INTRODUCTION. THE FIRST EPISTLE.
THESSALONICA was situated on the Thermaic Gulf, a fine harbour, affording anchorage for large ships directly in front of the city.* The situation commanded the trade of the Macedonian waters, and was connected inland with the plain of the Axius, one of the great levels of Macedonia, and with the plain of the Strymon, by a pass across the peninsula of Chalcidice. It was the chief station on the Via Egnatia, the great Roman road which ran from Dyrrhachium through Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace to Byzantium.
In Paul’s day it was a free city, the capital of the whole province and the most populous of its towns. Its extensive trade with all parts of the world accounts in part for the rapid spread of the news of the success of the gospel (1 Th. i. 8). The population consisted of the original Graeco- Macedonian inhabitants, mixed with many Romans and some Jews. The same heathen deities were worshipped as in other Graeco-Roman communities, and the worship of the Cabeiri had been introduced from Samothrace.t
Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica is related in Acts xvii.; and the account must be filled out, as far as possible, by means
* ‘¢ Medio flexu litoris.’’ Pliny, H. N. iv. 10.
+ The Cabeiri were Pelasgic deities worshipped in the islands between Euboea and the Hellespont, on the adjacent coasts of Asia Minor, and at Thebes and Andania in Greece. They were four in number, answering to Demeter, Persephone, Hades, and Hermes in the Greek mythology. Through- out the Roman period of Greek history the Cabeiric mysteries were held only second to the Eleusinian, and many Romans of high position were initiated.
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