town or village

Thessalonica

• Today Thessaloniki

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Events

1. AD 380Theodosius I commands all his peoples to hold the Nicene faith (the Edict of Thessalonica)
2. AD 904An Arab fleet under Leo of Tripoli sacks Thessalonica

In ancient writers

• Pliny the Elder, Natural History 4.36 — On the Macedonian coast, at the middle of the bend of the shore, lies Thessalonica, a free city, 245 miles from Dyrrhachium.

History

Thessalonica, today's Thessaloniki, stands at the head of the Thermaic Gulf in Macedonia, where the routes from the Balkan interior reach the sea. About 315 BC Cassander, king of Macedonia, founded it by gathering into one city the people of some twenty-six small towns around the gulf, and named it after his wife Thessalonike, a daughter of Philip II. Strabo says the place had earlier been called Therma.

After Rome defeated the last Macedonian king, Perseus, in 168 BC and made Macedonia a province in 146 BC, Thessalonica became the seat of its governors and a station on the Via Egnatia, the Roman road across the Balkans. Pliny calls it a free city. It kept its own magistrates, whom inscriptions call politarchs, the title Acts gives to the "rulers of the city".

Paul and Silas came here from Philippi and for three sabbaths reasoned in the synagogue; some Jews, a great multitude of God-fearing Greeks and not a few leading women believed. Their opponents gathered a crowd, attacked the house of Jason, and dragged him before the rulers, crying that those who "have turned the world upside down are come hither also"; the brethren sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, where Jews of Thessalonica followed to stir up the people. While Paul was in the city, the church at Philippi sent him help more than once. From Athens Paul sent Timothy back to strengthen the church, and he wrote to it; First Thessalonians is usually held to be the earliest of his letters, while the authorship of Second Thessalonians is disputed. Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica later travelled with Paul, and Demas left him to go there.

About AD 300 the emperor Galerius made Thessalonica his residence and built a palace, a triumphal arch and the great round hall later known as the Rotunda. Tradition honours Demetrius as a martyr of this time, and a large church was later built in his name. In 380 Theodosius I was baptised here during an illness and from here issued the law that bound his subjects to the Nicene faith. In 390, after a riot in which the commander Butheric was killed, the emperor's troops massacred the townspeople; Theodoret reports that seven thousand died, and Ambrose of Milan made Theodosius do public penance.

Scripture: Acts 17:1–4; Acts 17:5–10; Acts 17:13; 1 Thess 1:1; 1 Thess 3:1–2; 2 Thess 1:1; Acts 20:4; Acts 27:2; Phil 4:16; 2 Tim 4:10

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (9)

Acts 17:1

Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:

Acts 17:11

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Acts 17:13

But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people.

Acts 20:4

And there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus.

Acts 27:2

And entering into a ship of Adramyttium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia; one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.

Phil 4:16

For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.

1 Thess 1:1

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thess 1:1

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2 Tim 4:10

For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

King James Version

Tours through this place

• Paul's second journey →
• Where Paul's letters went →