THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS

[Sidenote: The Author.]

Among all schools of thought there has been an increasing conviction that this Epistle is genuine. It was included in Marcion's Apostolicon, or list of Pauline writings, it is contained in the Muratorian Fragment, it is quoted by the great Fathers of the close of the 2nd century, and is found in the Old Latin and Peshitta Syriac versions of the New Testament. The earnest and affectionate tone of the Epistle is thoroughly Pauline, and the argument that it is not genuine because it does not contain the same pronounced anti-Jewish teaching as we find in Romans is precarious, though it has seemed to some sceptics to be convenient. The argument might be turned in the opposite direction. For it would be just as reasonable to say that the absence of anti-Jewish doctrine proves that the Epistle was written before the great conflict with the semi-Christian Jews began, as to say that it proves that it was written by a forger after the conflict was over. One paragraph in the Epistle points decisively to an early date. In iv.13-18 we find that some Thessalonians were under the delusion that it would be an exceptional thing for a Christian to die before the second coming of our Lord, and that those who did so die would miss some of the felicity appointed for the rest. Such a delusion must have been dispelled at a very early date. Moreover, the {126} comfort which St. Paul administers to those who are agitated by this notion gives us the idea that he expected Christ to return in his own lifetime. In this respect he writes to the Thessalonians something very different from what he writes in his later Epistles (Phil. i.21-24; 2 Tim. iv.6), or even in 2 Cor. v.1. We need not be surprised that God left the great apostle in ignorance of an event which it is not given even to the angels to understand (Matt. xxiv.36). But a forger, living after the apostle's death, would not be at all likely to represent his hero as falling into such a mistake.

[Sidenote: To whom written.]

Thessalonica, the modern Saloniki, was the capital of part of Macedonia, situated in the middle of the bend of the Thermaic Gulf, and not far from Mount Olympus, the snow-clad home of the gods of Greece. It was a busy mercantile town, and in ready communication with Italy, as the great road called Via Egnatia passed through its walls. It contained then, as now, a considerable number of Jews among its inhabitants. In Christian times it became a great ecclesiastical centre, and was influential in the conversion of the Slavs and Bulgarians. It is still famous for its splendid Byzantine churches, though the finest have long since been converted into mosques by the Turks.

The Church was planted there by St. Paul on his second missionary journey, in A.D.50 (Acts xvii.). He preached first to the Jews, and after his third visit to the synagogue he was rejected by the Jews, and he turned to the Gentiles. Some of these Thracian Gentiles were converts to Judaism, but they were people whose character could be trusted. In the mean time his Philippian converts twice sent aid to him (Phil. iv.16). Previous to this the apostle had been earning his own bread, no doubt by tent-making. St. Paul was forced to leave Thessalonica in consequence of a riot stirred up by the Jews. He visited it again before his last journey to Jerusalem in A.D.56.

1 Thess. i.9 shows that the majority of the Christians had {127} been Gentile idolaters, though there were a few of Jewish blood. It was among the sturdy people of Macedonia that St. Paul won his steadiest recruits for Christ. Here, as in the letter to Philippi, we find that he uses words of more than ordinary affection. These converts are to St. Paul his "joy and crown" (1 Thess. ii.19; Phil. iv.1). He compares his relation with them to that of a nurse with her own children (1 Thess. ii.7). When he wrote to the Corinthians he displayed his Macedonians as brilliant examples of Christian liberality and Christian loyalty (2 Cor. viii.1-5). In this passage he alludes to their poverty, and these Epistles show that they had to work for their bread. They were exposed to bitter and continuous persecution from Jews, who were capable of inciting the roughs of the town to set on St. Paul (Acts xvii.5).

[Sidenote: Where and when written.]

The Epistle was written from Corinth on the occasion of St. Paul's first visit there. When St. Paul had to leave Beroea in A.D.50, Silas and Timothy remained (Acts xvii.14, 15; xviii.5). He sent for them to meet him at Athens, and when they had come, he despatched Timothy to Thessalonica (1 Thess. iii.2). In October A.D.50, St. Paul arrived at Corinth from Athens: Timothy and Silas rejoined him at Corinth, and the letter was written soon afterwards, probably early in A.D.51.

[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]

The immediate cause of the Epistle was the arrival of Timothy with news from Thessalonica. The apostle's reasons for writing were: (a) to calm and encourage the converts whom he had so abruptly left; (b) to urge them to perform their ordinary duties. They had fallen into a state bordering on religious hysteria. Quite determined to be true to Christ, they had been demoralized by the strain of facing constant hostility. They had begun to take excessive interest in unfulfilled prophecy and eschatological speculation. The result was that individuals had become careless as to the performance of simple duties.

The apostle comforts the Thessalonians by reminding them {128} of the happiness and reality of their own spiritual experience. He wishes them to see plainly the working of God both in his own preaching of the gospel and their acceptance of it. On the one hand, he gladly recognizes the faith, charity, hope, and constancy under persecution: the story of their conversion, as it had been known everywhere, has won many friends for the Faith (i.). On the other hand, St. Paul is aware that his own conduct has not been unworthy of an apostle. Probably to vindicate himself against Jewish calumnies, he declares that his ministry at Thessalonica was bold, pure, honest, and gentle. Moreover, he did not quarter himself upon his converts; he worked with his hands, and was just and fatherly (ii.1-12).

After a thanksgiving for the manner in which they received the word of God, he speaks of his eager wish to see his friends again. He had sent Timothy that he might comfort them, and Timothy has returned with glad tidings. He prays for their establishment in holiness (ii.13-iii.13).

He goes on to exhort them to avoid impurity and work quietly, and then he speaks of the eschatological difficulties. The Thessalonians wondered whether the Christians already dead would miss a share in the joy of Christ's second coming. St. Paul replies that those who are alive at Christ's appearing will have no advantage over the dead (iv.15). On the contrary, the dead will rise first, and then the living Christians will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord. The day will come with surprise, and will terrify the unprepared (iv.1-v.3).

He then calls them to watchfulness and sobriety. There follows an exhortation to obey the clergy, and the early date of the Epistle is again suggested by the fact that the titles which are used in his later epistles are not given to the clergy of Thessalonica. The existence of an order of prophets seems implied (v.20). The Epistle has a special blessing for these troubled Christians who look so wistfully for "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

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ANALYSIS

Salutation, thanksgiving, and congratulation. The good fruit borne by Christianity at Thessalonica is known of through all Macedonia and Achaia (i.).

The character of the apostle's ministry there, a fresh thanksgiving, the apostle desires to see his friends, but is hindered by Satan working through adverse circumstances (ii.).

Timothy's expedition, a prayer (iii.).

Encouragement to obedience, exhortation against impurity and to work; the blessed dead and Christ's second coming. The sudden coming of the Lord (iv.1-v.3).

Practical conclusion based on the above doctrine (v.4-28).

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS

[Sidenote: The Author.]

The external evidence for the genuineness of the Second Epistle is even stronger than that of the First. It is mentioned by Polycarp,[1] and apparently by Justin Martyr.[2] It is also supported by the same versions of the New Testament and by the same Fathers as the First Epistle. In modern times it has been rejected even by some who accept 1 Thessalonians. Some of the objections which have been raised are almost too trivial to deserve attention. But the prophetic and apocalyptic passage in ii.1-12 has been regarded by many critics as a serious stumbling-block. It has been urged (a) that 1 Thessalonians implies that St. Paul believed Christ would return immediately, whereas 2 Thessalonians implies that certain important occurrences must first intervene. But there is no real contradiction. For 1 Thessalonians represents the return of Christ as certainly sudden {130} and possibly soon; it does not represent it as certainly immediate. A thief may come suddenly in the night, and yet the man who gives warning that the thief will come, does not necessarily mean that the thief is coming without delay. It has been urged (b) that the doctrine of Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians is un-Pauline, and depends on the Book of Revelation. But there is not the least improbability in supposing that St. Paul was in touch with these ideas about the end of the world. We know that such ideas were common among the Jews at this period. Nor is there any proof that the teaching of 2 Thessalonians on this subject is derived from the Revelation of St. John. Moreover, on the least Christian view with regard to Christ and the Gospels, it is irrational to deny that our Lord made various predictions about His second coming. We find a list of such predictions in Matt. xxiv. and in the parallel passages of the other Gospels. It is therefore natural to find St. Paul speaking about the end of the world in language which resembles that used by our Lord, or that found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and the later Jewish Apocalypses.

[Sidenote: Where and when written.]

St. Paul sent this Epistle from Corinth, probably towards the end of the year 51.

Several modern writers have dated 2 Thessalonians earlier than 1 Thessalonians. The grounds for this view are the references in this Epistle to the teaching lately given by St. Paul while at Thessalonica. But although these references would be natural in any Epistle written first after his departure from that place, they do not necessarily imply that 2 Thessalonians was the first. Moreover, ii.2 probably contains a reference to the First Epistle, and this letter was apparently written to clear up a difficulty which the First Epistle did not solve. Persecution had continued at Thessalonica, and higher excitement and wider confusion prevailed. The Thessalonians were more sure than ever that Christ's advent was coming immediately, on the strength, perhaps, of some words in St. Paul's earlier letter to them, {131} supported by a forged letter which pretended to be his and by feigned revelations. The result was entire neglect of daily duties. "There is no reason," men said, "why I should work for my living or try to be provident, because the Lord is sure to come to-day or to-morrow."

As the circumstances are so similar to those in the First Epistle, and as Silvanus (otherwise Silas) and Timothy are still with the apostle, we may be sure that 2 Thessalonians was written during St. Paul's first stay at Corinth.

[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]

The Epistle consists of instruction and exhortation. The most characteristic passage is ii.1-12. The apostle declares that he never taught that the day of the Lord is about to dawn immediately (ii.2). It must be preceded by several events. There will be an apostasy, the revelation of "the man of sin, the son of perdition," who will assume equality with God and sit in the temple of God. Over against this "man of sin" we find placed "one that restraineth now." Many strange interpretations of these two phrases have been devised, and the fancy of commentators has ranged over various historical monsters from Mohammed to Napoleon Bonaparte. One favourite idea is that the description of the man of sin "setting himself forth as God" refers to the worship offered to the Roman emperors, and to the attempt made by Caligula in A.D.39 to place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem. But it seems far better to regard the man of sin as hostile Judaism, personified in an Antichrist who pretends to be the representative of God foretold in Mal. iii.1. The other force which St. Paul personifies is the curbing power of a strong government as then seen in the administrative system of the Roman empire. The power of Rome protected him against Jewish fanaticism at this period (Acts xix.35-41; xxii.22-29), but in this truly irreligious fanaticism he discerned a latent mysterious evil (ii.7) which would afterwards reveal itself in hideous excesses. While "the man of sin," or {132} "wicked one," thus wreaks his will, Christ will come and consume him with the breath of His mouth.

St. Paul understood the real genius of the antichristian Jews. Early in the 2nd century they began a series of rebellions against the power of Rome, committing horrible atrocities. These rebellions culminated between A.D.132 and 135. The Jews then rallied round a pretended Messiah, Simon Bar Kocheba, whom they named "Prince of Israel"; they killed the Christians who refused to blaspheme Jesus, and they captured Jerusalem from the Romans. After a fierce struggle the Romans took Jerusalem again, and crowds of Jews were either massacred, or sold as slaves by the oak of Abraham at Hebron and in the markets of Egypt.

ANALYSIS

Salutation, thanksgiving for faith, charity, steadfastness, the certainty of Christ's coming to "render vengeance" and "to be glorified in His saints" (i.).

Apocalyptic passage, renewed thanksgiving, exhortation to hold the traditions already received, invocation of Christ and our Father to comfort and stablish the converts (ii.).

St. Paul requests their prayers for himself, anticipates their Christian progress, excommunication of disorderly brethren commanded. The apostle had worked for his living, they must do likewise. He commends them to the Lord, and appends a salutation in his own hand as a seal of authenticity (iii.).

[1] Ad Phil. ii.

[2] Trypho, 110.

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