Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 17

Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia.—The two cities were both on the great Roman roads known as the Via Egnatia. Amphipolis, formerly known as Ennea Hodoi, or the Nine Ways, was famous in the Peloponnesian War as the scene of the death of Brasidas, and had been made, under the Romans, the capital of Macedonia prima. It was thirty-three Roman miles from Philippi and thirty from Apollonia, the latter being thirty-seven from Thessalonica.

The site of Apollonia is uncertain, but the name is, perhaps, traceable in the modern village of Polina, between the Strymonic and Thermaic Gulfs. A more famous city of the same name, also on the Via Egnatia, was situated near Dyrrhacium. It seems clear that the names indicated the stages at which the travelers rested, and that thirty miles a day (a somewhat toilsome journey for those who had so recently been scourged) was, as with most men of ordinary strength, their average rate of traveling. It would seem that there was no Jewish population to present an opening for the gospel at either of these cities, and that St. Paul, therefore, passed on to Thessalonica.

Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.—The city, which had previously borne the names of Emathia, Halia, and Therma, had been enlarged by Philip of Macedon, and named after his daughter. It was situated on the Thermaic Gulf, and had grown into a commercial port of considerable importance. As such, it had attracted Jews in large numbers. The manuscripts differ as to the presence or absence of the Greek article before “synagogue,” but, on the whole, it is probable that we should read, “the synagogue,” that which served for the Jews of the neighboring cities, who were not numerous enough to have one of their own. The old name survives in the modern Saloniki, and there is still a large Jewish population there.

Paul, as was his custom . . .—What we read about occurring in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14–15) was, we may believe, now reproduced. That he was allowed to preach for three Sabbaths in succession shows the respect commanded by his character as a Rabbi and, perhaps, by his earnest eloquence.

Though he came with the marks of the scourge upon him, he was as fearless as ever, speaking the gospel of God with much contention, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance (1 Thessalonians 1:5). And with this boldness there was also a winning gentleness, even as a nurse cherisheth her children (1 Thessalonians 2:7). And many Gentiles turned from idols to serve the living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

Opening and alleging.—The latter word is used in the sense of bringing forward proofs, and the two words imply an argument from the prophecies of the Messiah, similar to that at Pisidian Antioch. In the intervals between the Sabbaths, the Apostle worked, as usual, for his livelihood, probably, of course, as a tent-maker (2 Thessalonians 3:8).

That Christ must needs have suffered.—Better, that the Christ, as pointing to the expected Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord, whom all Jews were expecting, but whom they were unwilling to recognize in the crucified Jesus. The argument was, therefore, to show that prophecy pointed to a suffering as well as a glorified Messiah, and that both conditions were fulfilled in Jesus.

And some of them . . .—Obviously only a few in comparison with the "great multitude" of the Greek proselytes of the gate. The Thessalonian Church was predominantly Gentile, some of its members apparently won from idolatry without passing through Judaism (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Some good manuscripts, indeed, express this by reading, devout persons and Greeks.

Of the chief women not a few.—These, like the women in the Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:50), had probably come previously under Jewish influence. Here, however, they were attracted by the higher teaching of the Apostles.

The Jews which believed not.—The latter words are missing in many manuscripts, as “filled with envy” are in others.

Certain lewd fellows of the baser sort.—The word “lewd” is used in its older sense, meaning vile or worthless. At a still earlier stage of its history, as in Chaucer and the Vision of Piers Plowman (for example, in lines such as these):

“How you teach the people,
The learned and the unlearned,” i. 2100.

In this earlier usage, it meant simply the layman, or untaught person, as distinct from the scholar. The “baser sort” answers to a Greek word describing the loungers in the agora, or market-place, ever ready for the excitement of a tumult—the sub-rostrani or turba forensis of Latin writers. Men of such a class, retaining its old habits, are found even among Christian converts in 2 Thessalonians 3:11, “working not at all, but busybodies.”

Assaulted the house of Jason.—The ground of the attack was that he had received the preachers as his guests. The name Jason was locally conspicuous as having belonged to the old hero of the Argonautic expedition and to the tyrant of Pherae. It is probable, however, that Saint Paul would, in the first instance, take up his abode with a Jew, and that Jason, as in the case of the apostate high priest mentioned in 2 Maccabees 4:7, was the Greek equivalent for Joshua or Jesus.

To bring them out to the people.—Thessalonica was a free Greek city, and the Jews accordingly, in the first instance, intended to bring the matter before the popular ecclesia or assembly.