sudden episode of Sparta rising for a while almost into her former greatness, and to tell the noble and disastrous story of King Agis IV. Above all, we should have to speak of the formation of the Greek Federal system which found its full development in the great Achæan Confederation.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

GREECE AT THE TIME OF ST. PAUL.

Ar last the greatest event in the history of the world comes to pass, and whatever was best and most durable in Greek history, in its living energies and its living tongue, was taken up and consecrated to the Divine glory and the needs of humanity. It is said that the night is darkest towards the dawn, so humanity was at its worst when the Saviour of the world appeared. The whole world was sunk in sin, and throughout the whole world the Grecian name was a synonym for luxury and frivolity. The Greek national life was now at its lowest ebb. Corruption in its foulest shapes was on every side spreading moral death. There was no higher aspiration than for worthless sensual amusement. The nation had no longer any political life. The iron rule of Rome had brought all these confused and festering elements into an apparent solidity. The class wars, the civil wars, the wars of conquest, have all branded, in destructive characters, their story on the fair soil of Greece. If Rome had enslaved Hellas, Greece had none the less led her captor captive through the influence of her arts, her genius, and her civilization, and last, not least, of her vices, borrowing other vices in return.

But all this time Greece had been doing a mighty work for the future civil and religious history of the world. With the wonted heedlessness of their race the Greeks had wandered by all streams beneath all skies then accessible to the enterprise of travel. They had opened up commercial enterprise from land to land and from sea

to sea. They everywhere travelled along those great Roman roads which passed from the mighty heart of the Roman empire, through forests, over plains, across mountains to the furthest limits of the provinces and dependencies. Cicero speaks of the use of the Greek language as being universal among all educated people. Greece, standing at the meeting point of the two, had brought the East and the West together. The great rivers of the East had in one sense become Grecian streams. Its mountains and most distant provinces had become Hellenized. A common empire, a common organization, a common system of intercommunication accompanied the common language. Such things showed that the "fulness of time was come. The heart of humanity amid all material splendour and greatness was worn, weary, and bleeding. Then it was that, as the first-fruits of their race, certain Greeks desired to see Jesus; and the Lord pointed out the fulfilment of time when he replied to Andrew and Philip: "The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified."

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There is no time of greater moment in the history of the world than when the religion of Jesus was first brought into contact with Western life and civilization. Whatever isolated instances of conversions may have occurred, it is to St. Paul's second missionary journey that we must assign the earliest stage of the evangelization of Greece. In the silence of night there came to the apostle, while sojourning at Troas, the vision of a inan of Macedonia" pleading, "Come over and help us." Whereupon he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but leaving his well beloved East, its familiar faces, its fixed order and ancient calm, he passed over the narrow sea. Under a southerly breeze he proceeded to Samothrace, off which he anchors for the night, and on the next day he comes to the Macedonian harbour of Neapolis. This was the seaport of Philippi, which across precipitous ground lay ten miles further off. Before the city itself lies a large plain, fertile, broad, well-watered, which had been the arena for the great battle of Philippi, in which Roman republicanism was defeated before Roman imperialism. It was founded by Philip, who had founded a new city, called by his own

name, in a place called in earlier history "the place of fountains." It is called the "First City," most probably meaning thereby the first city to which St. Paul came. It was the kind of city called a colonia, to which peculiar privileges were attached. The colonia, as it seems, reproduced the great Roman metropolis itself. The colonists were strictly Roman citizens. The law, language, and insignia that legally prevailed were Latin. The city had self-government, and possessed imperial interests, and all other residents were regarded as subjects and aliens. Hither came St. Paul along the great Egnatian road. It was the pride and privilege of Roman citizenship that emboldened the magistrates to apprehend Paul, and which gave them so deep a terror when they learned that the despised prisoner was himself a citizen of Rome.

Philippi itself was a city that in its nature gave great significance to this first preaching of the gospel here by St. Paul. From its geographical position it was the meeting point of nations. "The almost continuous mountain barrier between the east and west is here depressed so as to form a gateway for the thoroughfare of the two continents We are standing at the confluence of the streams of European and Asiatic life; we see reflected in the evangelization of Philippi as in a mirror, the history of the passage of Christianity from the East to the West." Corresponding with this is the remarkable character of the conversions made by St. Paul. The converts, so far as they are named, are three, an Asiatic, a Greek, and a Roman; and two of the converts point to two great subjects which form the especial triumphs of the gospel, the abolition of slavery and the amelioration of the lot of women. Again, when we read of the conversion of the jailor and all his house, we see especially the inauguration of the worship of the Christian household.

The sufferings which the apostle underwent at Philippi were more than usually severe; but the success which he met with was more than usually great. He left Philippi in consequence of the relentless persecution which he endured. But his epistle to the Philippians is altogether unclouded by that language of

reproof which he so frequently addresses to other churches. His brethren there were his "joy and crown,” his brethren" beloved and longed for." They, and they only, were those who contributed to his personal wants, for once and again they sent to assist him in his necessities. Five years later he again visited Philippi, but his messengers must frequently have traversed Philippi and its neighbourhood in coming and going between Europe and Asia. He also probably made one or more visits to the city in the period between his first and second captivity.

We may at this point make one more passing reference to Philippi. In the second century, Ignatius on his way to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom, was courteously and hospitably entertained by the Christians of Philippi. Now Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was the beloved friend of Ignatius, and thus a bond of sympathy grew up between him and the Philippians. Polycarp addressed to them at their own request an epistle, in which he gives them much Christian exhortation, and reminds them of the parting injunctions of Ignatius. At the present time the city of Philippi has utterly passed away, and no trace of Christian remains has hitherto been discoverable.

We next hear of the apostle proceeding to Amphipolis and Apollonia. The distances are given in the ancient itineraries; Philippi to Amphipolis, thirtythree miles; Amphipolis to Apollonia, thirty miles; Apollonia to Thessalonica, thirty-seven miles. We have had full occasion in this history to point out the conspicuous place which Amphipolis occupied and the great stress which was laid upon its possession. We have seen what important space it occupies in the narratives of Thucydides, and how it is bound up with the personal history of Thucydides himself. It was his failure here which caused the historian's exile. As St. Paul left Amphipolis his steps would for a time traverse the road that passed along the Strymonic gulf between the cliffs and the sea. This road would afterwards lead him (through a country not unlike Switzerland) to Apollonia, the site of which has not hitherto been exactly 1 Phil. iv. 1.

ascertained.

From thence he came to Thessalonica, the ancient Therma, at which Xerxes had once rested on his march into Greece. It derived this name from Thessalonica, a sister of Alexander the Great, who married Cassander, the son of Antipater; her husband had enlarged and beautified the town in her honour. It still exists, as the well known Saloniki of the modern Levant, still nobly seen from the sea, its houses rising in proud terraces, flanked and protected in the rear by cliffs; the second city of Turkey in Europe.

In all times of its history settlements of Jews have been found at Thessalonica. No longer by the river side, but in the crowded synagogues, were Paul and Silas to appear, preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. By comparing the language of the Acts of the Apostles with the corresponding language of the Epistles, we are able to see very exactly the nature of the apostle's teaching. He spoke to them, expounding and arguing from the Hebrew scriptures that the Messiah, as foretold in ancient prophecy, was to be a suffering Messiah,' and that this Jesus whom he preached unto them was that Messiah. Neither did he dwell on the suffering aspect alone of the Messiah. As we see by the allusions of the Epistles," he spoke of Christ as a king and of his kingdom and his coming. This is evidenced, also, by the charge brought against him, which was that he preached another king, one Jesus. The Jews stirred up against him certain "fellows of the baser sort," literally loungers about the market-place; that worthless dissolute class which is reproduced in the "idle corner" of each town and village. During the time that he was at Thessalonica, we know that he received the contributions of the faithful at Philippi, and also worked with his own hands, carrying out the wise custom of the Jews that the children should be taught a trade. The magistrates of Thessalonica are called Politarchs. It is a very interesting coincidence that on ancient arches of Thessalonica we can still decipher this

1 Acts xvii. 3. The A. V. hardly brings out the form of the original, διανοίγων καὶ παρατιθέμενος ὅτι τὸν χριστὸν ἔδει παθεῖν. 21 Thess. ii. 12; 2 Thess. i. 5. 3 ἀγοραῖοι.