Acts 17:1

Acts 17:1. Paul and Silas journey through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, where some of the Jews raise an uproar against them and Jason their host

1. they had passed through The verb occurs in N. T. only here and in Luke 8:1. The use of the same expressions is a noticeable point in support of the identity of authorship of the two books.

Amphipolis and Apollonia The journey is made to the south and west. Amphipoliswas about 33 miles distant from Philippi, along the Egnatian road. It had been a famous place in the time of the Peloponnesian war, and was in St Paul's time a great Roman military station. Its name was given to it because it was as nearly as possible enclosed by the winding stream of the river Strymon. Apollonia was about 30 miles farther on, in the district of Macedonia known as Mygdonia, and was about 37 miles from Thessalonica. The Apostle and his companions appear not to have made any stay in these towns.

Thessalonica The modern Saloniki; to the Christians of which place St Paul afterwards addressed the two earliest of his extant epistles. From very early times Thessalonica had been a famous place. Its old name was Therma, and it was called Thessalonica after a sister of Alexander the Great. It is now one of the most important towns in European Turkey, and it played a great part in the history of the Middle Ages as the bulwark of Christendom in the East. It was captured by the Saracens a.d. 904, then by the Crusaders in 1184, and lastly by the Turks in 1430. Even now there is a large Christian element among its population, and a still larger number of Jews.

a synagogue The Text. Rec. gives the definite article "thesynagogue," though it is overlooked in the A.V., and we cannot always be sure that we represent the force of the Greek article by the English one. (R. V.retains "asynagogue"). But there was apparently no synagogue at Philippi, and it may very well be that in Thessalonica dwelt the greatest number of Jews and therefore the facilities for their worship had there alone been advanced so far as to secure them a building for their meetings, which would be known therefore as "thesynagogue."