The commotion in the city was so great, and the peril of mob violence so imminent, that the brethren sent Paul and Silas by night to Berea, an interior town, about sixty miles south-west of Thessalonica. In this small rural city, situated on the eastern slope of the Olympian mountains, Paul found an intelligent, unprejudiced people, who listened gladly to the tidings of salvation which he brought them. “They were more noble,” writes Luke, “than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.”[137] The malignant Jews in Thessalonica, hearing of Paul’s success in Berea, sent some of their number to rouse the mob there against him. Paul, aware that he could hope to accomplish but little amidst scenes of popular clamor and violence, quietly withdrew. He, however, left Silas and Timothy behind: they, being less prominent, would not so much attract the attention of the populace. Aided by the brethren of Berea, Paul repaired to the sea-coast, where he embarked for the city of Athens. Coasting along the western shore of the Island of Eubœa, a distance of ninety miles, they came to Cape Colonna, the southern extremity of Attica. Here, on Sunium’s high promontory, stood the temple of Minerva, a landmark to the Greek sailors. The eminence is still crowned with the ruins of its white columns. Rounding this cape, the navigator soon came in sight of the splendid city of Athens, “built nobly on the Ægean shore, the eye of Greece, the mother of arts and eloquence.”[138] Idolatrous shrines crowned every height, and gorgeous temples for the worship of false gods were found in all the streets. Athens was probably by far the most renowned city Paul had yet entered; and it embraced a large class of poets, philosophers, and men of literary leisure. “All the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” The statues to the gods were so numerous, that Petronius, a Roman satirist, declared that it was easier to find a god than a man in Athens. The spirit of Paul was roused as never before in seeing this great city so entirely surrendered to idolatry. In the synagogue of the Jews, and daily in the market-place, and from house to house, as he could find persons to listen to him, he proclaimed the religion of Jesus. His earnestness, and the power of his eloquent words, soon arrested general attention. Some of the proud philosophers turned contemptuously from him, calling him a “babbler:” others had their curiosity excited, and wished to hear more, saying, “He seemeth to be a setter-forth of strange gods, because,” adds Luke, “he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.”[139]