TAUL
800
PAUL
Again, as in Pisidian Antioch, the envy of the Jews was excited. They contrived to stir up the lower class of the city to tumultuous violence bj' representing the preachers of Christ as revolutionary disturbers, who had come to proclaim one Jesus as king instead of Ciesar. The mob assaulted the house of Jason, with whom Paul and (Silas were staying as guests, and, not finding them, dragged Jason hiniself and some other bretliren before tiie magistrates. In this case the magistrates, we are told, and the people generally, were " troubled" by the rumors and accusations which they heard. But they seem to have acted wisely and justly, in taking security of .Jason and the rest, and letting them go. After these signs of danger the brethren im- mediateh' sent away Paul and Silas by night.
The p]pistles to the Thessalonians, written soon after the apostle's visit, contain more particulars of his work in founding that Church than we find in any other Epistle. The whole of these letters ought to be read for the information they thus sup]5ly. Paul speaks to the Thessalonian Christians as being mostly Gentiles. He reminds them that they had turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, "Jesus •who delivers us from the coming wrath" (1 Thess. i, 9, 10). The apostle had evidently spoken much of the coming and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of that wrath which was already descending upon the Jews (ii, 16, 19, etc.). His message had had a won- derful power among them, because they had known it to be really the word of a God who also wrought in them, having had helps towards this conviction in the zeal and disinterestedness and aifection with which Paul (notwithstanding his recent shameful treatment at Philippi) proclaimed his Gospel among them (ii, 2, 8-13). He had purposely wrought with his own hands, even night and day, that his disinterestedness might be more apparent (1 Thess. ii, 9; 2 Thess. iii, 8). He exhorted them not to be drawn away from patient in- dustry by the hopes of the kingdom into which they were called, but to work quietly, and to cultivate purity and brotherly love (1 Thess. iv, 3, 9, 11). Connecting these allusions with the preaching in the synagogue (Acts xvii, 3), we see clearly how the teaching of Paul turned upon the person of Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God, prophesied of in the Scriptures, suffer- ing and dying, raised up and exalted to a kingdom, and about to appear as the Giver of light and life, to the destruction of his enemies and the saving of those who trusted in him. (See below.)
When I'aul and Silas left Thessalonica they came to Beroea. Here they found the Jews more noble {thytvi- aripoi) — more disposed to receive the news of a rejected and crucified Messiah, and to examine the Scriptures with candor, than those at Thessalonica had been. Accordingly they gained many converts, both Jews and Greeks ; but the Jews of Thessalonica, hearing of it, sent emissaries to stir up the people, and it was thought best that Paul slioulil himself leave the city, while Silas and Timothy remained behind. Some of "'the brethren" went with Paul (probablv by sea) as far as Athens, where they left him, carrying back a request to Silas and Timothy that they would S|)eedily join him. He apparently did not like to preach alone, and intended to rest from his apostolic labor until they should rejoin him; but how coultl he refrain, with all that was going on at Athens round him ? There he witnessed the most profuse idola- try side by side with the most pretentious philosophy. Either of these would have been enough to stimulate his spirit. To idolaters and philosophers he felt equally urged to proclaim his Master and the living God. So he went to his own countrymen and the proselytes in the synagogue and declared to them that the Messiah had come ; but he also spoke, like anot her Socrates, with people in the market, and with the followers of the two great schools of jihilosophy. Epicureans and Stoics, naming to all Jesus and the Resurrection. The philos-
ophers encountered him with a mixture of curiositj' and contempt. The JCpicurean, teaching himself to seek for tranquil enjoyment as the chief object of life, heard of One claiming to be the Lord of men, who had shown them the glory of dying to self, and had promised to those who fought the good tight bravely a nobler bliss than the comforts of life could yield. The Stoic, culti- vating a stern and isolated moral independence, heard of One whose own righteousness was proved by submis- sion to the Father in heaven, and who had promised to give his righteousness to those who trusted not in them- selves, but in him. To all, the announcement of a Per- son was much stranger than the publishing of any the- ories would have been. So far as they thought the preacher anything but a silly trifler, he seemed to them, not a philosopher, but a " setter forth of strange gods" {S,'tVii)v vatfiovitov (carayyfXfiif). But any one with a novelty was welcome to those who " spent their time in nothing else but either to hear or to tell some new tiling." They brought him therefore to the Areopagus, that he might make a formal exposition of his doctrine to an assembled audience. See Arkopagus.