modern Greece, and has a population of sixty thousand persons, twelve thousand of whom are Jews. According to Dr. Clarke, this place is the same now as it was then; a set of turbulent Jews constituted a very considerable part of its population; and when St. Paul came here from Philippi to preach the gospel to the Thessalonians, the Jews were numerous enough to 'set all the city in an uproar.'" (Williams.)
After this specimen of popular excitement, it was too manifest
that nothing could be done just then at Thessalonica by the apostolic
ministers of Christ, and that very night therefore the brethren
sent off Paul and Silas in the darkness, to Beroea, a city also
in Macedonia, about fifty miles from Thessalonica, exactly west,
being on the same parallel of latitude, standing on the south bank
of the river Astroeus. Arriving there, they went into the synagogue
of the Jews, who were here for the most part of a much
better character than the mean Jews of the great trading city of
Thessalonica, and being more independent and spiritual in their
religious notions, were also much better prepared to appreciate the
spiritual doctrines preached by Paul and Silas. They listened
respectfully to the new preachers, and when the usual references
were made to the standard passages in the Old Testament, universally
supposed to describe the Messiah, they diligently examined
the passages for themselves, and studied out their correspondence
with the events in the life of Jesus, which were mentioned by
his preachers as perfectly parallel with these distinct prophecies.
The natural result of this nobly candid and rational examination
of this great question was, that many of these fair-minded and
considerate Jews of Beroea professed their perfect conviction that
Jesus was the Christ, and had by the actions of his life fully answered
and completed the prophetic types of the Messiah. Here,
too, as in Thessalonica, the Greek proselytes to Judaism readily
and heartily accepted the doctrines of Jesus. But the gospel messengers
were not long allowed the enjoyment of this fine field of
apostolic enterprise; for their spiteful foes in Thessalonica, hearing
how things were going on in Beroea, took the pains and trouble
to journey all the way to that place, for the express purpose of hunting
out the preachers of Jesus by a new mob: and in this they
were so successful, that the brethren, according to the established
rules of Christian expediency, immediately sent away Paul to the
south, because he seemed to be the grand object of the persecution;
but Silas and Timothy being less obnoxious, still remained
in Beroea.
"Beroea was a city of Macedonia; a great and populous city. Lucian de Asino, p.
639. D." (Whitby.) It was situated to the west of Thessalonica, and not "south," as
Wells absurdly says, "almost directly on the way to Athens."
