Acts 17:1

Paul at Thessalonica and Berea, 1-14.

Acts 17:1. Through Amphipolis and Apollonia. From Philippi to Amphipolis, some thirty-three miles along the great Egnatian Way, which was a continuation of the Appian Way. Amphipolis was an important military station in the days of Paul; its former name was ‘The Nine Ways,' from the number of roads which met at this point. The missionary apostle appears to have merely passed through this place and also Apollonia, an unimportant town thirty miles from Amphipolis, and only to have preached at the great maritime city of Thessalonica, which he reached probably on the third day after his departure from Philippi. Thessalonica is thirty-seven miles from Apollonia.

They came to Thessalonica. From very early times this city was famed as a commercial centre. Under its old name, Therma, we read of it in Herodotus and Thucydides. It was rebuilt by Cassander, and renamed after his wife Thessalonica, sister to Alexander the Great. This princess received her name to commemorate a victory won by her father, Philip of Macedon, on the day he received the news of her birth. In the Middle Ages it is celebrated in German poetry under the name of Salneck, an abbreviation of Thessalonica which, with a very slight change, has remained to the present day. Before the building of Constantinople, it was really the capital of Greece and Illyricum, and even now Saloniki is the second city of European Turkey. In the mediaeval chronicles it is known as the ‘orthodox city;' and during those dark ages when the Barbarians were fast spreading over the provinces of the decaying Empire, this brave merchant city held its own and contributed greatly to the spread of Christianity among the swarms of invading Goths and Slaves who were gradually making permanent settlements in the neighbouring districts. Saloniki, though now a Turkish city, among its 70,000 inhabitants reckons 35,000 Jews and 10,000 Christians! The chief trade is in the hands of its Jewish population, and thirty-six synagogues are said to exist at the present time.

Where was a synagogue of the Jews. The more literal translation would be here ‘the synagogue,' signifying that the chief， not the only synagogue of the district, was placed in this great sea city.