Thessalonica, the second city in Europe to hear the preaching voice of St. Paul, and probably the first church to receive an epistle from him, is now called Salonica (Saloniki). Situated on the great Northern Military Highway from Italy to the East (known as the Egnation way), it was a strategic commercial and military center in Paul�s day. It is still the main street of the modern city.
Luke tells us, in the original Greek version of Acts 17:6,8, that the magistrates or rulers of the city were called Politarchs. For many years modern critical scholars pointed out that this term or title was not found in all Greek literature, and therefore Luke had made a mistake in using it.
Later, however, the title was found inscribed in various ruins in Thessalonica, the most prominent of which was on the arch of Vardar Gate, which spanned the Egnation Way, at the west entrance of the city. The inscription runs, in part, as follows:
In the time of Politarchs, Sosipatros, son of Cleopatra, and Lucius Pontius Secundus Publius Flavius Sabinus, Demetrius, son of Faustus, Demetrius of Nicopolis, Zoilos, son of Parmenio, and Meniscus Gaius Agilleius Poteitus ...
Thus is named the six city officials who were head of the �peoples assembly.�
Paul and Luke certainly passed through this gateway and noted the inscription with interest. Thus, Luke wrote quite correctly of the magistrates � calling them by the title which was apparently used only in that section of the country.
The arch was torn down during a riot in 1876, after which the inscription was acquired by the British; and it is now in the British Museum. Once again archaeology verified the correctness of the Scriptural account.
The Apostolic city at which we are now arrived was known in the earliest periods of its history under various names. Under that of Therma it is associated with some interesting recollections. It was the resting place of Xerxes on his march; it is not unmentioned in the Peloponnesian war; and it was a frequent subject of debate in the last independent assemblies of Athens. When the Macedonian power began to overshadow all the countries where Greek was spoken, this city received its new name, and began a new and more distinguished period of its history. A sister of Alexander the Great was called Thessalonica, and her name was given to the city of Therma, when rebuilt and embellished by her husband, Cassander the son of Antipater.
The first author in which the new name occurs is Polybius. Some say that the name was given by Philip in honor of his daughter, and others that it directly commemorated a victory over the Thessalonians. But the opinion stated in the previous paragraph appears the most probable. Philip�s daughter was called Thessalonica, in commemoration of a victory obtained by her father on the day when he heard of her birth.
This name, under a form slightly modified, has continued to the present day The Salneck of the early German poets has become the Saloniki of the modern Levant. Its history can be followed as continuously as its name.
When Macedonia was partitioned into four provincial divisions by Paulus Aemilius, Thessalonica was the capital of that which lay between the Axius and the Strymon. When the four regions were united into one Roman province, this city was chosen as the metropolis of the whole. Its name appears more than once in the annals of the Civil Wars. It was the scene of the exile of Cicero; and one of the stages of his journey between Rome and his province in the East. Antony and Octavius were here after the battle of Philippi; and coins still exist which allude to the �freedom� granted by the victorious leaders to the city of the Thermaic gulf.
Strabo, in the first century, speaks of Thessalonica as the most populous town in Macedonia. Lucian, in the second century, uses similar language. Before the founding of Constantinople, it was virtually the capital of Greece and Illyricum, as well as of Macedonia, and shared the trade of the Aegean with Ephesus and Corinth. Even after the Eastern Rome was built and reigned over the Levant, we find both pagan and Christian writers speaking of Thessalonica as the metropolis of Macedonia and a place of great magnitude.
Through the Middle Ages it never ceased to be important . . . The reason of this continued preeminence is to be found in its geographical position. Situated on the inner bend of the Thermaic Gulf � halfway between the Adriatic and the Hellespont � on the sea margin of a vast plain watered by several rivers, and at the entrance of the pass which commands the approach to the other great Macedonian level � it was evidently destined for a mercantile emporium. Its relation with the inland trade of Macedonia was as close as that of Amphipolis; and it maritime advantages were perhaps even greater. Thus, while Amphipolis decayed under the Byzantine emperors, Thessalonica continued to prosper.
There probably never was a time, from the day when it first received its name, that this city has not had the aspect of a busy commercial town. We see at once how appropriate a place it was for one of the starting points of the Gospel in Europe; and we can appreciate the force of the expression used by St. Paul within a few months of his departure from the Thessalonians, when he says that �from them the Word of the Lord had sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place (1 Thess. 1:8).�
No city which we have yet had occasion to describe has had so distinguished a Christian history, with the single exception of the Syrian Antioch; and the Christian glory of the Patriarchal city gradually faded before that of the Macedonian metropolis. The heroic age of Thessalonica was the third century. It was the bulwark of Constantinople in the shock of the barbarians; and it held up the torch of the truth to the successive tribes who overspread the country between the Danube and the Aegean � the Goths and the Sclaves, the Bulgarians of the Greek Church, and the Wallachians, whose language still seems to connect them with Philippi and the Roman colonies. Thus, in the Medieval chroniclers, it has deserved the name of �the Orthodox City.� The remains of its Hippodrome, which is forever associated with the history of Theodosius and Ambrose, can yet be traced to the Turkish houses.
Its bishops have sat in great councils. We find the bishop of Thessalonica in the Council of Sardis, AD 347; and a decree of the Council relates to the place. The writings of its great preacher and scholar Eustathius, who preached and wrote there in the 12th Century, are still preserved to us. It is true that the Christianity of Thessalonica, both medieval and modern, has been debased by humiliating superstition. The glory of it patron saint, Demetrius, has eclipsed that of St. Paul, the founder of its church. But the same Divine Providence, which causes us to be thankful for the past, commands us to be hopeful for the future; and we may look forward to the time when a new harvest of the �work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope,� shall spring up from the seeds of divine truth, which were first sown on the shore of the Thermaic Gulf by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
If Thessalonica can boast of a series of Christian annals, unbroken since the day of St. Paul�s arrival, its relations with the Jewish people have continued for a still longer period. In our own day it contains a multitude of Jews commanding an influential position, many of whom are occupied (not very differently from St. Paul himself) in the manufacture of cloth. A considerable number of them are refugees from Spain, and speak the Spanish language. There are materials for tracing similar settlements of the same scattered and persecuted people in this city, at intervals, during the Middle Ages; and even before the destruction of Jerusalem we find them here, numerous and influential, as at Antioch and Iconium. Here, doubtless, was the chief colony of those Jews of Macedonia of whom Philo speaks; for while there was only a proseucha at Philippi, and while Amphipolis and Apollonia had no Israelite communities to detain the Apostles; �the synagogue� of the neighborhood was at Thessalonica.