characteristic peculiarities of style,1-as to preclude the idea of forgery. The language of the epistle with reference to the second coming of Christ is also at variance with the supposition of forgery. It seems to imply an expectation on the part of the apostle that he would live to see that event.2 But such an expectation was not likely to be introduced by a forger when it had already been falsified by the apostle's death,as it must have been, long before forgery could have been successfully attempted. In this connection we may also deavoured the more exceedingly to see your face with great desire: because we would fain have come unto you, I Paul once and again; and Satan hindered us. For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glorying? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy." Cf. Rom. i. 13; 2 Cor. i. 15, 16, vii. 5-7; Phil. ii. 27, 28. 1 E.g. (1) a cursory sequence of thought by which one verse or expression seems to grow spontaneously out of another, without any logical arrangement on the part of the writer, who has to come back from time to time to the main point from which he had digressed, resuming sometimes the very phrase he had used at the point of departure. Of this tendency to "go off at a word" which Paley observed to be characteristic of St Paul (Horæ Paulinæ, chap. vi. No. 3) we have many instances, more or less marked, in this epistle, as in i. 2-9 (cf. Ephes. i. 3-14), iii. 1-5. (2) The combination of seeming contraries; i. 6 ("having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost"), cf. 2 Cor. vii. 10: "For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret "; 2 Cor. viii. 2: "in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality"; Col. i. 11: "unto all patience and long-suffering with joy." (3) Verbal and Prepositional contrasts, with frequent conjunction of Negative and Positive; i. 5: "how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we shewed ourselves toward you for your sake" (èv vμîv di' vμâs); ii. 4: "For our exhortation 12: 2 iv. 15-17: "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord." note the apparent discrepancy between the statements in the Book of Acts and in this epistle, regarding the movements of Timothy,1 into which a forger depending for his information on the Book of Acts, would not have been likely to fall, and which can only be accounted for by supposing a journey of Timothy (from Athens or Beroa to Thessalonica) left unrecorded in the Book of Acts. There is a similar discrepancy between chapter i. 9, which speaks of the converts as having "turned from idols," and Acts xvii. 4, as the latter would lead us to suppose that the Church of Thessalonica was largely composed of Jews and proselytes. In the second chapter (vers. 17, 18) there is a reference to the apostle's disappointment in not being able to carry out his intention of revisiting his converts, but such an intention is nowhere mentioned in the Book of Acts. All the three variations may be regarded as a proof that the epistle was written independently of the Acts, and that their general harmony is due to their common fidelity to facts. 2. The Readers. Thessalonica "Unto the Church of the Thessalonians." was then, as it is still (under the name of Saloniki), an important mercantile emporium, at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, with a considerable proportion of Jewish inhabitants sharing in its general prosperity. It is now the second city of European Turkey; in the time of the apostle it was the capital of Macedonia. It lay in the neighbourhood of 2 "And some of them were persuaded, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few." The difficulty may be met by adopting a reading that is found in some MSS., and is followed in the Vulgate, namely, "of the devout (i.e., proselytes) and the Greeks a great multitude," TŵV TE σεβομένων καὶ Ἑλλήνων, (cf. ver. 17, τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις καὶ τοῖς σεβομένοις); or by supposing that the apostle preached to the Gentiles after the three Sabbath days mentioned in Acts xvii. 2. Mount Olympus, the fabled home of the gods, and was a place of exile for Cicero, who tells how he gazed up at the sacred summit, but saw nothing save snow and ice. 4 The Church of Thessalonica was planted by St Paul in the course of his second missionary tour in 52 A.D.,1 after his memorable visit to Philippi. His stay in the city seems to have been short, owing to a rising of the mob, stirred up against him by the Jews; but it was long enough for the Philippians to send "once and again" unto his need.2 Previously he had been earning his own bread,3 doubtless in the exercise of his calling as tent-maker, as “one of the staple manufactures of the city was and is goats'-hair cloth. The sound that follows the ear as one walks through the streets of Saloniki to-day is the wheezing and straining vibration of the loom and the pendulum-like click of the regular and ceaseless shuttle." Paul paid a second visit to the place shortly before his last journey to Jerusalem. The Church was mainly Gentile in its composition, as we may infer not only from its members having "turned unto God from idols," 5 but also from the fact that the epistles addressed to it do not contain a single quotation from the Old Testament. Thessalonica played a great part in the history of Christendom, as a bulwark against the Turks, whence it was known as the Orthodox city. Its modern population (about 90,000) consists chiefly of Mohammedans and Jews, and includes but a small number of Christians. 3. Date and Place of Composition. From the epistle itself we learn that it was written on the return of Timothy, whom Paul had sent (apparently from Athens) to revisit the Thessalonian Church. But the Book of Acts1 informs us that Silas and Timothy rejoined the apostle during his stay of a year and a half at Corinth. We conclude therefore that the epistle was written from that city,—not long after the apostle's arrival, as we may infer from his language in ii. 17: "But we, brethren, being bereaved of you for a short season, in presence, not in heart." This would be about 53 A.D., probably early in that year. 4. Character and Contents. This epistle is an outpouring of the apostle's feelings towards a Church whose hearty reception of the Gospel was to him a matter of constant gratitude to God,3 from which he had been reluctantly separated, whose reputation, owing to the constant traffic of the city both by land and sea, had already spread far and wide,5 and of whose patience and constancy he had received a gratifying report from Timothy. It contains also a vindication of his own character from the aspersions of the Jews, who were imputing to him the basest motives, and seem in particular to have put a bad construction on his sudden departure from the city. In refutation of these calumnies Paul appeals to the ex Timothy came even now unto us from you, and brought us glad tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, longing to see us, even as we also to see you; for this cause, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our distress and affliction through your faith: for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we render again unto God for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God." always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we shewed ourselves toward you for your sake. And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost." 4 ii. 17 (quoted p. 93, note 4); iii. 1, 2, (quoted p. 96, note 6). 5 i. 8: "For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak any thing.' 6 iii. 6-9 (quoted p. 96, note 6). G perience his converts had of his life and conduct while he was with them, and to the salutary effects of his preaching.1 After telling of the yearning anxiety he had felt on their account, and of the joy which Timothy's report had afforded him, he prays that God would grant a fulfilment of the desire, which he feels intensely, to revisit them for the perfecting of "that which is lacking in (their) faith," and that meanwhile their spiritual life may be developed and strengthened. With this view he exhorts them to the cultivation of certain virtues-purity, brotherly love, industry— which they were in danger of neglecting.3 5 The characteristic feature of this epistle, however, as of that which follows, is the prominence it gives to Christ's Second Coming. This had been a main theme of Paul's preaching when he was in Thessalonica, and it had so taken possession of his hearers that the bereavements they had suffered by the death of relatives since the apostle left them, were chiefly mourned because they thought the departed friends would have no share in the glory of the Saviour's Advent. The comfort which Paul administers when he assures his converts that their fears in this matter are groundless, gives one the idea that he 1 Chap. ii. 2 ii. 10-13. 3 iv. 1-8; 9, 10; II, 12. In 4 The Death of Christ is only once referred to, viz., in v. 9, 10: "For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." It was only at a later period, when the Church was invaded by the legalism of the Jewish Christians, that the doctrinal aspects of the Cross were fully brought out. the meantime it was the Messiahship of Jesus that had to be proclaimed as the primary truth of Christianity, in opposition to the unbelief of the Jews; the Second Coming to "judge the world in righteousness being one of its most striking and important features; cf. Acts xvii. 1-3: "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ "; xvii. 31 (at Athens): "Inasmuch as he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." 5 i. 9, 10: "how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven"; ii. 12: "to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory"; cf. Acts xvii. 7: "and these all act contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus." |