The life and work of St. Paul

THESSALONICA. AND BEfiCEA. 285
and majesty of Ilome.1 They did not at all like the notion of being them-
selves summoned before the Proconsul's court to answer for their flagrant
illegality ; so, trusting to the placability of the Jewish character as regards
mere personal wrongs, they came in person, accompanied, says one manu-
script, by many friends.2 Entreating the pardon of their prisoners, they
urged them, with reiterated requests, to leave the city, excusing themselves
on the plea that they had mistaken their true character, and pleading that,
if they stayed, there might be another ebullition of 3
public anger. Paul and
Silas, however, were courageous men, and had no intention to give any colour
of justice to the treatment they had received by sneaking out of the city.
From the prison they went straight to the house of Lydia ; nor was it till
they had seen the assembled brethren, and given them their last exhortation,
that they turned their backs on the beautiful scenes where a hopeful work
had been rudely ended by their first experience of Gentile persecution. But,
in accordance with a frequent custom of St. Paul,* they left Luke behind
for the
them. 6 Perhaps at Philippi he had found favourable opportunities
exercise of his art, and he could at the same time guide and strengthen
the little band of Philippian converts, before whom days and years of bitter
persecution were still in store.8
CHAPTER XXVL
THESSALONICA AND BEKffiA.
yap aSA^>ol rdv ic6irov ijfiiav KA\ rbv (i.6xOov. 1 TIIESS. ii. 9.
".In oppidum devium Berocam profugisti."
Cic. in Pis. 36.
LEAVING Philippi, with its mingled memories of suffering and happiness,
Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus took an easy day's journey of about thrce-
and-thirty miles to the beautiful town of Amphipolis. It lies to the south of
a splendid lake, under sheltering hills, three miles from the sea, and on (ho
edge of a plain of boundless fertility. The strength of its natural position,
1 "Facinus cat vinciri civem Romanum, scclua verberari," Cic. in Vtrr. v. 66.
* Acts XVI. 39, L), jrapayevo/xeVot jucra iX