at the western end of the main street of Salonica and was called the Vardar Gate. The arch itself, which was perhaps erected to commemorate the victory of Philippi, though some authorities assign it to a later date, has been removed, and the inscription is now in the British Museum (CIG, 1967; Leake, Northern Greece, III, 236; Le Bas, Voyage archeologique, number 1357; Vaux, Trans. Royal Sec. Lit., VIII, 528). This proves that the politarchs were six in number, and it is a curious coincidence that in it occur the names Sosipater, Gaius and Secundus, which are berate by three Macedonian converts, of whom the first two were probably Thessalonians, the last certainly.
4. The Thessalonian Church:
The Thessalonian church was a strong and flourishing one, composed of Gentiles rather than of Jews, if we may judge from the tone of the two Epistles addressed to its members, the absence of quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament, and the phrase ?Ye turned unto God from idols? (1Th_1:9; compare also 1Th_2:14). These, by common consent the earliest of Paul's Epistles, show us that the apostle was eager to revisit Thessalonica very soon after his enforced departure: ?once and again? the desire to return was strong in him, but ?Satan hindered? him (1Th_2:18) - a reference probably to the danger and loss in which such a step would involve Jason and the other leading converts. But though himself prevented from continuing his work at Thessalonica, he sent Timothy from Athens to visit the church and confirm the faith of the Christians amid their hardships and persecutions (1Th_3:2-10). The favorable report brought back by Timothy was a great comfort to Paul, and at the same time intensified his longing to see his converts again (1Th_3:10, 1Th_3:11). This desire was to be fulfilled more than once. Almost certainly Paul returned there on his 3rd missionary journey, both on his way to Greece (Act_20:1) and again while he was going thence to Jerusalem (Act_20:3); it is on this latter occasion that we hear of Aristarchus and Secundus accompanying him (Act_20:4). Probably Paul was again in Thessalonica after his first imprisonment. From the Epistle to the Philippians (Act_1:26; Act_2:24), written during his captivity, we learn that his intention was to revisit Philippi if possible, and 1Ti_1:3 records a subsequent journey to Macedonia, in the course of which the apostle may well have made a longer or shorter stay at Thessalonica. The only other mention of the town in the New Testament occurs in 2Ti_4:10, where Paul writes that Demas has forsaken him and has gone there. Whether Demas was a Thessalonian, as some have supposed, cannot be determined.
5. Later History:
For centuries the city remained one of the chief strongholds of Christianity, and it won for itself the title of ?the Orthodox City,? not only by the tenacity and vigor of its resistance to the successive attacks of various barbarous races, but also by being largely responsible for their conversion to Christianity.
From the middle of the 3rd century AD it was entitled ?metropolis and colony,? and when Diocletian (284-305) divided Macedonia into two provinces, Thessalonica was chosen as the capital of the first of these. It was also the scene in 390 AD of the famous massacre ordered by Theodosius the Great, for which Ambrose excluded that emperor for some months from the cathedral at Milan. In 253 the Goths had made a vain attempt to capture the city, and again in 479 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, found it so strong and well prepared that he did not venture to attack it. From the 6th to the 9th century it was engaged in repeated struggles against Avars, Slavonians and Bulgarians, whose attacks it repelled with the utmost difficulty. Finally, in 904 AD it was captured by the Saracens, who, after slaughtering a great number of the inhabitants and burning a considerable portion of the city, sailed away carrying with them 22,000 captives, young men, women and children. In 1185, when the famous scholar Eustathius was bishop, the Normans under Tancred stormed the city, and once more a general massacre took place. In 1204 Thessalonica became the center of a Latin kingdom under Boniface, marquis of Monferrat, and for over two centuries it passed from hand to hand, now ruled by Latins now by Greeks, until in 1430 it fell before the sultan Amurath II. After that time it remained in the possession of the Turks, and it was, indeed, the chief European city of their dominions, with the exception of Constantinople, until it was recaptured by the Greeks in the Balkan war of 1912. Its population includes some 32,000 Turks, 47,000 Jews (mostly the descendants of refugees from Spain) and 16,000 Greeks and other Europeans. The city is rich in examples of Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture and art, and possesses, in addition to a large number of mosques, 12 churches and 25 synagogues.
Literature.
The fullest account of the topography of Thessalonica and its history, especially from the 5th to the 15th century, is that of Tafel, De Thessalonica eiusque agro. Dissertatio geographica, Berlin, 1839; compare also the Histories of Gibbon and Finlay. A description of the town and its ancient remains is given by Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, III, 235 ff; Cousinery, Voyage dans la Macedoine, I, 23 ff; Heuzey, Mission archeol. de Macedoine, 272 ff; and other travelers. The inscriptions, mostly in Greek, are collected in Dimitsas, (Μακεδονία, Makedonı́a), 421 ff.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Thessaloni?ca, now called Salonichi, is still a city of about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, situated on the present gulf of Salonichi, which was formerly called Sinus Thermaicus, at the mouth of the River Echedorus. It was the residence of a praeses, the principal city of the second part of Macedonia, and was by later writers even styled metropolis. Under the Romans it became great, populous, and wealthy. It had its name from Thessalonice, wife of Cassander, who built the city on the site of the ancient Thermae, after which town the Sinus Thermaicus was called. Thessalonica was 267 Roman miles east of Apollonia and Dyrrachium, 66 miles from Amphipolis, 89 from Philippi, 433 west from Byzantium, and 150 south of Sophia. A great number of Jews were living at Thessalonica in the time of the apostle Paul, and also many Christian converts, most of whom seem to have been either Jews by birth or proselytes before they embraced Christianity by the preaching of Paul. Jews are still very numerous in this town, and possess much influence there. They are unusually exclusive, keeping aloof from strangers. The apostolical history of the place is given in the preceding article. The present town stands on the acclivity of a steep hill, rising at the northeastern extremity of the bay. It presents an imposing appearance from the sea, with which the interior by no means corresponds. The principal antiquities are the propylaea of the hippodrome, the rotunda, and the triumphal arches of Augustus and Constantine.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(θεσσαλονίκη, in classical writers also θεσσαλονικεία and θετταλονίκη), a large and important town of Macedonia, visited by Paul on several occasions, and the seat of a Church to which two of his letters were addressed. (For fuller details we refer to Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography, s.v.)
I. Name. Two legendary names which Thessalonica is said to have borne in early times are Emathia (Zonar. -Hist. 12:26) and Halia (Steph. B. s.v.), the latter probably having reference to the maritime position of the town. During the first period of its authentic history, it was known under the name of Therma (θέρ μα, Esch.; θέρμη, Herod.,Thucyd.; θέρ μαι, Malelas, Chronog. p. 190, ed. Bonn), 1 derived, in common with the designation of the gulf (Thermaicus Sinus), from the hot salt-springs which are found on various parts of this coast, and one of which especially is described by Pococke as being at a distance of four English miles from the modern city (see Scylax, p. 278, ed. Gail). Three stories are told of the origin of the name Thessalonica. The first (and by far the most probable) is given by Strabo (7, Epit. 10), who says that Therma was rebuilt by Cassander, and called after his wife Thessalonica, the daughter of Philip; the second is found in Steph. B. (s.v.), who says that its new name was a memorial of a victory obtained by Philip over the Thessalians (see Const. Porphyrog. De Them. 2, 51. ed. Bonn); the third is in the Etym. Magn. (s.v.), where it is stated that Philip himself gave the name in honor of his daughter. Whichever of these stories is true, the new name of Thessalonica, and the new eminence connected with the name, are distinctly associated with the Macedonian period, and not at all with the earlier passages of true Greek history. The name thus given became permanent. Through the Roman and Byzantine periods it remained unaltered. In the Middle Ages the Italians gave it the form of Salonichi or Saloniki, which is still frequent. In Latin chronicles we find Salonicia. In German poems of the 13th century the name appears, With a Teutonic termination, as Salnek. The uneducated Greeks of the present day call the place, Σαλο νίκη, the Turks Selanik.
II. Situation. This is well described by Pliny (4, 10) as medio flexu litoris [sinus Thermaici]. The gulf extends about thirty leagues in a north- westerly direction from the group of the Thessalian islands, and then turns to the north-east, forming a noble basin between Capes Vardar and Karaburnu. On the edge of this basin is the city, partly on the level shore and partly on the slope of a hill, in 40° 38'47 N. lat., and 22° 57'22 E. long. The present appearance of the city, as seen from the sea, is described by Leake, Holland, and other travelers as very imposing. It rises in the form of a crescent up the declivity, and is surrounded by lofty whitened walls with towers at intervals. On the east and west sides of the city ravines ascend from the shore and converge towards the highest point, on which is the citadel called ῾Επταπύργιον, like that of Constantinople. The port is still convenient for large ships, and the anchorage in front of the town is good. These circumstances in the situation of Thessalonica were evidently favorable for commanding the trade of the Macedonian sea. Its relations to the inland districts were equally advantageous, With one of the two great levels of Macedonia, viz. the plain of the wide-flowing Axius (Homer, II. 2, 849), to the north of the range of Olympus, it was immediately connected. With the other, the plain of the Strymon and Lake Cercinitis, it communicated by a pass across the neck of the Chalcidic peninsula. Its distance from Pella, as given by the Itineraries, is twenty-seven miles,: and from Amphipolis (with intermediate stations; see Act_17:1) sixty-seven miles. It is still the chief center of the trade of the district. It contains a population of 60,000 or 70,000, and (though Adrianople may possibly be larger) it is the most important town of European Turkey next after Constantinople.
III. Political and Military History. Thessalonica was a place of some importance even while it bore its earlier name of Therma. Three passages of chief interest may be mentioned in this period of its history. Xerxes rested here on his march, his land-forces being encamped on the plain between Therma and the Axius, and his ships cruising about the Thermaic gulf; and it was the view from hence of Olympus and Ossa which tempted him to explore the course of the Peneus (Herod. 7:128 sq.). A short time (B.C. 421) before the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, Therma was occupied by the Athenians (Thucyd. 1, 61); but two years later it was given up to Perdiccas (ibid. 2, 29). The third mention of Therma is in Eschines (De Fals. Leg. p. 31, ed. Bekk.), where it is spoken of as one of the places taken by Pausanias.
The true history of Thessalonica begins, as we have implied above, with the decay of Greek nationality. The earliest author who mentions it under its new name is Polybius. It seems probable that it was rebuilt in the same year (B.C. 315) with Cassandrea, immediately after the fall of Pydna and the death of Olympias. We are told by Strabo. (loc.cit.) that Cassander incorporated in his new city the population not only of Therma, but likewise of three smaller towns, viz. Anea and Cissus (which are supposed to have been on the eastern side of the gulf) and Chalastra (which is said by Strabo [7, Epit. 9] to have been on the farther side of the Axius, whence Tafel [p. 22], by some mistake, infers that it lay between the Axius and Therma). It does not appear that these earlier cities were absolutely destroyed; nor, indeed, is it certain that Therma lost its separate existence. Pliny (loc. cit.) seems to imply that a place bearing this name was near Thessalonica; but the text is probably corrupt.
As we approach the Roman period, Thessalonica begins to be more and more mentioned. From Livy (44, 10) this city would appear to have been the great Macedonian naval station. It surrendered to the Romans after the battle of Pydna (ibid. 44, 45), and was made the capital of the second of the four divisions of Macedonia (ibid. 45, 29). Afterwards, when the whole of Macedonia was reduced to one province (Flor. 2, 14), Thessalonica was its most important city, and virtually its metropolis, though not so called till a later period. SEE MACEDONIA. Cicero, during his exile, found a refuge here in the quaestor's house (Pro Planc. 41); and on his journeys to and from his province of Cilicia he passed this way, and wrote here several of his extant letters. During the first civil war Thessalonica was the headquarters of the Pompeian party and the Senate (Dion Cass. 41, 20). During the second it took the side of Octavius and Antonius (Plutarch, Brut. 46; Appian, B. C. 4:118), and reaped the advantage of this course by being made a free city (see Pliny, loc. cit.). It is possible that the word ἐλευθερίας, with the head of Octavia, on some of the coins of Thessalonica, has reference to this circumstance (see Eckhel, 2, 79); and some writers see in the Vardar gate, mentioned below, a monument of the victory over Brutus and Cassius.
Even before the close of the Republic, Thessalonica was a city of great importance, in consequence of its position on the line of communication between Rome and the Earst. Cicero speaks of it as posita in gremio imperil nostri. It increased in size and rose in importance with the consolidation of the Empire. Strabo, in the 1st century, and Lucian.'in the 2nd, speak in strong language of the amount of its population. The supreme magistrates (apparently six in number) who ruled in Thessalonica as a free city of the Empire were entitled πολιτάρχαι, as we learn from the remarkable coincidence of Luke's language (Act_17:6) with an inscription on the Vardar gate (Bockh, 1967.'Belley mentions another inscription containing the same term). In Act_17:5 the δῆμος is mentioned, which formed part of the constitution of the city. Tafel thinks that it had a βουλή also.
During the first three centuries of the Christian sera Thessalonica was the capital of the whole country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea; and even after the founding of Constantinople it remained practically the metropolis of Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum. In the middle of the 3rd century, as we learn from coins, it was made a Roman colonia; perhaps with the view of strengthening this position against the barbarian invasions, which now became threatening. Thessalonica was-the great safeguard of the Empire during the first shock of the Gothic inroads. Constantine passed some time here after his victory over the Samarians; and perhaps the second arch, which is mentioned below, was a commemoration of this victory. He is said also, by Zosimus (2, 86, ed. Bonn), to have constructed the port, by which we are, no doubt, to understand that he repaired and improved it after a time of comparative neglect. Passing by the dreadful massacre by Theodosius (Gibbon, Rome, ch. 27), we come to the Slavonic wars, of which the Gothic wars were only the prelude, and the brunt of which was successfully borne by Thessalonica from the middle of the 6th century to the latter part of the 8th. The history of these six Slavonic wars, and their relation to Thessalonica, has been elaborated with great care by Tafel.
In the course of the Middle Ages, Thessalonica was three times taken; and its history during this period is thus conveniently divided into three stages. On Sunday, July 29, 904, the Saracen fleet appeared before the city, which was stormed after a few days fighting. The slaughter of the citizens was dreadful, and vast numbers were sold in the various slave-markets of the Levant. The story of these events is told by Jo. Cameniata, who was crosier-bearer to the archbishop of Thessalonica. From his narrative it has been inferred that the population of the city at that time must have been 220,000 (De Excidio Thessalonicensi, in the volume entitled Theophanes Continuatus of the Bonn ed. of the Byzantine writers [1838]). The next great catastrophe of Thessalonica was caused by a different enemy-the Normans of Sicily, The fleet of Tancred sailed round the Morea to the Thermaic gulf, while an army marched by the Via Egnatia from Dyrrhachium. Thessalonica was taken on Aug. 15, 1185, and the Greeks were barbarously treated by the Latins, whose cruelties are de scribed by Nicetas Choniates (De Andron. Commeno, p. 4388, ed. Bonn, 1835). The celebrated Eustathius was archbishop of Thessalonica at this time; and he wrote an account of this capture of the city, which was first published by Tafel (Tub. 1832), and is now printed in the Bonn ed. of the Byzantine writers (De Thessalonica a Latinis Capta, in the same vol. with Leo Grammaticus [1842]). Soon after this period follows the curious history of Western feudalism in Thessalonica under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, and his successors, during the first half of the 13th century. The city was again under Latin dominion (having been sold by the Greek emperor to the Venetians), when it was finally Ataken by the Turks under Amurath II, in 1430. This event also is described by a writer in the Bonn Byzantine series (Joannes Anagnostes, De Thessalonicensi Exidio NVarratio, in the same vol. with Phranzes and Cananus [1838]).
For the mediaeval history of Thessalonica see Mr. Finlay's works, Mediaeval Greece (1851), p. 70, 71,135147; Byzantine and Greek Empires (1853), 1, 315-332; (1854), 2, 182, 264-266, 607. For its modern condition we must refer to the travelers, especially Beaujour, Cousindry, Holland, and Leake.
IV. Ecclesiastical History. The annals of Thessalonica are so closely connected with religion that it is desirable to review them in this aspect. After Alexander's death the Jews spread rapidly in all the large cities of the provinces which had formed his empire. Hence there is no doubt that, in the 1st century of the Christian era, they were settled in considerable numbers at Thessalonica; indeed, this circumstance contributed to the first establishment of Christianity there by Paul (Act_17:1). It seems probable that a large community of Jews has been found in this city ever since. They are mentioned in the 7th century, during the Slavonic wars; and again in the 12th, by Eustathis and Benjamin of Tudela. The events of the 15th century had the effect of bringing a large number of Spanish Jews to Thessalonica. Paul Lucas says that in his day there were 30,000 of this nation here, with 22 synagogues. More recent authorities vary between 10,000 and 20,000. The present Jewish quarter is in the south-east part of the town.
Christianity, once established in Thessalonica, spread from it in various directions, in consequence of the mercantile relations of the city (1 Thessalonians 1, 8). During the succeeding centuries this city was the bulwark, not simply of the Byzantine empire, but of Oriental Christendom; and was largely instrumental in the conversion of the Slavonians and Bulgarians. Thus it received the designation of The Orthodox City. It is true that the legends of Demetrius, its patron saint (a martyr of the early part of the 4th century), disfigure the Christian history of Thessalonica; in every siege success or failure seems to have been attributed to the granting or withholding of his favor: but still this see has a distinguished place in the annals of the Church. Theodosius was baptized by its bishop; even his massacre, in consequence of the stern severity of Ambrose, is chiefly connected in our minds with ecclesiastical associations. The see of Thessalonica became almost a patriarchate after this time; and the withdrawal of the provinces subject to its jurisdiction from connection with the see of Rome, in the reign of Leo Isauricus, became one of the principal causes of the separation of East and West. Cameniata, the native historian of the calamity of 904, was, as we have seen, an ecclesiastic. Eustathius, who was archbishop in 1185, was, beyond dispute, the most learned man of his age, and the author of an invaluable commentary on the Iliad and Odyssey, and of theological works, which have been recently published by Tafel. A list of the Latin archbishops of Thessalonica from 1205 to 1418, when a Roman hierarchy was established along with Western feudalism, is given by Le Quien (Oriens Christianus, 3, 1089). Even to the last we find this city connected with questions of religious interest. Simeon of Thessalonica, who is a chief authority in the modern Greek Church on ritual subjects, died a few months before the fatal siege of 1430; and Theodore Gaza, who went to Italy soon after this siege, and, as a Latin ecclesiastic, became the translator of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Hippocrates, was a native of the city of Demetrius and Eustathius.
V. Connection with the Apostle Paul. Paul's visit to Thessalonica (with Silas and Timothy) occurred during his second missionary journey, and to this is due the introduction of Christianity into Thessalonica. Timothy is not mentioned in any part of the direct narrative of what happened at Thessalonica, though he appears as Paul's companion before at Philippi (Act_16:1-13), and afterwards at Beroea (Act_17:14-15); but from his subsequent mission to Thessalonica (1Th_3:1-7; see Act_18:5), and the mention of his name in the opening salutation of both epistles to the Thessalonians, we can hardly doubt that he had been with the apostle throughout.
Three circumstances must here be mentioned, which illustrate in an important manner this visit and this journey, as well as the two epistles to the Thessalonians, which the apostle wrote from Corinth very soon after his departure from his new Macedonian converts.
(1.) This was the chief station on the great Roman road called the Via Egnatia, which connected Rome with the whole region to the north of the Eggean Sea. Paul was on this road at Neapolis (Act_16:11) and Philippi (Act_16:12-40), and his route from the latter place (Act_17:1) had brought him through two of the well-known minor stations mentioned in the Itineraries. SEE AMPHIPOLIS; SEE APOLLONIA
(2.) Placed as it was on this great road, and in connection with other important Roman ways, Thessalonica was an invaluable centre for the spread of the Gospel. It must be remembered that, be sides its inland communication with the rich plains of Macedonia and with far more remote regions, its maritime position made it a great emporium of trade by sea. In fact, it was nearly, if not quite, on a level with Corinth and Ephesus in its share of the commerce of the Levant. Thus we see the force of what Paul says in his first epistle, shortly-after leaving Thessalonica ἄφ᾿ ὑμῶν ἐξήχηται ὁ λόγος τοῦ Κυρίου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῇ Μακεδονιᾷ καὶ ἐν τῇ Α᾿χαϊvᾷ ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ (1, 8).
(3.) The circumstance noted in Act_17:1, that here was the synagogue of the Jews in this part of Macedonia, had-evidently much to do with the apostle's plans, and also doubtless with his success. Trade would inevitably bring Jews to Thessalonica; and it is remarkable that, ever since, they have had a prominent place in the annals of the city.
The first scene of the apostle's work at Thessalonica was the synagogue. According to his custom, he began there, arguing from the ancient Scriptures (Act_17:2-3); and the same general results followed as in other places. Some believed, both Jews and proselytes, and it is particularly added that among these were many influential women (Act_17:4); on which the general body of the Jews, stirred up with jealousy, excited the Gentile population to persecute Paul and Silas (Act_17:5-10). It is stated that the ministrations among the Jews continued for three weeks (Act_17:2); but we are not obliged to limit to this time the whole stay of the apostles at Thessalonica. A flourishing church was certainly formed there; and the epistles show that its elements were much more Gentile than Jewish. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as having turned from idols; and he does not here, as in other epistles, quote the Jewish Scriptures. In all respects it is important to compare these two letters with the narrative in the Acts; and such references have the greater freshness from the short interval which elapsed between visiting the Thessalonians and writing to them. Such expressions as ἐν θλίψει πολλῇ (1Th_1:6), and ἐν πολλῷ ἀγῶνι (1Th_2:2), sum up the suffering and conflict which Paul and Silas and their converts went through at Thessalonica (see also 1Th_2:14-15; 1Th_3:3-4; 2Th_1:4-7). The persecution took place through the instrumentality of worthless idlers (τῶν ἀγοραίων ἄνδρας τινὰς πονη ρούς, Act_17:5), who, instigated by the Jews, raised a tumult. The house of Jason, with whom the apostles seem to have been residing, was attacked; they themselves were not found, but Jason was brought before the authorities on the accusation that the Christians were trying to set up a new king in opposition to the emperor; a guarantee (τὸ ἱκανόν) was taken from Jason and others for the maintenance of the peace, and Paul and Silas were sent away by night southward to Beroea (Act_17:5-10). The particular charge brought against the apostles receives an illustration from the epistles, where the kingdom of Christ is prominently mentioned (1Th_2:12; 2Th_1:5). So, again, the doctrine of the resurrection is conspicuous both in Luke's narrative (Act_17:3) and in the first letter (1Th_1:10; 1Th_4:14; 1Th_4:16). If we pass from these points to such as are personal, we are enabled from the epistles to complete the picture of Paul's conduct and attitude at Thessalonica, as regards his love, tenderness, and zeal, his care of individual souls, and his disinterestedness (see 1Th_1:5; 1Th_2:1-10). As to this last point, Paul was partly supported here by contributions from Philippi (Php_4:15-16), partly by the labor of his own hands, which he diligently practiced for the sake of the better success of the Gospel, and that he might set an example to the idle and selfish. (He refers very expressly to what he had said and done at Thessalonica in regard to this point; see 1Th_2:9; 1Th_4:11; comp. 2Th_3:8-12.) SEE THESSALONIANS.
To complete the account of Paul's connection with Thessalonica, it must be noticed that he was certainly there again, though the name of the city is not specified, on his third missionary journey, both in going and returning (Act_20:1-3). Possibly he was also there again after his liberation from his first imprisonment. See Php_1:25-26; Php_2:24, for the hope of revisiting Macedonia, entertained by the apostle at Rome, and 1Ti_1:3; 2Ti_4:13; Tit_3:12, for subsequent journeys in the neighborhood of Thessalonica.
Of the first Christians of Thessalonica, we are able to specify by name the above-mentioned Jason (who maybe the same as the apostle's own kinsman mentioned in Rom_16:21), Demas (at least conjecturally; see 2Ti_4:10), Gaius, who shared some of Paul's perils at Ephesus (Act_19:29), Secundus (who accompanied him, from Macedonia to Asia on the eastward route of his third missionary journey, and was probably concerned in the business of the collection; see Act_20:4), and especially Aristarchus (who, besides being mentioned here with Secundus, accompanied Paul on his voyage to Rome, and had therefore probably been with him during the whole interval, and is also specially referred to in two of the epistles written during the first Roman im-prisonment; see Act_27:2; Col_4:10; Phm_1:24; also, Act_19:29, for his association with the apostle at Ephesus in the earlier part of the third journey).
VI. Ancient Remains. The two monuments of greatest interest at Thessalonica are two arches connected with the line of the Via Egnatia. The course of this. Roman road is undoubtedly preserved in the long street which intersects the city from east to west. At its western extremity is the Vardar gate, which is nearly in the line of the modern wall, and which has received its present name from the circumstance of its leading to the river Vardar, or Axius. This is the Roman arch believed by Beaujour, Holland, and others to have been erected by the people of Thessalonica in honor of Octavius and Antonius, and in memory of the battle of Philippi. The arch is constructed of large blocks of marble, and is about twelve feet wide and eighteen feet high; but a considerable portion of it is buried deep be-low the surface of the ground. On the outside face are two bas-reliefs of a Roman wearing the toga and standing before a horse. On this arch is the above-mentioned inscription containing the names of the politarchsof the city. Leake thinks from the style of the sculpture, and Tafel from the occurrence of the name Flaviusin the inscription, that a later date ought to be assigned to the arch (a drawing of it is given by Cousinerry). The other arch is near the eastern (said in Clarke's Travels, 4:359, by mistake, to be near the western) extremity of the main street. It is built of brick and. faced with marble, and formerly consisted of three archways. The sculptured camels give an Oriental aspect to the monument; and it is generally supposed to commemorate the victory of Constantine over Licinius or over the Sarmatians.
Near the line of the main street, between the two above-mentioned arches, are four Corinthian columns supporting an architrave, above which are caryatides; his monument is now part of the house of a Jew; and, from a inoion that the figures were petrified by magic, it is called by the Spanish Jews Las Incantadas. The Turks call it Sureth-Maleh. (A view will be found, with architectural details, in Stuart and Revett, Athen. Antiq. 3, 53). This colonnade is supposed by some to have been part of the Propylea of the Hippodrome, the position of which is believed by Beaujour and Clarke to have been in the south-eastern part of the town, between the sea and a building called the Rotunda, now a mosque, previously the church Eski- Metropoli, but formerly a temple, and in construction similar to the Pantheon at Rome. Another mosque in Thessalonica, called Eski-Juma, is said by Beaujour to have been a temple consecrated to Venus Thermeea. The city walls are of brick, and of Greek construction, resting on a much older foundation, which consists of hewn stones of immense thickness. Everywhere are broken columns and fragments of sculpture. Many remains were taken in 1430 to Constantinople. One of the towers in the city wall is called the Tower of the Statue, because it contains a colossal figure of Thessalonica, with the representation of a ship at its feet. The castle is partly Greek and partly Venetian. Some columns of verd antique, supposed to be relics of a temple of Hercules, are to be noticed there, and also a shattered triumphal arch, erected (as an inscription proves) in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in honor of Antoninus Pius and his daughter Faustina.
In harmony with what has been noticed of its history, Thessalonica has many remains of ecclesiastical antiquity. Leake says that in this respect it surpasses any other city in Greece. The church of greatest interest (now a mosque) is that of St. Sophia, built, according to tradition, like the church of the same name at Constantinople, in the reign of Justinian, and after the designs of the architect Anthemius. This church is often mentioned in the records of the Middle Ages, as in the letters of pope Innocent III, and in the account of the Norman siege. It remains very entire, and is fully described by Beaujour and Leake. The Church of St. Demetrius (apparently the third on the same site, and now also a mosque) is a structure of still greater size and beauty. Tafel believes that it was erected about the end of the 7th century; but Leake conjectures, from its architectural features; that it was built by the, Latins in the 13th. Tafel has collected with much diligence the notices of a great number of churches which have existed in Thessalonica. Dapper says that in his day the Greeks had the use of thirty churches. Walpole (in Clarke's Travels, 4:349) gives the number as sixteen. All travelers have noticed two ancient pulpits, consisting of single blocks of variegated marble, with small steps cut in them, which are among the most interesting ecclesiastical remains of Thessalonica.
VII. Authorities. The travelers who have described Thessalonica are numerous. The most important are Lucas, Second Voyage (1705); Pococke, Description of the East (1743-45); Beaujour, Tableau du Commerce de la Graec, translated into English (1800); Clarke, Travels in Europe, etc. (1810-23); Holland, Travels in the Ionian Isles, etc. (1815); Cousindry, Voyage dans la Macedoine (1831); Leake, Northern Greece (1835); Zacharia, Reise in dem Orient (1840); Griesbach, Reise durch Rumelien (1841); Bowen, Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus (1852); Dodd, in the Biblioth. Sacra, 11:830; 18:845.
In the Memoires de Academie des Inscriptions, tom. 38 Sect. Hist. p. 121- 146, is an essay on the subject of Thessalonica by the abbé Belley. But the most elaborate work on the subject is that by Tafel, Hist. Thessalonicae usque ad A.D. 904, the first part of which was published at Tübingen in 1835; this was afterwards reprinted as Prolegomena to the Dissertatio de Thessalonica ejusque Agro Geographica (Berl. 1839). With this should be compared his work on the Via Egnatia. To these authorities we ought to add the introduction to some of the commentaries on Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians-especially those of Koch (ibid. 1849) and Linemann (Gött. 1850). The early history of the Thessalonian Church is discussed by Burgerhoudt, De Coetu Chr. Thessal., Ort, Fatisque :(Leid. 1825). A good description of the modern place is given in Murray's Handbook for Greece, p. 455.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
THESSALONICA (modern Saloniki).An important city of the Roman province Macedonia, situated on the Via Egnatia, the overland route from Italy to the E., and at the north-eastern corner of the Thermaic Gulf. Its buildings rose above one another in tiers on the slopes of the hills. The situation is in every respect admirable, and must have been early occupied. This city was founded about b.c. 315, and named after a stepsister of Alexander the Great. Its greatness under Macedonian rule was even extended under Roman rule. It became the capital of the Roman province Macedonia, constituted b.c. 146. It was made a free city in b.c. 42 (Act_17:5 knows this fact), and was ruled by its own magistrates under the rather rare title politarchs, who were 5 or 6 in number. There were many Jews here, as the possession of a synagogue shows (Act_17:1), and a number of proselytes (Act_17:4). The enemies of St. Paul raised a cry of treason, and a serious riot resulted. Some of Pauls friends had to give security that this would not be repeated. This forced Paul to leave the city. Members of the church here were Jason, Gaius, Secundus, Aristarchus. See Thessalonians.
A. Souter.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
A town of Macedonia on the Thermaic gulf, now the gulf of Saloniki. Therma was its original name, which Cossander changed into Thessalonica in honour of his wife, Philip's daughter. It rises from the end of the basin at the head of the gulf up the declivity behind, presenting a striking appearance from the sea. After the battle of Pydna Thessalonica fell under Rome and was made capital of the second region of Macedonia. Afterward, when the four regions or governments were united in one province, Thessalonica became virtually the metropolis. Situated on the Via Ignatia which traversed the S. coast of Macedonia and Thrace, connecting thereby those regions with Rome, Thessalonica, with its harbour on the other hand connecting it commercially with Asia Minor, naturally took the leading place among the cities in that quarter. Paul was on the Via Ignatia at Neapolis and Philippi, Amphipolis and Apollonia (Act_16:11-40; Act_17:1), as well as at Thessalonica. The population of Saloniki is even now 60,000, of whom 10,000 are Jews.
Trade in all ages attracted the latter to Thessalonica, and their synagogue here was the starting point of Paul's evangelizing. Octavius Augustus rewarded its adhesion to his cause in the second civil war by making it "a free city" with a popular assembly ("the people") and "rulers of the city" (politarchs: Act_17:1; Act_17:5; Act_17:8); this political term is to be read still on an arch spanning the main street, from it we learn there were seven politarchs. Its commercial intercourse with the inland plains of Macedonia on the N., and on the S. with Greece by sea, adapted it admirably as a center from whence the gospel word "sounded out not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place" (1Th_1:8). Paul visited T. on his second missionary tour. (See PAUL and JASON on this visit.) Other Thessalonian Christians were Demas perhaps, Gaius (Act_19:29), Secundus, and Aristarchus (Act_20:4; Act_27:2; Act_19:29).
On the same night that the Jewish assault on Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas his guests took place, the latter two set out for Berea. Again Paul visited Thessalonica (Act_20:1-3), probably also after his first imprisonment at Rome (1Ti_1:3, in accordance with his hope, Php_1:25-26; Php_2:24). Thessalonica was the mainstay of Eastern Christianity in the Gothic invasion in the third century. To Thessalonica the Sclaves and the Bulgarians owed their conversion; from whence it was called "the orthodox city." It was taken by the Saracens in 904 A.D., by the Crusaders in 1185 A.D., and by the Turks in 1430; and the murder of the foreign consuls in 1876 had much to do with the last war of 1876-1877, between Russia and Turkey. Eustathius, the critic of the 12th century, belonged to Thessalonica. The main street still standing is the old Via Ignatia, running E. and W., as is shown by the two arches which span it, one at the E. the other at the W. end; on that at the E. end are figures in low relief representing the triumphs of a Roman emperor.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Thessaloni'ca. The original name of this city was Therma; and that part of the Macedonian shore, on which it was situated, retained through the Roman period, the designation of the Thermaic Gulf. Cassander, the son of Antipater, rebuilt and enlarged Therma, and named it after his wife, Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great. The name ever since, under various slight modifications, has been continuous, and the city itself has never ceased to be eminent. Saloniki is still the most important town of European Turkey, next after Constantinople. Strabo, in the first century, speaks of Thessalonica as the most populous city in Macedonia.
Visit of Paul. ? St. Paul visited Thessalonica, (with Silas and Timothy), during his second missionary journey, and introduced Christianity there. The first scene of the apostle's work at Thessalonica was the synagogue. Act_17:2-3. It is stated that the ministrations among the Jews, continued for three weeks. Act_17:2. Not that we are obliged to limit to this time, the whole stay of the apostle at Thessalonica. A flourishing church was certainly formed there; and the Epistles show that its elements were more Gentile than Jewish. [For persecution and further history, See Paul.]
Circumstances which led Paul to Thessalonica. ? Three circumstances must here be mentioned, which illustrate, in an important manner, this visit, and this journey, as well as the two Epistles to the Thessalonians.
This was the chief station on the great Roman road called the Via Egnatia, which connected Rome with the whole region to the north of the Aegean Sea.
Placed as if was on this great road, and in connection with other important Roman ways, Thessalonica was an invaluable centre, for the spread of the gospel. In fact, it was nearly, if not quite, on a level with Corinth and Ephesus, in its share of the commerce of the Levant.
The circumstance noted in Act_17:1, that here was the synagogue of the Jews in this part of Macedonia, had evidently much to do with the apostle's plans, and also, doubtless, with his success. Trade would inevitably bring Jews to Thessalonica; and it is remarkable that they have, ever since, had a prominent place in the annals of the city.
Later ecclesiastical history. ? During several centuries, this city was the bulwark, not simply of the later Greek empire, but of Oriental Christendom, and was largely instrumental, in the conversion of the Slavonians and Bulgarians. Thus, it received the designation of "the orthodox city;" and its struggles are very prominent, in the writings of the Byzantine historians.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
a celebrated city in Macedonia, and capital, of that kingdom, standing upon the Thesmaic Sea. Stephen of Byzantium says that it was improved and beautified by Philip, king of Macedon, and called Thessalonica in memory of the victory that he obtained over the Thessalians. Its old name was Thesma. The Jews had a synagogue here, and their number was considerable, Acts 17.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
After Alexander the Great established the Greek Empire (fourth century BC), the Greeks built many magnificent cities. One of these was Thessalonica in Alexanders home state of Macedonia. When the Greek Empire was later replaced by the Roman, Macedonia was made a Roman province, with Thessalonica as its political centre. The city was on the main route from Rome to Asia Minor, and is still an important city today.
There is only one recorded occasion on which Paul visited Thessalonica. This was on his second missionary journey, when he founded the church there, despite much opposition from the Jews. The church consisted mainly of Gentiles (Act_17:1-7; 1Th_1:9). Although Paul worked to help support himself while in Thessalonica (1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:7-8), he received additional support from another Macedonian church, Philippi (Php_4:16).
The church continued to grow after Paul left, and within a short time had spread the gospel throughout the surrounding countryside (1Th_1:6-8; 1Th_2:13-14). An important man in the church at Thessalonica was Aristarchus, who later went with Paul to Rome and remained there during Pauls imprisonment (Act_20:4; Act_27:1-2; Col_4:10; Philem 24). (For an area map and for details of the two letters Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, see THESSALONIANS, LETTERS TO THE.)
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
thes-a-lṓ-nı̄?ka (Θεσσαλονίκη, Thessalonı́kē, ethnic Θεσσαλονικεύς, Thessalonikeús):
1. Position and Name:
One of the chief towns of Macedonia from Hellenistic times down to the present day. It lies in 40 degrees 40 minutes North latitude, and 22 degrees 50 minutes East longitude, at the northernmost point of the Thermaic Gulf (Gulf of Salonica), a short distance to the East of the mouth of the Axius (Vardar). It is usually maintained that the earlier name of Thessalonica was Therma or Therme, a town mentioned both by Herodotus (vii. 121 ff, 179 ff) and by Thucydides (i. 61; ii. 29), but that its chief importance dates from about 315 BC, when the Macedonian king Cassander, son of Antipater, enlarged and strengthened it by concentrating there the population of a number of neighboring towns and villages, and renamed it after his wife Thessalonica, daughter of Philip II and step-sister of Alexander the Great. This name, usually shortened since medieval times into Salonica or Saloniki, it has retained down to the present. Pliny, however, speaks of Therma as still existing side by side with Thessalonica (NH, iv. 36), and it is possible that the latter was an altogether new foundation, which took from Therma a portion of its inhabitants and replaced it as the most important city on the Gulf.
2. History:
Thessalonica rapidly became populous and wealthy. In the war between Perseus and the Romans it appears as the headquarters of the Macedonian navy (Livy xliv. 10) and when, after the battle of Pydna (168 BC), the Romans divided the conquered territory into four districts, it became the capital of the second of these (Livy xlv. 29), while later, after the organization of the single Roman province of Macedonia in 146 BC, it was the seat of the governor and thus practically the capital of the whole province. In 58 BC Cicero spent the greater part of his exile there, at the house of the quaestor Plancius (Pro Plancio 41, 99; Epistle Ad Att, iii. 8-21). In the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Thessalonica took the senatorial side and formed one of Pompey's chief bases (49-48 BC), but in the final struggle of the republic, six years later, it proved loyal to Antony and Octavian, and was rewarded by receiving the status and privileges of a ?free city? (Pliny, NH, iv. 36). Strabo, writing in the reign of Augustus, speaks of it as the most populous town in Macedonia and the metropolis of the province (vii. 323, 330), and about the same time the poet Antipater, himself a native of Thessalonica, refers to the city as ?mother of all Macedon? (Jacobs, Anthol. Graec., II, p. 98, number 14); in the 2nd century of our era Lucian mentions it as the greatest city of Macedonia (Asinus, 46). It was important, not only as a harbor with a large import and export trade, but also as the principal station on the great Via Egnatia, the highway from the Adriatic to the Hellespont.
3. Paul's Visit:
Paul visited the town, together with Silas and Timothy, on his 2nd missionary journey. He had been at Philippi, and traveled thence by the Egnatian Road, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia on the way (Act_17:1). He found at Thessalonica a synagogue of the Jews, in which for three successive Sabbaths he preached the gospel, basing his message upon the types and prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures (Act_17:2, Act_17:3). Some of the Jews became converts and a considerable number of proselytes and Greeks, together with many women of high social standing (Act_17:4). Among these converts were in all probability Aristarchus and Secundus, natives of Thessalonica, whom we afterward find accompanying Paul to Asia at the close of his 3rd missionary journey (Act_20:4). The former of them was, indeed, one of the apostle's most constant companions; we find him with Paul at Ephesus (Act_19:29) and on his journey to Rome (Act_27:2), while in two of his Epistles, written during his captivity, Paul refers to Aristarchus as still with him, his fellow-prisoner (Col_4:10; Phm_1:24). Gaius, too, who is mentioned in conjunction with Aristarchus, may have been a Thessalonian (Act_19:29). How long Paul remained at Thessalonica on his 1st visit we cannot precisely determine; certainly we are not to regard his stay there as confined to three weeks, and Ramsay suggests that it probably extended from December, 50 AD, to May, 51 AD (St. Paul the Traveler, 228). In any case, we learn that the Philippines sent him assistance on two occasions during the time which he spent there (Phi_4:16), although he was ?working night and day? to maintain himself (1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:8). Paul, the great missionary strategist, must have seen that from no other center could Macedonia be permeated with the gospel so effectively as from Thessalonica (1Th_1:8).
But his success roused the jealousy of the Jews, who raised a commotion among the dregs of the city populace (Act_17:5). An attack was made on the house of Jason, with whom the evangelists were lodging, and when these were not found Jason himself and some of the other converts were dragged before the magistrates and accused of harboring men who had caused tumult throughout the Roman world, who maintained the existence of another king, Jesus, and acted in defiance of the imperial decrees. The magistrates were duly alive to the seriousness of the accusation, but, since no evidence was forthcoming of illegal practices on the part of Jason or the other Christians, they released them on security (Act_17:5-9). Foreseeing further trouble if Paul should continue his work in the town, the converts sent Paul and Silas (and possibly Timothy also) by night to Berea, which lay off the main road and is referred to by Cicero as an out-of-the-way town (oppidum devium: in Pisonem 36). The Berean Jews showed a greater readiness to examine the new teaching than those of Thessalonica, and the work of the apostle was more fruitful there, both among Jews and among Greeks (Act_17:10-13). But the news of this success reached the Thessalonian Jews and inflamed their hostility afresh. Going to Berea, they raised a tumult there also, and made it necessary for Paul to leave the town and go to Athens (Act_17:14, Act_17:15).
Several points in this account are noteworthy as illustrating the strict accuracy of the narrative of the Acts. Philippi was a Roman town, military rather than commercial; hence, we find but few Jews there and no synagogue; the magistrates bear the title of praetors (Act_16:20, Act_16:22, Act_16:35, Act_16:36, Act_16:38 the Revised Version margin) and are attended by lictors (Act_16:35, Act_16:38 the Revised Version margin); Paul and Silas are charged with the introduction of customs which Romans may not observe (Act_16:21); they are beaten with rods (Act_16:22) and appeal to their privileges as Roman citizens (16:37, 38). At Thessalonica all is changed. We are here in a Greek commercial city and a seaport, a ?free city,? moreover, enjoying a certain amount of autonomy and its own constitution. Here we find a large number of resident Jews and a synagogue. The charge against Paul is that of trying to replace Caesar by another king; the rioters wish to bring him before ?the people,? i.e. the popular assembly characteristic of Greek states, and the magistrates of the city bear the Greek name of politarchs (Act_17:5-9). This title occurs nowhere in Greek literature, but its correctness is proved beyond possibility of question by its occurrence in a number of inscriptions of this period, which have come to light in Thessalonica and the neighborhood, and will be found collected in AJT (1898, 598) and in M. G. Dimitsas, (Μακεδονία, Makedonia), 422 ff. Among them the most famous is the inscription engraved on the arch which stood at the western end of the main street of Salonica and was called the Vardar Gate. The arch itself, which was perhaps erected to commemorate the victory of Philippi, though some authorities assign it to a later date, has been removed, and the inscription is now in the British Museum (CIG, 1967; Leake, Northern Greece, III, 236; Le Bas, Voyage archeologique, number 1357; Vaux, Trans. Royal Sec. Lit., VIII, 528). This proves that the politarchs were six in number, and it is a curious coincidence that in it occur the names Sosipater, Gaius and Secundus, which are berate by three Macedonian converts, of whom the first two were probably Thessalonians, the last certainly.
4. The Thessalonian Church:
The Thessalonian church was a strong and flourishing one, composed of Gentiles rather than of Jews, if we may judge from the tone of the two Epistles addressed to its members, the absence of quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament, and the phrase ?Ye turned unto God from idols? (1Th_1:9; compare also 1Th_2:14). These, by common consent the earliest of Paul's Epistles, show us that the apostle was eager to revisit Thessalonica very soon after his enforced departure: ?once and again? the desire to return was strong in him, but ?Satan hindered? him (1Th_2:18) - a reference probably to the danger and loss in which such a step would involve Jason and the other leading converts. But though himself prevented from continuing his work at Thessalonica, he sent Timothy from Athens to visit the church and confirm the faith of the Christians amid their hardships and persecutions (1Th_3:2-10). The favorable report brought back by Timothy was a great comfort to Paul, and at the same time intensified his longing to see his converts again (1Th_3:10, 1Th_3:11). This desire was to be fulfilled more than once. Almost certainly Paul returned there on his 3rd missionary journey, both on his way to Greece (Act_20:1) and again while he was going thence to Jerusalem (Act_20:3); it is on this latter occasion that we hear of Aristarchus and Secundus accompanying him (Act_20:4). Probably Paul was again in Thessalonica after his first imprisonment. From the Epistle to the Philippians (Act_1:26; Act_2:24), written during his captivity, we learn that his intention was to revisit Philippi if possible, and 1Ti_1:3 records a subsequent journey to Macedonia, in the course of which the apostle may well have made a longer or shorter stay at Thessalonica. The only other mention of the town in the New Testament occurs in 2Ti_4:10, where Paul writes that Demas has forsaken him and has gone there. Whether Demas was a Thessalonian, as some have supposed, cannot be determined.
5. Later History:
For centuries the city remained one of the chief strongholds of Christianity, and it won for itself the title of ?the Orthodox City,? not only by the tenacity and vigor of its resistance to the successive attacks of various barbarous races, but also by being largely responsible for their conversion to Christianity.
From the middle of the 3rd century AD it was entitled ?metropolis and colony,? and when Diocletian (284-305) divided Macedonia into two provinces, Thessalonica was chosen as the capital of the first of these. It was also the scene in 390 AD of the famous massacre ordered by Theodosius the Great, for which Ambrose excluded that emperor for some months from the cathedral at Milan. In 253 the Goths had made a vain attempt to capture the city, and again in 479 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, found it so strong and well prepared that he did not venture to attack it. From the 6th to the 9th century it was engaged in repeated struggles against Avars, Slavonians and Bulgarians, whose attacks it repelled with the utmost difficulty. Finally, in 904 AD it was captured by the Saracens, who, after slaughtering a great number of the inhabitants and burning a considerable portion of the city, sailed away carrying with them 22,000 captives, young men, women and children. In 1185, when the famous scholar Eustathius was bishop, the Normans under Tancred stormed the city, and once more a general massacre took place. In 1204 Thessalonica became the center of a Latin kingdom under Boniface, marquis of Monferrat, and for over two centuries it passed from hand to hand, now ruled by Latins now by Greeks, until in 1430 it fell before the sultan Amurath II. After that time it remained in the possession of the Turks, and it was, indeed, the chief European city of their dominions, with the exception of Constantinople, until it was recaptured by the Greeks in the Balkan war of 1912. Its population includes some 32,000 Turks, 47,000 Jews (mostly the descendants of refugees from Spain) and 16,000 Greeks and other Europeans. The city is rich in examples of Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture and art, and possesses, in addition to a large number of mosques, 12 churches and 25 synagogues.
Literature.
The fullest account of the topography of Thessalonica and its history, especially from the 5th to the 15th century, is that of Tafel, De Thessalonica eiusque agro. Dissertatio geographica, Berlin, 1839; compare also the Histories of Gibbon and Finlay. A description of the town and its ancient remains is given by Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, III, 235 ff; Cousinery, Voyage dans la Macedoine, I, 23 ff; Heuzey, Mission archeol. de Macedoine, 272 ff; and other travelers. The inscriptions, mostly in Greek, are collected in Dimitsas, (Μακεδονία, Makedonı́a), 421 ff.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Thessaloni?ca, now called Salonichi, is still a city of about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, situated on the present gulf of Salonichi, which was formerly called Sinus Thermaicus, at the mouth of the River Echedorus. It was the residence of a praeses, the principal city of the second part of Macedonia, and was by later writers even styled metropolis. Under the Romans it became great, populous, and wealthy. It had its name from Thessalonice, wife of Cassander, who built the city on the site of the ancient Thermae, after which town the Sinus Thermaicus was called. Thessalonica was 267 Roman miles east of Apollonia and Dyrrachium, 66 miles from Amphipolis, 89 from Philippi, 433 west from Byzantium, and 150 south of Sophia. A great number of Jews were living at Thessalonica in the time of the apostle Paul, and also many Christian converts, most of whom seem to have been either Jews by birth or proselytes before they embraced Christianity by the preaching of Paul. Jews are still very numerous in this town, and possess much influence there. They are unusually exclusive, keeping aloof from strangers. The apostolical history of the place is given in the preceding article. The present town stands on the acclivity of a steep hill, rising at the northeastern extremity of the bay. It presents an imposing appearance from the sea, with which the interior by no means corresponds. The principal antiquities are the propylaea of the hippodrome, the rotunda, and the triumphal arches of Augustus and Constantine.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(θεσσαλονίκη, in classical writers also θεσσαλονικεία and θετταλονίκη), a large and important town of Macedonia, visited by Paul on several occasions, and the seat of a Church to which two of his letters were addressed. (For fuller details we refer to Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography, s.v.)
I. Name. Two legendary names which Thessalonica is said to have borne in early times are Emathia (Zonar. -Hist. 12:26) and Halia (Steph. B. s.v.), the latter probably having reference to the maritime position of the town. During the first period of its authentic history, it was known under the name of Therma (θέρ μα, Esch.; θέρμη, Herod.,Thucyd.; θέρ μαι, Malelas, Chronog. p. 190, ed. Bonn), 1 derived, in common with the designation of the gulf (Thermaicus Sinus), from the hot salt-springs which are found on various parts of this coast, and one of which especially is described by Pococke as being at a distance of four English miles from the modern city (see Scylax, p. 278, ed. Gail). Three stories are told of the origin of the name Thessalonica. The first (and by far the most probable) is given by Strabo (7, Epit. 10), who says that Therma was rebuilt by Cassander, and called after his wife Thessalonica, the daughter of Philip; the second is found in Steph. B. (s.v.), who says that its new name was a memorial of a victory obtained by Philip over the Thessalians (see Const. Porphyrog. De Them. 2, 51. ed. Bonn); the third is in the Etym. Magn. (s.v.), where it is stated that Philip himself gave the name in honor of his daughter. Whichever of these stories is true, the new name of Thessalonica, and the new eminence connected with the name, are distinctly associated with the Macedonian period, and not at all with the earlier passages of true Greek history. The name thus given became permanent. Through the Roman and Byzantine periods it remained unaltered. In the Middle Ages the Italians gave it the form of Salonichi or Saloniki, which is still frequent. In Latin chronicles we find Salonicia. In German poems of the 13th century the name appears, With a Teutonic termination, as Salnek. The uneducated Greeks of the present day call the place, Σαλο νίκη, the Turks Selanik.
II. Situation. This is well described by Pliny (4, 10) as medio flexu litoris [sinus Thermaici]. The gulf extends about thirty leagues in a north- westerly direction from the group of the Thessalian islands, and then turns to the north-east, forming a noble basin between Capes Vardar and Karaburnu. On the edge of this basin is the city, partly on the level shore and partly on the slope of a hill, in 40° 38'47 N. lat., and 22° 57'22 E. long. The present appearance of the city, as seen from the sea, is described by Leake, Holland, and other travelers as very imposing. It rises in the form of a crescent up the declivity, and is surrounded by lofty whitened walls with towers at intervals. On the east and west sides of the city ravines ascend from the shore and converge towards the highest point, on which is the citadel called ῾Επταπύργιον, like that of Constantinople. The port is still convenient for large ships, and the anchorage in front of the town is good. These circumstances in the situation of Thessalonica were evidently favorable for commanding the trade of the Macedonian sea. Its relations to the inland districts were equally advantageous, With one of the two great levels of Macedonia, viz. the plain of the wide-flowing Axius (Homer, II. 2, 849), to the north of the range of Olympus, it was immediately connected. With the other, the plain of the Strymon and Lake Cercinitis, it communicated by a pass across the neck of the Chalcidic peninsula. Its distance from Pella, as given by the Itineraries, is twenty-seven miles,: and from Amphipolis (with intermediate stations; see Act_17:1) sixty-seven miles. It is still the chief center of the trade of the district. It contains a population of 60,000 or 70,000, and (though Adrianople may possibly be larger) it is the most important town of European Turkey next after Constantinople.
III. Political and Military History. Thessalonica was a place of some importance even while it bore its earlier name of Therma. Three passages of chief interest may be mentioned in this period of its history. Xerxes rested here on his march, his land-forces being encamped on the plain between Therma and the Axius, and his ships cruising about the Thermaic gulf; and it was the view from hence of Olympus and Ossa which tempted him to explore the course of the Peneus (Herod. 7:128 sq.). A short time (B.C. 421) before the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, Therma was occupied by the Athenians (Thucyd. 1, 61); but two years later it was given up to Perdiccas (ibid. 2, 29). The third mention of Therma is in Eschines (De Fals. Leg. p. 31, ed. Bekk.), where it is spoken of as one of the places taken by Pausanias.
The true history of Thessalonica begins, as we have implied above, with the decay of Greek nationality. The earliest author who mentions it under its new name is Polybius. It seems probable that it was rebuilt in the same year (B.C. 315) with Cassandrea, immediately after the fall of Pydna and the death of Olympias. We are told by Strabo. (loc.cit.) that Cassander incorporated in his new city the population not only of Therma, but likewise of three smaller towns, viz. Anea and Cissus (which are supposed to have been on the eastern side of the gulf) and Chalastra (which is said by Strabo [7, Epit. 9] to have been on the farther side of the Axius, whence Tafel [p. 22], by some mistake, infers that it lay between the Axius and Therma). It does not appear that these earlier cities were absolutely destroyed; nor, indeed, is it certain that Therma lost its separate existence. Pliny (loc. cit.) seems to imply that a place bearing this name was near Thessalonica; but the text is probably corrupt.
As we approach the Roman period, Thessalonica begins to be more and more mentioned. From Livy (44, 10) this city would appear to have been the great Macedonian naval station. It surrendered to the Romans after the battle of Pydna (ibid. 44, 45), and was made the capital of the second of the four divisions of Macedonia (ibid. 45, 29). Afterwards, when the whole of Macedonia was reduced to one province (Flor. 2, 14), Thessalonica was its most important city, and virtually its metropolis, though not so called till a later period. SEE MACEDONIA. Cicero, during his exile, found a refuge here in the quaestor's house (Pro Planc. 41); and on his journeys to and from his province of Cilicia he passed this way, and wrote here several of his extant letters. During the first civil war Thessalonica was the headquarters of the Pompeian party and the Senate (Dion Cass. 41, 20). During the second it took the side of Octavius and Antonius (Plutarch, Brut. 46; Appian, B. C. 4:118), and reaped the advantage of this course by being made a free city (see Pliny, loc. cit.). It is possible that the word ἐλευθερίας, with the head of Octavia, on some of the coins of Thessalonica, has reference to this circumstance (see Eckhel, 2, 79); and some writers see in the Vardar gate, mentioned below, a monument of the victory over Brutus and Cassius.
Even before the close of the Republic, Thessalonica was a city of great importance, in consequence of its position on the line of communication between Rome and the Earst. Cicero speaks of it as posita in gremio imperil nostri. It increased in size and rose in importance with the consolidation of the Empire. Strabo, in the 1st century, and Lucian.'in the 2nd, speak in strong language of the amount of its population. The supreme magistrates (apparently six in number) who ruled in Thessalonica as a free city of the Empire were entitled πολιτάρχαι, as we learn from the remarkable coincidence of Luke's language (Act_17:6) with an inscription on the Vardar gate (Bockh, 1967.'Belley mentions another inscription containing the same term). In Act_17:5 the δῆμος is mentioned, which formed part of the constitution of the city. Tafel thinks that it had a βουλή also.
During the first three centuries of the Christian sera Thessalonica was the capital of the whole country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea; and even after the founding of Constantinople it remained practically the metropolis of Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum. In the middle of the 3rd century, as we learn from coins, it was made a Roman colonia; perhaps with the view of strengthening this position against the barbarian invasions, which now became threatening. Thessalonica was-the great safeguard of the Empire during the first shock of the Gothic inroads. Constantine passed some time here after his victory over the Samarians; and perhaps the second arch, which is mentioned below, was a commemoration of this victory. He is said also, by Zosimus (2, 86, ed. Bonn), to have constructed the port, by which we are, no doubt, to understand that he repaired and improved it after a time of comparative neglect. Passing by the dreadful massacre by Theodosius (Gibbon, Rome, ch. 27), we come to the Slavonic wars, of which the Gothic wars were only the prelude, and the brunt of which was successfully borne by Thessalonica from the middle of the 6th century to the latter part of the 8th. The history of these six Slavonic wars, and their relation to Thessalonica, has been elaborated with great care by Tafel.
In the course of the Middle Ages, Thessalonica was three times taken; and its history during this period is thus conveniently divided into three stages. On Sunday, July 29, 904, the Saracen fleet appeared before the city, which was stormed after a few days fighting. The slaughter of the citizens was dreadful, and vast numbers were sold in the various slave-markets of the Levant. The story of these events is told by Jo. Cameniata, who was crosier-bearer to the archbishop of Thessalonica. From his narrative it has been inferred that the population of the city at that time must have been 220,000 (De Excidio Thessalonicensi, in the volume entitled Theophanes Continuatus of the Bonn ed. of the Byzantine writers [1838]). The next great catastrophe of Thessalonica was caused by a different enemy-the Normans of Sicily, The fleet of Tancred sailed round the Morea to the Thermaic gulf, while an army marched by the Via Egnatia from Dyrrhachium. Thessalonica was taken on Aug. 15, 1185, and the Greeks were barbarously treated by the Latins, whose cruelties are de scribed by Nicetas Choniates (De Andron. Commeno, p. 4388, ed. Bonn, 1835). The celebrated Eustathius was archbishop of Thessalonica at this time; and he wrote an account of this capture of the city, which was first published by Tafel (Tub. 1832), and is now printed in the Bonn ed. of the Byzantine writers (De Thessalonica a Latinis Capta, in the same vol. with Leo Grammaticus [1842]). Soon after this period follows the curious history of Western feudalism in Thessalonica under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, and his successors, during the first half of the 13th century. The city was again under Latin dominion (having been sold by the Greek emperor to the Venetians), when it was finally Ataken by the Turks under Amurath II, in 1430. This event also is described by a writer in the Bonn Byzantine series (Joannes Anagnostes, De Thessalonicensi Exidio NVarratio, in the same vol. with Phranzes and Cananus [1838]).
For the mediaeval history of Thessalonica see Mr. Finlay's works, Mediaeval Greece (1851), p. 70, 71,135147; Byzantine and Greek Empires (1853), 1, 315-332; (1854), 2, 182, 264-266, 607. For its modern condition we must refer to the travelers, especially Beaujour, Cousindry, Holland, and Leake.
IV. Ecclesiastical History. The annals of Thessalonica are so closely connected with religion that it is desirable to review them in this aspect. After Alexander's death the Jews spread rapidly in all the large cities of the provinces which had formed his empire. Hence there is no doubt that, in the 1st century of the Christian era, they were settled in considerable numbers at Thessalonica; indeed, this circumstance contributed to the first establishment of Christianity there by Paul (Act_17:1). It seems probable that a large community of Jews has been found in this city ever since. They are mentioned in the 7th century, during the Slavonic wars; and again in the 12th, by Eustathis and Benjamin of Tudela. The events of the 15th century had the effect of bringing a large number of Spanish Jews to Thessalonica. Paul Lucas says that in his day there were 30,000 of this nation here, with 22 synagogues. More recent authorities vary between 10,000 and 20,000. The present Jewish quarter is in the south-east part of the town.
Christianity, once established in Thessalonica, spread from it in various directions, in consequence of the mercantile relations of the city (1 Thessalonians 1, 8). During the succeeding centuries this city was the bulwark, not simply of the Byzantine empire, but of Oriental Christendom; and was largely instrumental in the conversion of the Slavonians and Bulgarians. Thus it received the designation of The Orthodox City. It is true that the legends of Demetrius, its patron saint (a martyr of the early part of the 4th century), disfigure the Christian history of Thessalonica; in every siege success or failure seems to have been attributed to the granting or withholding of his favor: but still this see has a distinguished place in the annals of the Church. Theodosius was baptized by its bishop; even his massacre, in consequence of the stern severity of Ambrose, is chiefly connected in our minds with ecclesiastical associations. The see of Thessalonica became almost a patriarchate after this time; and the withdrawal of the provinces subject to its jurisdiction from connection with the see of Rome, in the reign of Leo Isauricus, became one of the principal causes of the separation of East and West. Cameniata, the native historian of the calamity of 904, was, as we have seen, an ecclesiastic. Eustathius, who was archbishop in 1185, was, beyond dispute, the most learned man of his age, and the author of an invaluable commentary on the Iliad and Odyssey, and of theological works, which have been recently published by Tafel. A list of the Latin archbishops of Thessalonica from 1205 to 1418, when a Roman hierarchy was established along with Western feudalism, is given by Le Quien (Oriens Christianus, 3, 1089). Even to the last we find this city connected with questions of religious interest. Simeon of Thessalonica, who is a chief authority in the modern Greek Church on ritual subjects, died a few months before the fatal siege of 1430; and Theodore Gaza, who went to Italy soon after this siege, and, as a Latin ecclesiastic, became the translator of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Hippocrates, was a native of the city of Demetrius and Eustathius.
V. Connection with the Apostle Paul. Paul's visit to Thessalonica (with Silas and Timothy) occurred during his second missionary journey, and to this is due the introduction of Christianity into Thessalonica. Timothy is not mentioned in any part of the direct narrative of what happened at Thessalonica, though he appears as Paul's companion before at Philippi (Act_16:1-13), and afterwards at Beroea (Act_17:14-15); but from his subsequent mission to Thessalonica (1Th_3:1-7; see Act_18:5), and the mention of his name in the opening salutation of both epistles to the Thessalonians, we can hardly doubt that he had been with the apostle throughout.
Three circumstances must here be mentioned, which illustrate in an important manner this visit and this journey, as well as the two epistles to the Thessalonians, which the apostle wrote from Corinth very soon after his departure from his new Macedonian converts.
(1.) This was the chief station on the great Roman road called the Via Egnatia, which connected Rome with the whole region to the north of the Eggean Sea. Paul was on this road at Neapolis (Act_16:11) and Philippi (Act_16:12-40), and his route from the latter place (Act_17:1) had brought him through two of the well-known minor stations mentioned in the Itineraries. SEE AMPHIPOLIS; SEE APOLLONIA
(2.) Placed as it was on this great road, and in connection with other important Roman ways, Thessalonica was an invaluable centre for the spread of the Gospel. It must be remembered that, be sides its inland communication with the rich plains of Macedonia and with far more remote regions, its maritime position made it a great emporium of trade by sea. In fact, it was nearly, if not quite, on a level with Corinth and Ephesus in its share of the commerce of the Levant. Thus we see the force of what Paul says in his first epistle, shortly-after leaving Thessalonica ἄφ᾿ ὑμῶν ἐξήχηται ὁ λόγος τοῦ Κυρίου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῇ Μακεδονιᾷ καὶ ἐν τῇ Α᾿χαϊvᾷ ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ (1, 8).
(3.) The circumstance noted in Act_17:1, that here was the synagogue of the Jews in this part of Macedonia, had-evidently much to do with the apostle's plans, and also doubtless with his success. Trade would inevitably bring Jews to Thessalonica; and it is remarkable that, ever since, they have had a prominent place in the annals of the city.
The first scene of the apostle's work at Thessalonica was the synagogue. According to his custom, he began there, arguing from the ancient Scriptures (Act_17:2-3); and the same general results followed as in other places. Some believed, both Jews and proselytes, and it is particularly added that among these were many influential women (Act_17:4); on which the general body of the Jews, stirred up with jealousy, excited the Gentile population to persecute Paul and Silas (Act_17:5-10). It is stated that the ministrations among the Jews continued for three weeks (Act_17:2); but we are not obliged to limit to this time the whole stay of the apostles at Thessalonica. A flourishing church was certainly formed there; and the epistles show that its elements were much more Gentile than Jewish. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as having turned from idols; and he does not here, as in other epistles, quote the Jewish Scriptures. In all respects it is important to compare these two letters with the narrative in the Acts; and such references have the greater freshness from the short interval which elapsed between visiting the Thessalonians and writing to them. Such expressions as ἐν θλίψει πολλῇ (1Th_1:6), and ἐν πολλῷ ἀγῶνι (1Th_2:2), sum up the suffering and conflict which Paul and Silas and their converts went through at Thessalonica (see also 1Th_2:14-15; 1Th_3:3-4; 2Th_1:4-7). The persecution took place through the instrumentality of worthless idlers (τῶν ἀγοραίων ἄνδρας τινὰς πονη ρούς, Act_17:5), who, instigated by the Jews, raised a tumult. The house of Jason, with whom the apostles seem to have been residing, was attacked; they themselves were not found, but Jason was brought before the authorities on the accusation that the Christians were trying to set up a new king in opposition to the emperor; a guarantee (τὸ ἱκανόν) was taken from Jason and others for the maintenance of the peace, and Paul and Silas were sent away by night southward to Beroea (Act_17:5-10). The particular charge brought against the apostles receives an illustration from the epistles, where the kingdom of Christ is prominently mentioned (1Th_2:12; 2Th_1:5). So, again, the doctrine of the resurrection is conspicuous both in Luke's narrative (Act_17:3) and in the first letter (1Th_1:10; 1Th_4:14; 1Th_4:16). If we pass from these points to such as are personal, we are enabled from the epistles to complete the picture of Paul's conduct and attitude at Thessalonica, as regards his love, tenderness, and zeal, his care of individual souls, and his disinterestedness (see 1Th_1:5; 1Th_2:1-10). As to this last point, Paul was partly supported here by contributions from Philippi (Php_4:15-16), partly by the labor of his own hands, which he diligently practiced for the sake of the better success of the Gospel, and that he might set an example to the idle and selfish. (He refers very expressly to what he had said and done at Thessalonica in regard to this point; see 1Th_2:9; 1Th_4:11; comp. 2Th_3:8-12.) SEE THESSALONIANS.
To complete the account of Paul's connection with Thessalonica, it must be noticed that he was certainly there again, though the name of the city is not specified, on his third missionary journey, both in going and returning (Act_20:1-3). Possibly he was also there again after his liberation from his first imprisonment. See Php_1:25-26; Php_2:24, for the hope of revisiting Macedonia, entertained by the apostle at Rome, and 1Ti_1:3; 2Ti_4:13; Tit_3:12, for subsequent journeys in the neighborhood of Thessalonica.
Of the first Christians of Thessalonica, we are able to specify by name the above-mentioned Jason (who maybe the same as the apostle's own kinsman mentioned in Rom_16:21), Demas (at least conjecturally; see 2Ti_4:10), Gaius, who shared some of Paul's perils at Ephesus (Act_19:29), Secundus (who accompanied him, from Macedonia to Asia on the eastward route of his third missionary journey, and was probably concerned in the business of the collection; see Act_20:4), and especially Aristarchus (who, besides being mentioned here with Secundus, accompanied Paul on his voyage to Rome, and had therefore probably been with him during the whole interval, and is also specially referred to in two of the epistles written during the first Roman im-prisonment; see Act_27:2; Col_4:10; Phm_1:24; also, Act_19:29, for his association with the apostle at Ephesus in the earlier part of the third journey).
VI. Ancient Remains. The two monuments of greatest interest at Thessalonica are two arches connected with the line of the Via Egnatia. The course of this. Roman road is undoubtedly preserved in the long street which intersects the city from east to west. At its western extremity is the Vardar gate, which is nearly in the line of the modern wall, and which has received its present name from the circumstance of its leading to the river Vardar, or Axius. This is the Roman arch believed by Beaujour, Holland, and others to have been erected by the people of Thessalonica in honor of Octavius and Antonius, and in memory of the battle of Philippi. The arch is constructed of large blocks of marble, and is about twelve feet wide and eighteen feet high; but a considerable portion of it is buried deep be-low the surface of the ground. On the outside face are two bas-reliefs of a Roman wearing the toga and standing before a horse. On this arch is the above-mentioned inscription containing the names of the politarchsof the city. Leake thinks from the style of the sculpture, and Tafel from the occurrence of the name Flaviusin the inscription, that a later date ought to be assigned to the arch (a drawing of it is given by Cousinerry). The other arch is near the eastern (said in Clarke's Travels, 4:359, by mistake, to be near the western) extremity of the main street. It is built of brick and. faced with marble, and formerly consisted of three archways. The sculptured camels give an Oriental aspect to the monument; and it is generally supposed to commemorate the victory of Constantine over Licinius or over the Sarmatians.
Near the line of the main street, between the two above-mentioned arches, are four Corinthian columns supporting an architrave, above which are caryatides; his monument is now part of the house of a Jew; and, from a inoion that the figures were petrified by magic, it is called by the Spanish Jews Las Incantadas. The Turks call it Sureth-Maleh. (A view will be found, with architectural details, in Stuart and Revett, Athen. Antiq. 3, 53). This colonnade is supposed by some to have been part of the Propylea of the Hippodrome, the position of which is believed by Beaujour and Clarke to have been in the south-eastern part of the town, between the sea and a building called the Rotunda, now a mosque, previously the church Eski- Metropoli, but formerly a temple, and in construction similar to the Pantheon at Rome. Another mosque in Thessalonica, called Eski-Juma, is said by Beaujour to have been a temple consecrated to Venus Thermeea. The city walls are of brick, and of Greek construction, resting on a much older foundation, which consists of hewn stones of immense thickness. Everywhere are broken columns and fragments of sculpture. Many remains were taken in 1430 to Constantinople. One of the towers in the city wall is called the Tower of the Statue, because it contains a colossal figure of Thessalonica, with the representation of a ship at its feet. The castle is partly Greek and partly Venetian. Some columns of verd antique, supposed to be relics of a temple of Hercules, are to be noticed there, and also a shattered triumphal arch, erected (as an inscription proves) in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in honor of Antoninus Pius and his daughter Faustina.
In harmony with what has been noticed of its history, Thessalonica has many remains of ecclesiastical antiquity. Leake says that in this respect it surpasses any other city in Greece. The church of greatest interest (now a mosque) is that of St. Sophia, built, according to tradition, like the church of the same name at Constantinople, in the reign of Justinian, and after the designs of the architect Anthemius. This church is often mentioned in the records of the Middle Ages, as in the letters of pope Innocent III, and in the account of the Norman siege. It remains very entire, and is fully described by Beaujour and Leake. The Church of St. Demetrius (apparently the third on the same site, and now also a mosque) is a structure of still greater size and beauty. Tafel believes that it was erected about the end of the 7th century; but Leake conjectures, from its architectural features; that it was built by the, Latins in the 13th. Tafel has collected with much diligence the notices of a great number of churches which have existed in Thessalonica. Dapper says that in his day the Greeks had the use of thirty churches. Walpole (in Clarke's Travels, 4:349) gives the number as sixteen. All travelers have noticed two ancient pulpits, consisting of single blocks of variegated marble, with small steps cut in them, which are among the most interesting ecclesiastical remains of Thessalonica.
VII. Authorities. The travelers who have described Thessalonica are numerous. The most important are Lucas, Second Voyage (1705); Pococke, Description of the East (1743-45); Beaujour, Tableau du Commerce de la Graec, translated into English (1800); Clarke, Travels in Europe, etc. (1810-23); Holland, Travels in the Ionian Isles, etc. (1815); Cousindry, Voyage dans la Macedoine (1831); Leake, Northern Greece (1835); Zacharia, Reise in dem Orient (1840); Griesbach, Reise durch Rumelien (1841); Bowen, Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus (1852); Dodd, in the Biblioth. Sacra, 11:830; 18:845.
In the Memoires de Academie des Inscriptions, tom. 38 Sect. Hist. p. 121- 146, is an essay on the subject of Thessalonica by the abbé Belley. But the most elaborate work on the subject is that by Tafel, Hist. Thessalonicae usque ad A.D. 904, the first part of which was published at Tübingen in 1835; this was afterwards reprinted as Prolegomena to the Dissertatio de Thessalonica ejusque Agro Geographica (Berl. 1839). With this should be compared his work on the Via Egnatia. To these authorities we ought to add the introduction to some of the commentaries on Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians-especially those of Koch (ibid. 1849) and Linemann (Gött. 1850). The early history of the Thessalonian Church is discussed by Burgerhoudt, De Coetu Chr. Thessal., Ort, Fatisque :(Leid. 1825). A good description of the modern place is given in Murray's Handbook for Greece, p. 455.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
BUSCADAVERDADE
Visite o nosso canal youtube.com/buscadaverdade e se INSCREVA agora mesmo! Lá temos uma diversidade de temas interessantes sobre: Saúde, Receitas Saudáveis, Benefícios dos Alimentos, Benefícios das Vitaminas e Sais Minerais... Dê uma olhadinha, você vai gostar! E não se esqueça, dê o seu like e se INSCREVA! Clique abaixo e vá direto ao canal!
Saiba Mais
-
Nutrição
Vegetarianismo e a Vitamina B12 -
Receita
Como preparar a Proteína Vegetal Texturizada -
Arqueologia
Livro de Enoque é um livro profético?
Tags