THESSALONIANS, I. and II. These Epistles were addressed to a Church in Northern Greece, where Paul on his second journey had suffered persecution (Acts xvii. 1–10). Thessalonica (Saloniki), anciently called Thermè, but re-named after the sister of Alexander the Great by her husband Cassander, who restored it, was the chief metropolis of Macedonia (a region extending N. to the Danube, E. to the Black Sea, W. to the Adriatic, S. to Achaia). The most populous city of that division of Europe, and its greatest port, it was to the W. what Ephesus was to the E., and Corinth to Southern Greece. Situated on the sea-margin of a vast plain, watered by numerous rivers, halfway between the Adriatic and Hellespont, at the entrance of the pass into the Macedonian plains, a busy commercial centre, with a constant tide of traffic ebbing and flowing, abroad by sea, inland by the two arms of Roman road, it was a fit centre of evangelization, as "from thence the word of the Lord sounded forth (as from a trumpet) not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place" (1 Thess. i. 8). Here was the chief colony and chief synagogue of the Jews (and at this day there are 80,000 Jews there). Here Paul and Silas shewed their unhealed stripes inflicted at Philippi (1 Thess. ii. 2), and for three sabbaths preached Jesus as the promised Messiah (Acts xvii. 2, 3). The Jews, failing in controversy, resorted to violence, roused a mob of vagabonds from the docks, assailed the lodgings of the apostle, and dragged its owner (Jason) before the rulers.