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Places, art and manuscripts across time. First era: the apostolic and early church, from Pentecost to the early fourth century.
Thessalonica
Paul reasoned in its synagogue on three sabbath days and left by night. After Acts the record goes almost silent, apart from an imperial letter and a legend.
- 40.628342
- 22.952885
The real question: what should we make of a church that has two letters from Paul and almost nothing after? A busy shop on the corner has photos from its opening week and then nothing for a hundred years. It may have thrived quietly. It may have closed. What does silence in the record mean for Thessalonica?
Paul and Silas come to Thessalonica, where there is a synagogue, and Paul reasons there on three sabbath days (Acts 17:1-2). A crowd assaults the house of Jason, and the brethren send Paul and Silas away by night to Berea (Acts 17:5-10). Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica travel with Paul (Acts 20:4), and Aristarchus sails with him toward Rome (Acts 27:2). Melito of Sardis, in an apology quoted by Eusebius, says that Antoninus wrote to the cities, among them the Thessalonians, forbidding new measures against Christians (Church History 4.26.10).
The synagogue (Acts 17:1). The uproar and Jason's house (Acts 17:5-6). The night departure to Berea (Acts 17:10). Aristarchus and Secundus (Acts 20:4). Aristarchus on the ship (Acts 27:2).
The one notice in Eusebius is Melito's claim that the emperor wrote to the Thessalonians, among other Greek cities, telling them not to move against Christians (Church History 4.26.10). The fathers read here name no bishop of Thessalonica in this era.
No manuscript in the sources read here is tied to Thessalonica in this era.
Melito's statement is a Christian apologist's report of an imperial letter, preserved by Eusebius; the letter itself is not in the sources read here. The list of the seventy among the dubious and spurious pieces attributed to Hippolytus makes Silvanus bishop of Thessalonica. That is legend.
Not a judgment on the church. A thin record here is a fact about what survived, not about what the church was.
- Acts 17:1-10
- Acts 20:4
- Acts 27:2
- Acts, checked in the King James Version
- Eusebius, Church History, trans. McGiffert, NPNF2 vol. 1 (1890), 4.26.10
- Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Seventy Apostles, ANF vol. 5, Appendix of Dubious and Spurious Pieces
- Pleiades gazetteer, place 491741, Thessalonica, places.csv
