It is also possible that this contention had a further apologetic importance. It has often been noticed tliat Luke is an.vious to prove that there was no lawful reason for persecution by the Romans. The right of the religion of Israel to toleration was unquestioned, and it was possibly part of Luke's apologetic aim that the Christians' Church, not the Jewish Synagogue, could claim this toleration.
LiTERATORK.— J. Moffatt, DOG, art."rheophiIu8' ; T. Zaha, Einkitung in das ST-i, Leipzig, 1906, 5 68, n. 6.
K. Lake.
THESSALONIANS, EPISTLES TO THE.— 1. The Thessalonian Church. — (1) The narrative of Ac 17. ■ — Thessalonica, a free Greek city with the right to summon its own assembly, was a flourishing sea- port and the capital of one of the four divisions of Macedonia. Thither, in the course of his second missionary journej', came Paul, together with Silas and Timothy, to carry on the work cut short in Philippi by the civil power. Beginning as usual with the Jews, the Apostle preached in the syna- gogue on three successive Sabbaths. The result of his preaching was the conversion of a few of the Jews, of a great multitude of Greek proselj'tes, and of a considerable number of the principal women. Subsequently the Jews, aided by the rabble* of the city, created an uproar, stormed the house where the apostles lodged, and dragged Jason their host before the municipal assembly. There they accused him of harbouring men who.se presence was a menace to the puljlic peace, adher- ents of a rival Emperor, one Jesus. To such a charge no Imperial ofUcer could safely turn a deaf ear, least of all in a city possessing peculiar privileges. Yet the action of the politarchs was lenient. They bound over Jason and ' the rest' to keep the ]ie.ace of the city and let them go, prob- ably holding them responsible for the continued absence of Paul and Silas from Thessalonica (Ramsay, St. Paul tlie Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 231). Meanwhile the apostles and Timothy had been sent by night to Bercca, where they continued their missionary labours. But the hostility of the Thessalonian Jews still pursued
* Lake (The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, p. 09 n.) siifffsts that ayopaituv (.\c 175) nieana not 'loafers' but 'ajfitators' (cf. Plutarch, j'Kmil. Paul. is), and that the Sijuot to which tlie apostles were to have been brought was not a special juridical body, but merely the ajjitation meeting called into existence by the aydpaiot.
them, and their work had to be abandoned. Paul departed to the sea," probably to Dium, where he eniliarked for Athens. Silas and Timothy re- mained at Beroca with instructions to rejoin him as soon as possible (u>s Tox'ffTa, Ac 17'°).
(2) Supplementary detiiiLi supplied hy the Epistles. — The reliability of Ac 17 is attested uy the accuracy of its local information. The existence of the 'f'hes.salonian Si^^os (v."), the title iroXird/Jxi' (vv.°"'), the greater freedom of women in Mace- donian life as compared with that of Athens (v.*), aro all facts substantiated by contemporary evi- dence (cf. Lightfoot, lliblical Esiays, p. 2:{7 II'. ; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 227, AJTh ii. [1S98] ol)S-ti32). Yet the Acts narrative is an out- line sketch ratlier than a finished picture (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 233 ; cf. Harnack, The Act.i of the Apostles, London, 1909, p. 2UU). Its ajipearance is considerably altered by the addition
01 details gleaned from 1 Thessalonians.
(«) Though the writer of the Acts admits that most of the Thessalonian Christians were Gentiles, he speaks only of (>entile proselytes to Judaism (tu>v re a(poiUvuv 'E\\i)vtiiv, \~*). 1 Thess. implies that the Thessalonian Church was composed largely of converts from heathenism (1" 2}* 4'-''). This discrep.ancy certainly disappears if we regard a-s the true text of Ac 17* Ramsay's emen(iation iroWol Twv (re^opUvav, Kat'EW-fifuv irX^ffos jroXi) kt\. {Ht. Paul the Traveller, p. 226 n.). But probablj- tlie inser- tion of Kal by the Bezan and 'inferior' MSS on which it is based represents only a scribe's attempt to avoid the unusual phrase Tiii/ (rt/So/i^vuv ' EWiji'uj' (Askwith, An Introduction to the Thessalonian Epistles, p. 12 fl".).
(6) Ac 17 seems to suggest that Paul left Thessa- lonica soon after his three weeks of synagogue teaching. From 1 Thess. we gather that the Apostle settled down to his ordinary trade (2"; cf.
2 Th 3'), dealt personally with individual converts (2'-"), and built up a simple form of church organization (5'-). Twice at Thessalonica he re- ceived donations from PhUijipi (Pli 4">- 16). These things would scarcely be crowded into three weeks. Clearly the Apostle spent a much longer time at Thessalonica. The chronological scheme of Acts would allow for a stay of six months (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 228).
((■) From Ac 18' it would naturally be inferred that Silas and Timothy first rejoined Paul at Corinth. 1 Thess. makes it clear that before this they had been with him in Athens (3'). These dilierences between Acts and 1 The.ss., while they betray no fundamental contradiction, yet serve to show the complete independence of the two narra- tives. ' It is evident that that epistle was not in the hands of the author of Acts . . . nor was Acts in the hands of the author of I Thess.' (EBi iv. 5040 f.).