PAUL'S WORK IN PHILIPPI

gogue but accustomed on the Jewish Sabbath to meet for worship by the riverside. In this group Paul found Greek proselytes as well as Jews. Chief among them was a certain Lydia from the Lydian city of Thyatira. She was evidently a woman of great ability and possessed of considerable wealth, for she appears to have had a bazaar, as well as a home in Philippi. To her Paul's preaching appealed so strongly that she offered her home as a centre for his work. There he apparently remained for some months.

Certain details in Paul's experience at Philippi stand out clearly and are obviously based on the extracts from the journal of travel. The story of the slave girl, “who had a spirit of ventriloquism," gives a vivid impression of the religious and social environment amid which Paul worked. Evidently the girl possessed a keen mind, like many of the slaves to be found during that period throughout the broad bounds of the Roman Empire, for her success in predicting the future of those who appealed to her for a divine response was clearly due to her power of insight and inventive genius. Her attitude toward Paul and his fellow workers indicates that she appreciated the truth of their teaching and that she was apparently eager to help them. Her words and deeds, as reported, are a public confession of faith in their teaching. Paul, however, was evidently annoyed by the fact that that confession seemed to come through the medium of heathen divination. His words to her were therefore of the nature both of a command and of a rebuke. They produced the desired result. Evidently she had hitherto believed in her miraculous powers; but now Paul's words through suggestion had acted as an inhibition. Therefore she could not go on as formerly. Her silence is possibly an index that she accepted the apostle's teaching. That Paul believed that she was possessed of an unclean spirit cannot be doubted in the light of his assertion in I Corinthians 1020. The terms in which he addressed her recall Jesus' rebuke to the man possessed of an unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum (Mark 225). Furthermore, that Paul believed that he had performed a miracle cannot be doubted, for he plainly asserts his conviction that he possessed this power in II Corinthians 1212. The slave girl's masters, in their mad frenzy, at first succeeded in playing on the prejudices of the Roman rulers of Philippi. Hatred of everything Jewish was then common throughout the Roman Empire, and Philippi was especially jealous of its Roman citizenship. Paul's personal appearance may have also aroused this race antagonism. Soon the city mob was seized with the same fanatical frenzy.

In these circumstances it was futile for Paul to urge in defense his Roman citizenship. Without waiting for the formality of a judicial trial, the prætors gave the cruel command to flog him and his associates. While Paul does not refer to this experience in his later letter to the Philippians, he does declare in II Corinthians 1125 that he was "thrice beaten with rods," indicating that on two other occasions his Roman citizenship was not sufficient to deliver him from this horrible indignity.

It is possible that the account of the imprisonment of Paul and Silas has been influenced by the late tradition of Peter's imprisonment found in Acts 517-42. The present narrative, however, does not claim that the disciples were supernaturally liberated but simply states that a violent earthquake shook the very foundations of the prison, loosening the bars from the prison doors and the chains which bound the prisoners. In view of the insecure construction of prisons in this part of the world even to-day the phenomena described are not without analogies. Paul's action in this crisis is characteristic. As later, when shipwrecked, the prisoner suddenly becomes the master of the situation. Out of sheer admiration and gratitude the jailer, who doubtless had previously heard Paul's preaching and been impressed by his personality, voiced spontaneously the need and the belief that was already germinating within him. Paul throughout all his ministry revealed a marvellous adaptability to every change of circumstance. Dramatic indeed is the picture of his preaching in the darkness of the earthquake-shaken prison to the frightened jailer and his prisoners. Possibly the earthquake was effectual in restoring the judicial prudence of the Roman prætors, for at dawn they sent the command to loose the prisoners whom they had so unjustly treated. Thus it is that Paul was able to gain a hearing for his assertion that he and Silas were Roman citizens, with the result that the Philippian judges came in person to beg their prisoners to leave the town and that they were thankful thus to escape the consequences of their rash action.

Paul left behind him at Philippi a small but exceedingly devoted band of Christians that during the rest of his life was an unceasing source of joy to him. Their personal devotion to him was most marked. At least twice they sent funds for the support of his work at Thessalonica (Phil. 416); again at Corinth he was cheered by their gifts (II Cor. 1110); and the one supreme love-letter that comes down to us from his lips was prompted by a similar evidence of their affection when he was a prisoner, facing death at Rome (Phil. 410, 18).

FOUNDING THE CHURCH AT THESSALONICA

IV. The Founding of the Church at Thessalonica. Paul left Philippi, not as a fugitive, but at the request of the magistrates. His plan of campaign is again illustrated by the fact that he passed by the smaller cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia and went directly to Thessalonica, the metropolis of Macedonia. It was majestically situated at the head of the Theramic Gulf in a great natural ampitheatre and looked southeastward toward the Ægean Sea. Here the Egnatian Way met the highways of commerce that radiated from the northern Ægean through the rich plains to the north. Commercially and strategically it resembled Corinth in many ways. It was a free Greek city, ruled by politarchs and proud of its independence and prestige. The opportunities of trade had attracted here a strong Jewish colony. The Jewish faith had also won many Greek proselytes.

As usual, the author of Acts emphasizes Paul's public preaching, especially in the Jewish synagogue. Fortunately in Paul's letters to the Christians of Thessalonica he has given vivid pictures of his work and experiences there. He found living in this great commercial city expensive. Night and day he worked at his trade of tent-making, while he told his fellow workmen about Jesus (I Thess. 29). The majority of the converts were from the poorer classes (II Cor. 82). Most of them were Greeks, for he states that his chief task was to turn them from idols to the service of the living and real God and to prepare them for the coming of his son Jesus, who would deliver them from the wrath that threatened (I Thess. 19, 10). The idea of the parousia or coming of Antiochus or of Augustus or of a god was familiar to the devout Greeks, as we now know from many contemporary inscriptions. Eagerly they entered into the expectation of a speedy coming of the divine king whom Paul proclaimed. Indeed, as the event proved, they were too eager, for their expectations in time affected unfavorably their ordinary activity (II Thess. 2).

Paul's teaching regarding the coming of Jesus was apparently also the basis of the charge which the Jews preferred against him and Silas. While Paul does not directly refer to it in his letters, this is probably the reason for his reference to the Jews as those "who offend God and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking words of salvation to the Gentiles" (I Thess. 216). Here, as at Philippi, Paul's assailants did not trust to a fair judicial trial but aroused the mob to support their indefinite charge. Warned by previous experience, Paul and Silas had found refuge in concealment. Jason, at whose house they had been received, and certain others of the Christian converts

resident at Thessalonica were dragged before the politarchs on the hysterical charge of having entertained "these upsetters of the whole world" who were treasonably proclaiming that not Augustus but Jesus was king. The charge is an echo of that which was brought by the Jewish high priests against Jesus himself. Although the rulers of Thessalonica were especially sensitive to a charge of this kind, they evidently recognized its absurdity and simply put Jason and his associates under bond to keep the peace. The incident, however, marked the end of the personal work of Paul and Silas at Thessalonica. Even though their sojourn there had been limited to a few months, Paul emphatically declared: "Our visit to you was no failure" (I Thess. 21). The foundations were laid for a strong, democratic, loyal Christian church, which was one of the crowns of his missionary activity.

V. Paul's Work at Beroa. The public attack upon Paul and Silas led the Christian brothers to send them off by night to Beroa, fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica. This secluded Greek town was on the western side of a fertile plain that extended eastward to the Egean Sea. It was flanked on the west by Mount Bermius, from whence came cool, flowing streams to water the groves and fields that encircled it. It proved a quiet haven of refuge for the apostles. While Paul would naturally have chosen a more important centre, he again illustrated his zeal and marvellous adaptability. In a short time he gathered about him an earnest band of Christian believers. The narrative of Acts states that he found here a better class of Jews than at the great commercial city of Thessalonica. It also states that his method was not so much that of public preaching as teaching. Here, as at Philippi and Thessalonica, he was doubtless working out with his fellow converts the doctrines that he later incorporates in his letters to the Corinthians and Romans. The majority of the Christian converts at Bercea were evidently Greeks, and numbered many prominent men and women. This is implied by the narrative of Acts and confirmed by the fact that Sopater, the son of Pyrrhus, clearly a Greek, was the representative of this church, who later accompanied Paul to Jerusalem (Acts 204).

VI. The Results of Paul's Work in Macedonia. The chronological data in Acts are at this point indefinite, but it is probable that Paul's missionary campaign in Macedonia did not extend over more than a year. It represented days and weeks of intense physical and religious work. Much of it was done in the face of strong opposition; but on the whole it was for him a period of great joy and exaltation.

THE RESULT OF PAUL'S WORK

Here at last he demonstrated beyond all question the adaptability of the Gospel of and about Jesus to the purely Greek world. He must also have been profoundly impressed at this time by the readiness of the Gentiles for that new religion. Christianity was no longer the faith of a little Palestinian sect, but was rapidly becoming a universal world religion. At this time Paul also succeeded in planting the leaven of Christianity in two of the most important cities of southern Europe, which lay on the main highway that led directly to Rome. The Jewish element in these Macedonian churches appears to have been insignificant. Jason (the Greek form of Joshua and Jesus) of Thessalonica is the only distinctively Jewish name that appears in the record. Otherwise the relatively long list of converts mentioned in Acts and in Paul's letters all bear unmistakably Greek names. During his work in Macedonia Paul succeeded in establishing especially strong personal relations with the individual converts. As he faced new and more difficult fields, their love and warm friendship, as well as help, were his constant inspiration. During this period also he was training an efficient body of assistants. With the exception of Timothy they appear to have all been enlisted from this new field. We know the names of at least four who were native Macedonians: Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, and Gaius (Acts 1929, 204). To this list should perhaps be added the name of Luke. In Paul's later letter to the Philippians he mentions two women and three other men who were his active co-workers. In Macedonia Paul also realized in fullest measure his purpose to make each new Christian community the basis for the extension of the Gospel to other centres. Apparently in no other field did he succeed so well in implanting his intense missionary spirit. Until the very end of his life gifts to the "saints" in Jerusalem and to Paul himself were sent forth by the poor Christians of Macedonia whom he had helped so effectually.

§ CLV. PAUL'S LETTERS TO THE CHRISTIANS AT

THESSALONICA

Paul, Silas and Timothy to the Church of the Thes- Salusalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace and peace to you.

We always thank God for you all when we make mention of you in our prayers. We never fail to remember your works of faith and labor of love and steadfast hope

tation

(I

Thess. 11)