03. Chapter 3. THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

CHAPTER III THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS THE chronological position of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is indicated by St. Paul’s reference to Athens in 1 Thessalonians 3:1 ff. in which he states that he had sent Timothy to Thessalonica, and was writing to his converts in consequence of the report which Timothy had brought back. It is thus plain that the letter was written during St. Paul’s stay in Achaia on his second missionary journey. Moreover, though 2 Thessalonians contains no similar reference to a fixed point of chronology, it so closely resembles 1 Thessalonians that it is usually conceded to be indisputable that, if it be genuine, it must have been written at the same time as, or immediately after the former Epistle. There is, however, some legitimate room for doubt whether it ought to be accepted as authentic.

These facts define the points which require treatment for the historical introduction to the Epistles. It is necessary to consider the narrative in the Acts which describes the doings of St. Paul at Thessalonica together with the parallel passages in the Epistles, and the light which is thrown on the movements of Timothy before he delivered his report to St. Paul. After this an attempt must be made to reconstruct from the Epistles Timothy’s report, and, as a necessary preliminary to this attempt, the question must be faced whether 2 Thessalonians may be legitimately used for the purposes of this reconstruction.

ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA When St. Paul and his companions left Philippi they took the Via Egnatia, which led through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1). It is usually thought that the text—διοδεύσαντες δὲ τὴν Ἀμφίπολιν καὶ τὴν Ἀπολλωνίαν—implies that Amphipolis and Apollonia were the two stages at which he broke his journey. But the distance from Philippi to Amphipolis is thirty-three Roman miles; from thence to Apollonia is thirty miles; and the final stage is thirty-seven miles. This, while not physically impossible, would be extraordinarily rapid travelling; if it be accepted as the meaning of Acts, it must be taken to imply that St. Paul was able and willing to pay well for exceptional speed.Therefore, it is quite probable that διοδεύσαντες ought to be taken as meaning that St. Paul broke his journey at Amphipolis and Apollonia in order to preach in those towns, though St. Luke knew of no incidents worth recording in connection with this work. This use of διοδεύειν is parallel to the constant use of διέρχεσθαι, which almost always means “to make a missionary journey,” and it is to some extent covered by Luke 8:1—διώδευεν κατὰ πόλιν καὶ κώμην κηρύσσων, κ.τ.λ. The same comments apply with even more force to the Bezan text of Acts 17:1—διοδεύσαντες δὲ τὴν Ἀμφίπολιν [καὶ] κατῆλθον εὶς Ἀπολλωνίδα κὰκεῖθεν εὶς Θεσσαλονίκην. Either this text means, “They made a missionary journey to Amphipolis, came down to Apollonia, and thence to Thessalonica,” or it means something impossible—that is, that St. Paul went from Philippi to Thessalonica in two stages, “passing through” Amphipolis.

However this may be, the important point of the narrative both to St. Luke and ourselves is the arrival of St. Paul and his companions at Thessalonica. It is not quite clear who ought to be reckoned as certainly among the latter. In Philippi St. Paul had been accompanied by Silas, who had come with him from Antioch, presumably by Timothy, whom he had brought from Lystra (Acts 16:1-3), and—according to the implicit testimony of the “we-sections”—by St. Luke. Of these St. Luke—according to the same implicit testimony—remained in Philippi, and Silas, according to Acts 17:4, came on with St. Paul. The case of Timothy is more doubtful: he is not directly mentioned in Acts between Philippi and Beroea, but in the latter place he is spoken of as though his presence was natural, so that he probably came wit St. Paul to Thessalonica. The procedure of the missionaries and its result is described in Acts 17:1-10 : “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that the Messiah must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that the Messiah is this Jesus, whom I preach unto you. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the ‘God-fearing’ Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” The obvious meaning of this passage is that St. Paul preached for three weeks in the synagogue and among those who congregated in the synagogue, i.e. the Jews and the “God-fearers.” Whether the words τρία σάββατα ought to be translated “three weeks” or “three sabbath days,” is for this purpose unimportant. Similarly it is really not important whether the ordinary text be read or the Bezan text which distinguishes between the “God-fearers” and the “Greeks." It is, however, to be noted that this distinction is precisely one of the points in which the Bezan text most clearly fails to commend itself, for the “God-fearers” were “Greeks” in any case, and it seems as though, in this respect, the Bezan text was so far removed from the spirit of the first century as not to recognize this fact.

If, then, we follow the plain meaning of the Acts, we must suppose that St. Paul’s activity in Thessalonica lasted three weeks, and the result was a few Jewish converts, and a great success among the God-fearers. It is, however, argued by many commentators that 1 Thessalonians implies a degree of success which is incompatible with so short a period of preaching. They therefore consider that St. Paul must have spent a much longer time in Thessalonica than the three weeks mentioned in Acts, and that the truth must be that he gave up three sabbaths to the synagogue, after which there was an unrecorded quarrel with the Jews, followed by a longer period, probably some months, of preaching outside the synagogue to the God-fearers and possibly to others. There is, of course, no reason to suppose that St. Luke is infallible; in other places he has certainly omitted incidents. But here the suggestion of a more prolonged preaching in Thessalonica seems psychologically as unnecessary as it is certainly historically unvouched for. Christianity did not succeed through the slow and laborious efforts of hard-working missionaries, but by the contagion of an enthusiasm which spread from St. Paul to his hearers. St. Paul and Silas must not be compared to men who preach to a heathen population tolerably well satisfied with its creed, or seek to convince minds which are not especially interested, and do not share in the general point of view of the missionaries, but rather to “revival preachers” such as Wesley or Whitefield, who understood and were understood by their hearers, and had a definite message for a clearly felt want. For such men three weeks is long enough for anything; certainly it is long enough to create a considerable body of fervent believers among men who are dissatisfied with their own position—and that is exactly what the God-fearers were. Furthermore, although it is possible that St. Luke accidentally omitted any reference to the preaching outside the synagogue, which is supposed to be necessary, it is remarkable that in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome St. Luke is careful to mention the conditions of St. Paul’s preaching, and to indicate with some precision the point at which he broke with the Jews. Probably, therefore, there is insufficient reason for deserting the testimony of Acts, and we ought to conclude (though with considerable reserve) that St. Paul’s visit to Thessalonica was only three weeks or, more accurately, only included three sabbaths, during which he met with some slight success among the Jews, and great success among the God-fearers. As was pointed out on pp. 37 ff., this was exactly what was to be expected; the God-fearers provided, as it were, soil specially fitted for the sowers of the Christian word.

Here is also, perhaps, the best place to draw attention to a small side-light on St. Paul’s life in Thessalonica given by the Epistles. In 1 Thessalonians 2:9 he says that he supported himself by working night and day, but it would seem that this was not his only source of livelihood, for in Php 4:16 he mentions that the Philippians more than once sent help to him at Thessalonica, and this point may fairly be used by those who think that St. Paul’s preaching in Thessalonica must have lasted longer than three weeks, for it is possible to argue with much plausibility that the Philippians are not likely to have sent more than once in so short a time. The names of some of the converts at Thessalonica have been preserved. Jason seems to have been the host of St. Paul and Silas in Thessalonica, and in Acts 20:4 Aristarchus and Secundus are mentioned as two of the Thessalonians who went with St. Paul to Jerusalem on his journey with alms for the poor. To these some editors add a fourth—Gaius. Their method of reaching this result is as follows: in Acts 19:29 in the scene in the theatre at Ephesus we are told that the crowd seized “Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, comrades of Paul (Γ. καὶ Ἀ. Μακεδόνας, συνεκδήμους Παύλου), and it is thought that this Gaius ought to be identical with the Gaius in Acts 20:4. The difficulty is that in Acts 20:4 Gaius is described as a native of Derbe, and therefore Blass emends the text from καὶ Γαίος Δερβαῖος, καὶ Τιμόθεος into καὶ Γαίος, Δερβαῖος δε Τιμόθεος. If this were correct, Gaius was a Thessalonian, for the preceding words are, “And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus,” to which would now be added—“and Gaius, and the man of Derbe, Timotheus.” The objection to this is that in Acts 16:1 Timothy seems to be a Lystran. It is therefore probably better either to make the neat emendation (which is actually found in some MSS.) in Acts 19:29 of Μακεδόνα for Μακεδόνας, explaining the usual reading as a dittography of the initial ς in συνεκδήμους, in which case it would be possible to regard Gaius in Acts 19:29 as identical with the Gaius of Derbe in Acts 20:4, or merely to accept the view that there was a Gaius in Macedonia as well as in Derbe. This latter view has no more difficulty than there is in thinking that there is a Smith in London as well as in Glasgow, and seems to gain in probability if we remember that there was in any case another Gaius at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:14 and Romans 16:23). If this be so, and Gaius was a Macedonian, it is, of course, possible that he was a Thessalonian, though the epithet “Macedonian” may refer to some other town. It is not possible to say with any degree of certainty whether these converts were all of them drawn from the ranks of the God-fearers, or belonged to the Jewish element; but Jason is at all events a name often used by Jews, and in Colossians 4:10 St. Paul speaks of an Aristarchus as belonging to the circumcision, and he may quite well be the Thessalonian who had gone with St. Paul to Jerusalem.

Further tradition as to these Thessalonians is probably valueless, though the Synaxarion and similar works have various details. Jason, for instance, is identified with the Jason of Romans 16:21. His further labours are placed in Tarsus or in Thessalonica, and he is described as bishop of both these places in various sources. According to Clement of Alexandria, he was the protagonist in the Dialogue between Jason and Papiscus. Aristarchus is sometimes described as suffering martyrdom together with St. Paul, sometimes as Bishop of Apamea, sometimes of Lydda or Diospolis in Syria. Secundus seems not to be noticed. Gaius was, according to Origen (InRomans 16:23), the first Bishop of Thessalonica; according to the Apostolic Constitutions (7:46, 9), Bishop of Pergamum; and according to other tradition, either Bishop of Ephesus or a martyr in the neighbourhood of Antioch.

None of these traditions seem to be valuable. Full references will be found in Th. Schermann’s Propheten- und Apostellegenden in Texte und Untersuchungen, 31:3, and the same writer’s Prophetarum Vitae Fabulosae in Teubner’s Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum.

It is not surprising to find that St. Paul’s success aroused the enmity of the members of the synagogue who saw those who were reckoned as already half converted being led astray to a sect of which they profoundly disapproved, and the form which they gave to their resentment is shown in the next paragraph of the Acts,– Acts 17:5-10 : “But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain agitators of bad character, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the crowd. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the Politarchs, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another Emperor, Jesus. And they troubled the people and the Politarchs, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the others, they let them go. But the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Beroea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.” This account is tolerably plain, but a few points call for some comment. It is not possible at present to be certain what was the exact nature of the crowd in Acts 17:5 (τὸν δῆμον), though we may guess that it practically amounted to something like an “indignation meeting.” In this case it is easy to understand that St. Paul and Silas were prudent in avoiding such an ordeal, for what began as an indignation meeting might easily end as a lynching party. At the same time, their absence had its drawback: it meant that the Jews could bring the case at once before the Politarchs, who were the local, not the Imperial magistrates, and formulate a charge of the greatest gravity, for which colourable evidence could be produced, and that the absence of the defendants appeared conclusive proof of their guilt. The result was —so Acts certainly implies—that judgment went against St. Paul by default, security was taken from Jason not to harbour these suspected persons, and—most important of all—legal ground was afforded for presuming Christianity to be a punishable offence. Fortunately, however, the jurisdiction of the Politarchswas only local, so that their decision did not form an Imperial precedent, and that is probably the reason why St. Luke is careful to mention their exact title; it was essential to the apologetic side of the Acts that he should point out that the Imperial authorities, when they understood the facts, always acquitted St. Paul—in Philippi, Corinth, and Caesarea—and that when he was condemned or punished it was either by a local magistrate, imperially unimportant, as at Thessalonica, or through a mistake which was afterwards rectified, as at Philippi.

Thus St. Paul and his companions had remained in hiding; but after the decision of the Politarchs it was necessary for them to escape. They were therefore sent off by their friends to Beroea under cover of night. In Beroea, according to Acts 17:10 ff., St. Paul and Silas again began to preach in the synagogue of the Jews, and at first met with a better reception than in Thessalonica, for “they received the word with all readiness, searching the Scriptures to see if these things were so.” Thus many Jews believed, “and of Greek ladies of position and men, not a few.” But when the report of this success reached Thessalonica, the Jews there sent to Beroea and broke up the Mission. The result was that it was decided that St. Paul must leave Beroea, and some of the Christians undertook to accompany him to the coast, where he would be able to sail to Athens. Temporarily, however, Silas and Timothy were left behind.

If we may press the exact words of the Acts, when Beroea was left, the plans of St. Paul and his friends were uncertain. Ultimately they went with him as far as Athens, presumably by sea. In this way Thessaly was passed over and St. Paul went directly from Macedonia to Achaia. Probably the reason for this omission is that at this time Thessaly belonged to Macedonia. No doubt the Politarchs’ decision was only valid in Thessalonica, but it would probably be known to and have influence with the Imperial authorities. Events at Beroea had shown that St. Paul was a marked man in Macedonia, and if Thessaly was part of the province it was wiser not to touch it, but to pass on to Achaia. The omission to preach in Thessaly has made its mark on the text. Codex Bezae adds to v. 15: “But he passed by Thessaly, for he was prevented from preaching the word to them.Prof. Zahn thinks that this is part of the original text, and moreover deduces from the verb “passed by” (παρῆλθεν) that St. Paul went from Beroea to Athens by land, for he argues, that had he gone by sea, St. Luke would have written “sailed past” (παρέπλευσεν). This argument is, however, not very probable. It is far more likely that the reading of Codex Bezae is merely the comment of some early reader who was struck by the omission of Thessaly. It may be noted that a similar gloss is found in the Armenian catena on the Acts, which reads, “But the Holy Spirit prevented him from preaching, lest they should slay him.” In any case, St. Paul and the Beroeans reached Athens, and the latter then returned home, taking a message to Silas and Timothy to join their leader as soon as possible.

It is not necessary for the present purpose to follow the details of the history of St. Paul in Athens. He was not especially successful, and after a time went on to Corinth. Still he was presumably a week or ten days in Athens, and we should expect to find that Silas and Timothy had joined him before he left, but as a matter of fact, we hear nothing more of them in Acts, until in Acts 18:5, when St. Paul is in Corinth, we are told that “Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia.”

It is at this point that it is possible to turn to the Epistles to the Thessalonians and begin to consider the problem of fitting the historical information which they supply into the frame-work of the narrative in the Acts. This information is contained in two passages in 1 Thessalonians. In the first (1 Thessalonians 3:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 3:5) St. Paul says: “Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; and sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith: for this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labour be in vain.”

It is tolerably plain that here St. Paul is referring to the same incident in both verses, but in 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 he speaks in the plural and in 1 Thessalonians 3:5 in the singular. It is, therefore, impossible to be certain whether any use ought to be made of the plural as a proof that Silas and Timothy were present when the decision was arrived at, and that Silas also went away to some unmentioned destination. Usually, however, it is argued that the passage proves that Silas and Timothy did, as a matter of fact, join St. Paul while he was in Athens,—an incident of which there is no mention in Acts. As 1 Thessalonians goes on in 1 Thessalonians 3:6, to narrate Timothy’s return with good news from Thessalonica, it is usually supposed that this verse corresponds to Acts 18:5, which describes the coming of Timothy and Silas to join St. Paul in Corinth, and from this the conclusion is drawn that 1 Thessalonians, which was clearly written directly after Timothy’s return, was sent from Corinth. According to this theory, St. Luke entirely omitted to mention that Timothy and Silas joined St. Paul at Athens, and that Timothy was sent thence to Thessalonica, and only narrates his return, not to Athens, but to Corinth. From the fact that Acts says that Silas and Timothy, not Timothy only, returned to Corinth, it is also generally thought that Silas must have been sent to some town in Macedonia, probably to Philippi. Thus according to this view the table of events can be drawn up as follows:

1. St. Paul leaves Silas and Timothy in Beroea and goes to Athens, sending a message back to them to join him at once. Acts 17:14 f.

2. Silas and Timothy join St. Paul in Athens. Implied by 1 Thessalonians 3:1, not in Acts.

3. St. Paul sends Timothy to Thessalonica [and Silas elsewhere]. 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5, not in Acts.

4. St. Paul goes to Corinth. Acts 18:1, not in 1 Thess.

5. [Silas and] Timothy return from Macedonia to Corinth. Acts 18:5; 1 Thessalonians 3:6.

6. St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians from Corinth. This theory has the advantage of combining both Acts and 1 Thessalonians without doing violence to either. At the same time, interpretations are probably to be deprecated which attempt to maintain that this is what St. Luke meant, and that he intentionally omitted the arrival of Silas and Timothy at Athens. It is undeniable that a cursory reading of Acts 17:14-18 creates not merely the impression that St. Luke omits the return of Silas and Timothy, but also that his narrative definitely implies that their arrival at Corinth is the fulfilment of St. Paul’s command, sent to them at Beroea, and if this be so it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that St. Luke is here inaccurate in his account, and that he has confused the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Beroea—which was really at Athens—with the return of Timothy from Thessalonica. Personally, I am inclined to think that this much ought to be conceded, but the point is not of very great importance for the study of the Epistle, as in any case the fact remains apparently certain that it was to Corinth that Timothy returned, and therefore from Corinth that the Epistle was written. It is surely gratuitous to suppose that St. Luke made the further mistake of saying Corinth instead of Athens, and that the Epistle was really written from Athens. The fact that St. Paul says that he was willing to remain alone in Athens is no decisive evidence that he was or was not still there when he wrote, though it makes it slightly more probable that he was elsewhere.

Whatever view may be taken of this complicated little problem, the fact stands out undisputed that Timothy was sent to Thessalonica. Apart from his general desire to know something of the development of his converts, St.Paul had a special reason for anxiety in their case. When he and Silas left Thessalonica without appearing before the Politarchs he no doubt took the wisest course; but he also incurred the disadvantage that he allowed the question of the treasonable nature of his preaching—that is, of Christianity—to be settled against him by default. It is obvious that as neither he nor Silas appeared, the Politarchs were forced to decide between the conflicting accounts of Jason and of the Jews, and the failure to appear of the parties chiefly implicated must have been used with unanswerable effect by the Jews to show that they were right, and that Christianity was a treasonable movement. That was a serious matter for every Christian in Thessalonica, and St. Paul must have known that it was so; it meant that the Jews had succeeded, for the time at least, in persuading the Greeks to persecute the Christians. Therefore, St. Paul was naturally anxious for his converts, and wished to know in the first place whether, as there was every reason to fear, they were suffering persecution, and in the second place whether, if that were the case, they were remaining steadfast. This is exactly what we find stated in 1 Thessalonians 3:2 f. “We sent Timothy, our brother, and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith; that no man be moved by these afflictions.… For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labour should be in vain.” It is plain that St. Paul foresaw that there must be persecution; he was anxious to know to what extent it would be pushed, and how far the Christians would stand firm.

Under these circumstances, then, Timothy went to Thessalonica. What report did he bring back? That question can only be answered by reconstructing his report from the hints given in the Epistles, and it is, therefore, first necessary to face the problem of the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, in order to see whether we are justified in using it, as well as 1 Thessalonians, for this purpose. THE AUTHENTICITY OF 2 THESSALONIANS.

Ever since the modern criticism of the Pauline Epistles began, this letter has been one of those as to the authenticity of which it has been most generally conceded by impartial scholars that there is legitimate room for doubt, and though the tide of opinion has ebbed and flowed, there has never been any practical unanimity, such as has been reached in favour of 1 Thessalonians. A good account of the various writers who have contributed to the discussion of the question may be found in von Dobschütz’s Commentary, pp. 32–36, but the main arguments against the Pauline authorship may be reduced to two: (1) the view that the Apocalyptic passage in the second chapter refers to events later than the life of St. Paul, or is inconsistent with the eschatological teaching of 1 Thessalonians; (2) a comparison with 1 Thessalonians as to literary style, and as to the general characteristics of the community implied by the Epistles. The argument derived from the Apocalyptic section in 2 Thessalonians has taken, in the main, two forms.

(a) It has been said, in the first place, that it is, whatever it means, irreconcilable with 1 Thessalonians. In the first Epistle St. Paul describes the Parousia as imminent; in the second he protests against those who maintain that the day of the Lord “ἐνέστηκε, ” and says that it will not come before the revelation of the “Man of Lawlessness.” Moreover, in 1 Thessalonians St. Paul, though speaking of the Parousia as imminent, says that it will come as a thief in the night,—i.e. suddenly and unexpectedly—whereas in 2 Thessalonians he says that he had told the Thessalonians of the Apostasy, and the revelation of the Man of Lawlessness which would be the signs of the Parousia.

These arguments do not seem to bear investigation. It is true that in 1 Thessalonians St. Paul implies that the day of the Parousia is imminent, but 2 Thessalonians does not contradict this; ἐνίστηκε does not mean “is imminent,” but “has come,” and St. Paul never meant that the day of the Lord was not future, to however close a future he might assign it.

(b) In the second place, some critics have maintained that this passage contains the so-called Nero Saga, which is of course later than St. Paul. The main points of this legend are well known: when the Emperor died in a.d. 68, the first feeling of the populace was joy at their deliverance from the tyrant, but in a short time doubts began to arise as to whether the report of his death was not a piece of news too good to be true. The result was that pretenders appeared who gave themselves out as Nero. The first of these appeared in 69, and was speedily destroyed. Another eleven years later, in the reign of Titus, was, according to Zonaras, recognized as Nero by Artabanus, the King of the Parthians; and still later in 88 another impostor almost succeeded in raising the Parthians in revolt against Domitian. After 88 the fact of Nero’s death was recognized: but a belief arose that he would rise from the dead and lead the armies of the East against Rome. Finally, the figure of Nero himself became obscure, and there remained that of a partly human, partly diabolic Antichrist.

It used frequently to be thought that the Nero Saga was in this way the source of the whole Antichrist legend, and it was argued that in this case 2 Thessalonians, which shows clear traces of the Antichrist legend, cannot be earlier than the death of Nero, and therefore cannot have been written by St. Paul. This argument, or something like it, certainly played a great part in the commentaries on 2 Thessalonians in the nineteenth century. But it is unnecessary to discuss it in detail, because W. Bousset to his many services to the study of the New Testament has added this, that he has shown the true history of the Anti-christ legend to be independent of the Nero Saga, and far older than the time of St. Paul. The history of the Antichrist legend is far too complicated to be dealt with here: the main outlines alone can be given. There seems to have been current among the Jews, and among other Eastern peoples, the belief that the “end shall be as the beginning.” The sign that the New Age is near at hand will be the repetition of the events preceding the creation. Now, these events comprised a struggle between God and a daemonic being who strove to take the place of God. This is the old Babylonian myth of the strife between Marduk and Tiamat, of which there are many traces in the Old Testament. It was believed that at the end of this age the struggle would again be renewed, and the victory of God would be the inauguration of a New Age, as it had formerly been of the Creation. Thus we find in Jewish and in Early Christian sources a certain amount of confusion of thought as to whether the Antichrist would be a human or a daemonic figure, and sometimes even a duplication in which a human Antichrist is accompanied or followed by a still more terrible supernatural apparition. So much is now generally accepted: it still leaves almost as difficult as ever the problems connected with the exact exegesis of St. Paul’s words. We are still incapable of giving a decisive answer to the questions whether St. Paul expected a Jewish or a Gentile “Man of Lawlessness,” and whether “he that letteth” (ὁ κατέχων) was a supernatural being or the Roman Empire.But these problems may be left on one side for the present purpose. What is important is that the result of the last fifteen years of research is decisively to remove the eschatological argument from the list of possible objections to the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians.

It is, therefore, not surprising that there was in the last years of the nineteenth century a strong reaction in favour of 2 Thessalonians. In 1903, however, this reaction was checked and reversed by the extremely able monograph of the late Prof. Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefs. In this it was freely admitted that the apocalyptic section could not be used as the basis of any discussion either of the date or of the authenticity of the Epistle, but the attention of scholars was recalled to the literary problem afforded by the comparison of and 2 Thessalonians. This may shortly be described as a remarkable combination of similarity and difference: the language is largely the same—so much so that it would, if found in two writers, completely justify the theory of literary dependence—but the general tone is quite different—so that no one would, apart from the tradition, ever have suggested that both letters were written by the same author to the same community. The extent of this similarity, which is at once felt on reading the Epistles rapidly through one after the other, may be seen best in the tables given by Wrede (op. cit., pp. 3–36). The dissimilarity can also be felt on a cursory reading; of both Epistles, though it is more difficult to analyze, but the main points are: (I) 1 Thessalonians is full of the deepest and most heartfelt sympathy and friendship, but 2 Thessalonians is much cooler, and, as it were, official in tone; (2) 1 Thessalonians seems to imply a purely Gentile community, while 2 Thessalonians shows no trace of Gentile thought, and contains no reference to anything implying Gentile origin, but, on the contrary, shows a strongly Jewish colouring, with—in spite of the absence of definite quotations—perhaps a more strongly marked resemblance to the thought and language of the Old Testament than any book in the New Testament except the Apocalypse.There are other points in which a contrast can be observed, but these are the most noticeable, and are the main reasons for the difficulty, so ably expressed by Wrede, of believing that the two Epistles could have been written by the same writer, to the same community, at the same time. If both had been written by the same writer, and the identity of language were explained merely as due to the fact that the same ideas were in his mind when he wrote both letters, it would be almost impossible to doubt that they were written at the same or almost the same time. But the community cannot have changed from Gentile to Jewish, and it is very improbable that St. Paul’s tone can have so suddenly altered; if therefore, so Wrede argued, we accept the tradition connecting the Second Epistle with Thessalonica, we are bound to doubt the Pauline authorship. It is then important to notice that the one passage which presents no parallelism to the First Epistle is the apocalyptic section. Wrede, therefore, suggested that we ought to regard the Second Epistle as the work of some unknown writer, who found that the Thessalonians were too much imbued with an immediate expectation of the Parousia, and therefore wrote a warning that the Parousia could not come before the Antichrist, of whom, it is implied, no sign has yet been seen, while in order to secure attention for his warning he surrounded it in a mosaic of Pauline phraseology from 1 Thessalonians, and issued it as an Epistle of St. Paul. This theory of Wrede, set out, as it was, in his own clear and most attractive style, immediately met with a friendly reception, and swung the pendulum back again against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians. Nor was it for a long time satisfactorily answered: even von Dobschütz, in the 7th edition of Meyer’s commentary (1909), did not really make any decisive reply, though he emphasized with truth the strange fact that it is only because we possess 1 Thessalonians that any one doubts the authenticity of the Second Epistle, for there is nothing un-Pauline in it, and the only reason for disputing its authorship is the difficulty of finding room for it alongside of 1 Thessalonians. This may be described as a plea which is perhaps sufficient for a stay of execution, but scarcely adequate for a reversal of judgment.

Recently, however, Prof. Harnack has read a paper to the Berlin Academy which throws a new light on the question. He does not dispute Wrede’s contention that 2 Thessalonians cannot have been written at the same time, by the same writer, to the same community as 1 Thessalonians, but, instead of solving the problem by denying the identity of the writer, he does it by a closer consideration of the circumstances of the Church at Thessalonica, and by the suggestion that alongside of the Gentile community implied by the First Epistle there was a smaller and earlier Jewish community to which the Second Epistle was directed.

It is, of course, plain that this suggestion takes the force out of most of the objections to the authenticity of the Epistle, and Harnack’s reconstruction of the circumstances which led up to its being sent is extremely attractive. St. Paul ends the First Epistle by adjuring its recipients to see that it was read by all the Christians; and in the immediately preceding verse there seems to be a similar emphasis on the idea of all the brethren. It would therefore seem that he was aware of a division at Thessalonica which justified the fear that his letter would not be read to all the community unless he insisted on it. In view of the obviously Gentile character of those whom he is addressing in 1 Thessalonians, the only probable view as to the minority whom he wished to reach is that they were Jewish Christians. But, suggests Harnack, there is nothing in 1 Thessalonians which would be especially agreeable to Jewish Christians, and several points which might be obnoxious to them. Therefore, immediately after the First Epistle the Second was despatched for the benefit of the Jewish Christians. In support of this theory one other piece of corroborative evidence can be alleged, though the point is complicated a little by the uncertainty of the text. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13 St. Paul says that he is bound to thank God ὅτι εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ Θεὸς ἀπαρχὴν εἰς σωτηρίαν, if we follow the text of BFGP 17 al f vg syr^h1 Did. Dam. Amb., etc., or ὅτι … ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς εἰς σωτηρίαν if we follow א D E K L al pler. d e g syr^pesh boh. arm. aeth. Chr., etc. Merely as a matter of textual criticism, there is about as much to be said for the one reading as the other—probably, if it were merely a question of evidence and lexical probability, most critics would choose ἀπαρχὴν, because it is the more Pauline expression (see Lightfoot’s note ad loc.), but in practice ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς has been followed because of the difficulty of giving an adequate meaning to ἀπαρχήν—“God chose you as a first-fruit,”—for in what sense could the Thessalonians be regarded as first-fruits? The expression seemed not to be true to history in any sense, for they were neither St. Paul’s earliest converts, nor were they the first in Macedonia. Therefore interpreters have preferred to think that the passage is a reference to predestination rather than to the facts of history, and to read ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς. If, however, Harnack’s suggestion be followed, the matter appears in a new light, for the Jewish Christians in Thessalonica were, according to the Acts, the first-fruits of St. Paul’s preaching in that city, though they were soon surpassed in numbers by the Gentile converts. The obvious objection to which this theory is liable is that the address given in 2 Thessalonians 1:1 is “To the Church of the Thessalonians,” just as it is in 1 Thessalonians 1:1, and Harnack suggests that we ought to regard this as probably not original. He points out that the address of Ephesians, (and, it might be added, of Romans) shows signs of having been tampered with, and that that of the Epistle to the Hebrews has been wholly lost. He thinks that the original address may have been τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳͅ τῶν Θεσσαλονικέων τῶν ἐκ τῆς περιτομῆς, and that the last four words dropped out early in the tradition of the Epistle. An alternative suggestion might be that the bearers of the Epistle were given special instructions, or that the name of the individual to whom it was sent secured that it would reach the Jewish Christians; it may have been inexpedient in the letter itself to emphasize the difference between the two classes of Christians. As Harnack himself admits, his theory is open to some objections, but on the whole it seems to be far more acceptable than any other which has yet been put forward, and whereas before its publication the balance of argument seemed to be in favour of some such hypothesis as that of Wrede, and against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, the situation is now reversed, and there is sufficient justification for accepting the Epistle as a genuine document belonging, together with 1 Thessalonians, even if not so certainly, to the earliest period of Christian life in Thessalonica. In any case, however, the point which it is most desirable to emphasize is that the main argument against the Epistle is the difficulty of imagining circumstances to account for its curious combination of likeness to and difference from the First Epistle—and such an argument is too negative to be ever quite decisive; while, on the other hand, the main argument in favour of it is traditional ascription, which, however highly it be valued, is insufficient to give absolute confidence, if it be impossible to present a probable reconstruction of the circumstances under which the letter was written. Harnack has succeeded in producing a reconstruction which is, at the least, not impossible, and therefore we are justified in using 2 Thessalonians in reconstructing Timothy’s report, even though it must be conceded that points derived exclusively from it have not the same certainty as those derived from the First Epistle.

THE REPORT BROUGHT BY TIMOTHY
FROM THESSALONICA

It is very probable, on general grounds, that Timothy brought back with him a letter from Thessalonica to St. Paul, and that 1 Thessalonians is in part an answer to it. Nor are hints wanting in the Epistle that this was actually the case. Far the most cogent of these is the expression in 1 Thessalonians 2:13—διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμεῖς εὐχαριστοῦμεν —in which the proper force of the καὶ ἡμεῖς can be given only if we assume that St. Paul means, “we give thanks just as you say that you do.” Besides this the analogy of 1 Corinthians (see p. 136) suggests that the paragraphs beginning, οὐ θέλομεν δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, περὶ τῶν κοιμωμένων, κ.τ.λ. (1 Thessalonians 4:13), and περὶ δὲ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν, κ.τ.λ. (1 Thessalonians 5:1), may be direct references to questions in a letter. Thus it is probable that Timothy’s verbal report was supplemented by a letter from the Thessalonians, though it is clearly impossible—and fortunately not very important—to distinguish with any certainty between items derived from the various sources of information with which St. Paul was thus supplied. On the subject of persecution and the attitude of the Christians it proved that St. Paul’s forebodings were correct. The persecution had been serious, so that it could fairly be compared to that of the prophets of old, and of the Christians in Palestine. “For ye, brethren,” is St. Paul’s comment (1 Thessalonians 2:14 ff) on, or, one might almost say, quotation from the report, “became imitators of the Churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen as they did of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and drove out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men.” It is clear from this passage that St. Paul is addressing a Gentile community, and that they were suffering persecution from their fellow Greeks, even though the burst of indignation against the Jews shows that St. Paul recognized that the latter were—as Acts explains—ultimately responsible. Probably we shall not be wrong if we go a step further, and say that this persecution had already led to the martyrdom of some Christians. This is certainly suggested by the reference to the death “of the Lord Jesus and of the prophets,” and perhaps also by the difficult expression in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, τοὺς κοιμηθέντας διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. It is extremely probable that here διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ought to be taken closely with κοιμηθέντας, but it is less certain (though, on the whole, I believe it to be probable) that it means martyrdom rather than (as the R.V. takes it) a natural death in the faith of Jesus. So far the news brought back by Timothy was distressing enough; but it was partly compensated for by the fact that the Christians were standing firm, so that their constancy under persecution was famous among all the brethren in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thessalonians 1:2-8, which describes, not only the original conversion of the Thessalonians, but also the permanent effects of it, up to the time when the Epistle was written).

1 Thessalonians is primarily comment on and answer to Timothy’s report as to the Gentile Christians; in 2 Thessalonians we can probably see what he had to say as to the persecution of the Jewish Christians. They also were suffering from persecution, and it is possible that the reference in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, to the persecutors as those who “know not God,” ought to be taken as a sign that they were Gentiles. Moreover, St. Paul repeats—perhaps one may say, is careful to repeat—the commendation given to the Gentile Christians for their steadfastness; the Jewish Christians were not their inferiors in this respect.

Thus the news brought by Timothy was consoling, both as to Gentile and Jewish Christians so far as their constancy under the pressure of persecution was concerned; but if we piece together the indications in the Epistles we can see that on some other points his information was less satisfactory.

Timothy reported that there was a line of cleavage between the Gentile and Jewish parts of the community.So much was this the case that it was necessary for St. Paul to insist strongly when writing to the Gentile half (in 1 Thessalonians) that his letter should be read by all the brethren, and that his readers should greet all the brethren with a holy kiss (1 Thessalonians 5:26 f.). Possibly also traces of the same anxiety for the unity of the community may be found in the emphatic injunctions “to abound in love to each other and to all” (1 Thessalonians 3:12), and “ever to pursue that which is good for each other and for all” (1 Thessalonians 5:15). Conversely it is possible to see a trace of the same feeling in 2 Thessalonians in the notice drawn to the signature guaranteeing the letter, as if the Jewish Christians were suspicious of anything coming from the Gentile community. Possibly we ought even to agree with Harnack that the Epistles imply that the Jewish and Gentile parts of the community rarely or never met together for common intercourse. To this separateness of the Jewish and Gentile Christians from each other must be ascribed the fact that 2 Thessalonians was ever written. Obviously it was not necessary to instruct Jews, who believed in a Messiah, in the doctrine of a Resurrection, nor is it in the least probable that their conversion had led them to adopt a lax standard of morality, such as would justify St. Paul in urging them to abstain from fornication. Moreover, St. Paul’s statement as to the Parousia was, no doubt, defective from the Jewish point of view in that it omitted a statement of the necessary development of evil in the days immediately preceding the coming of Messiah. St. Paul seemed to have felt these objections, and to have perceived that his first letter, in spite of his personal good will, might actually tend to increase the division in the community, and, therefore, he wrote 2 Thessalonians, immediately after the First Epistle, repeating much of what he had already said, but omitting that which might be offensive to Jewish Christians, or was in any case unnecessary, and adding the section about the Antichrist in order to show that he did not intend to give teaching contrary to the general faith of the Jews as to the Parousia.

Timothy had to report that the main subject of interest in the community at Thessalonica was eschatological; St. Paul’s preaching had, no doubt, been that of all the earliest Christians—that the kingdom of God, with its sudden dramatic judgment, and the catastrophic end of society as it was then, was close at hand, and that it was the especial privilege of Christians that their master would be the King in this kingdom. So emphatic had been this preaching of the immediate coming of the kingdom, that it had, no doubt, given colour to the accusation of treason brought against St. Paul, and it had driven the thought of death and its relation to the kingdom out of the minds of the Gentile converts. When, therefore, some of the brethren died—possibly as martyrs—the question arose what their fate would be. Such is clearly the question implied by 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “Now we wish you not to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those that sleep, in order that you may not mourn, as do the others that have no hope.” But the implications of this fact are not so simply seen.

It is difficult to realize that there was a period in the early history of Christianity when convinced and enthusiastic believers did not necessarily look forward to the resurrection of the “faithful departed,” and that this subject was so much at or beyond the circumference rather than the centre of Christian preaching that St. Paul was obliged to supplement his teaching on the point by written instruction. Yet it is intelligible if we consider that the hope of the first Christians was not that they should pass through death to life, but that they should pass, without dying, from life temporal to life eternal, when the kingdom of God was established, and death, which was the result of sin, not an essential feature of man’s nature, was abolished. The hope and belief of the first Christians was that they were proleptic members of that kingdom, and that it was but a short time before its glories would become manifest. It was, moreover, just at this point that there was originally a fundamental difference between Christianity and the “Mystery Religions.” The latter also offered men eternal life, and a proleptic participation in its blessings; but they offered its full realization only through the Way of Death, along which the traveller was guarded by the magic formulae communicated to him in Mysteries. The Oriental mysteries offered a “medicine of immortality,” but it was an immortality through death, and not over death. Thus the fact that the Gentile Christians in Thessalonica were distressed by the question of the “faithful departed” is a proof that they had accepted Christianity as something different from the Mystery Religions. In this respect they offer a contrast to some of the Corinthian Christians (see pp. 215 ff.). When, therefore, cases of death were found among them, the survivors began to ask whether they ought to add to their eschatological hope a further, or alternative, promise of life through death, similar to that of the Greek Mysteries, or to accept the Jewish doctrine of a resurrection of the dead at the Parousia—a view which was still strange to Gentile minds.

It was therefore necessary for St. Paul to point out to his converts that the latter was the true answer, even though he makes it plain that he regards as the norm survival until the coming of the kingdom, rather than death and resurrection into the kingdom (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:15). In this case we probably have another side-light on the clash of opinion between three factors. First, the really primitive point of view of the first Christians who expected a triumph of Life over Death, by which they would pass directly into the Kingdom without dying; secondly, the natural expansion of this view along Jewish lines which postulated a physical resurrection for those who died before the coming of the Kingdom; and thirdly, an expansion along Hellenistic or rather Graeco-Oriental lines, which treated the promise of Christianity for those who died as parallel to that of the Mysteries which offered eternal life through death, and so left no room for the idea of a resurrection. It is interesting to note that the development of Christian doctrine united the two last factors. The belief in an ultimate, though remote, day of judgment and of resurrection represents the originally Jewish factor, and the belief in a Paradise of rest and joy for the faithful departed until the Great Day represents the weakened survival of the originally Greek factor which emphasized the idea that eternal life is given by the Sacraments, and that for the initiated Dying is not Death but the passage into a wider and a freer life.

Among the Jewish part of the community, if we may take 2 Thessalonians as a guide, there was—as indeed might have been expected—an equal interest in the eschatological expectation of the coming of the Kingdom, though it is not easy to define it exactly. The passage which is important is 2 Thessalonians 2:2 : “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our meeting with Him, that ye be not quickly moved in your mind, or shaken, either by a spirit (of prophecy) or by a ‘saying,’ or by a letter, as though from me, to the effect that the day of the Lord has set in (ἐνέστηκεν).” The meaning of ἐνέστηκεν is here a difficulty. It cannot be denied that it means “is present” as distinct from “is future” (cf. the usual antithesis between τὰ ἐνεστῶτα and τὰ μίλλοντα, Romans 8:38; 1 Corinthians 3:22; Galatians 1:4), but it is impossible to think that any one believed that the Day of the Lord was already come in the sense of the last judgment. The answer to these difficulties is, however, found in the more accurate consideration both of the linguistic and of the dogmatic point. The meaning of ἐνέστηκεν is “is present”—not “is future,” or even “is imminent,” and also not “is already past”; and the “Day of the Lord” meant not merely the last judgment, but a whole complex of events leading up to the final dénouement—it was a “day” in the sense of a “period of time.” Thus the meaning of ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ Κυρίου may be paraphrased as “we are living in the day of the Lord,” and St. Paul’s answer is that he rejects this view, and that nothing which he has written must be interpreted as giving it any support, because before the day of the Lord the Man of Lawlessness must be revealed. His position is that the Day of the Lord is imminent—it will, he imagines, come before his own death—but it has not yet come.

What were the reasons which made it necessary for St. Paul to emphasize this point? Two explanations are possible, and it is hard to say which of the two is the more probable. They turn on the interpretation of διʼ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς διʼ ἡμῶν in 2 Thessalonians 2:2.

It is possible that Timothy reported that there were in circulation forged letters, purporting to be from St. Paul, stating that the Day of the Lord had already begun. If so, we must connect with this passage 2 Thessalonians 3:17, in which St. Paul draws attention to his handwriting as a guarantee of the genuineness of the letter. “The ‘greeting’ is in my own—Paul’s—hand. This is the sign of genuineness in all my letters—my own handwriting.” It must be remembered that letters were, as a rule, dictated (e.g. Tertius was the actual scribe of the Epistle to the Romans), so that, unless it was known that some part of the letter was in the actual hand of the sender, identity or difference of script was no proof for or against the genuineness of a communication. It is, however, difficult to see why St. Paul should have written in this way to the Jewish part of the community, rather than to the whole Church, and this view is therefore less acceptable if Harnack’s theory be adopted, than on the older (and probably untenable) theory that 2 Thessalonians was written a little later than 1 Thessalonians to the whole community. The alternative view, which Harnack recommends, is that after St. Paul had written 1 Thessalonians, either before or immediately after sending it, he noticed that his remarks on the Day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5:1 ff. were open to misconstruction, and that this misconstruction would be especially obnoxious to the Jewish Christians. In this case the reference in διʼ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς διʼ ἡμῶν is to an erroneous interpretation of 1 Thessalonians, not to the possible existence of forged letters.

If this view be adopted Timothy must have reported to St. Paul that there was a tendency among the Thessalonians to regard the “Day of the Lord” as having already begun, and pointed out as a criticism on 1 Thessalonians, after it had been already dictated, that it might seem to encourage this mistake. If so we have here a curious parallel to Hymenaeus and Philetus (in 2 Timothy 2:18), who said that the Resurrection had already taken place, and it is instructive to compare this point of view with that implied in the reference in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 to those who doubted if there would be a resurrection.

It is also possible that in connection with the danger of a misinterpretation of 1 Thessalonians Timothy was obliged to report that among the Gentile Christians there was a tendency to throw doubt on St. Paul’s motives. The suggestion is that when St. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:5 ff., “For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness, God is witness. … For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God,” he was hinting that there were some who suggested that he had been animated by the motives which he disclaims and had forgotten the unselfish conduct to which he refers. This is by no means improbable, though we have no means of extracting any further information from the Epistle, and it is possible that St. Paul is not rebutting accusations against himself, but hinting that his conduct and preaching affords a pleasant contrast to that of other teachers to whom the Gentile Christians were inclined to listen. In either case we have a hint that tendencies were at work at the community of which St. Paul did not approve, and that he endeavoured to find the antidote by reminding his readers of his own example. The question then arises whether we can identify these tendencies. The first point which attracts attention is the emphatic warnings against immorality in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 ff. It is possible that this is merely a general warning against the weakness of human nature; but it is more probable that it is connected with a tendency to regard Christianity as an opus operatum after which no material act can affect the spiritual welfare of the believer. Such an attitude would be natural if there were any tendency to regard Christianity solely as a Mystery Religion, and its influence can be traced in several of the Pauline Epistles. In this case we have to consider that in Thessalonica a tendency (more fully described on pp. 176 ff.) was already at work, which pressed in an illegitimate manner the preaching of freedom, and regarded St. Paul as weak and narrow-minded in his attitude towards what was regarded as a merely carnal morality unworthy of attention from the truly spiritual.

Besides this danger of immorality St. Paul warns his readers against neglecting their ordinary work. It is not plain what was the cause of this tendency to idleness: it has often been suggested that it was due to the vivid expectation of the Parousia, which made men regard it as unnecessary to busy themselves with the affairs of a world which would so soon cease to exist. That a vivid expectation of the end has sometimes led to this result is undeniable: Hippolytus narrates the story of a bishop in Pontus who announced that the Parousia would come before the end of the year, with the result that many Christians, who had sold their possessions, were in the end reduced to beggary. But there is no special reason for thinking that this was the case in Thessalonica. In the First Epistle (1 Thessalonians 4:4 f) St. Paul says: “But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more, and that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands, even as we charged you, that ye may walk honestly towards them that are without, and may have need of nothing.” If this passage followed the eschatological section it might be legitimately supposed that the restlessness described was the result of the expectation of the Parousia, but as a matter of fact it precedes it, and therefore there is no decisive reason for supposing that St. Paul is speaking of “eschatological restlessness and idleness”—if the expression may be used. A comparison with other passages in early Christian literature suggests a different explanation. It is clear from 1 Corinthians (see p. 223) as well as from 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, that St. Paul found it desirable to avoid slander by never being indebted to his converts, and that there were other Christians who by no means followed his example. Moreover, in the later literature, especially in the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, there are traces in abundance of an unpleasant type of “professional Christian” who lived on the community. It is not impossible that Timothy’s report roused St. Paul’s suspicion that this danger was present in Thessalonica, and that this rather than any “eschatological restlessness” was the source of the idleness against which he warns his hearers.

However this may be—and the data are insufficient to allow of a decision—in 2 Thessalonians more emphasis is laid on this question. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 he says: “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not the right, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear of some which walk among you disorderly, who work not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” This passage cannot be said to add anything to the information given in 1 Thessalonians: nor does it help us to decide whether we have to do with “eschatological unrest,” or an undesirable “professionalism,” which led men to spend all their time in exciting religious discussions, and to neglect their own affairs. But it puts far more stress on the whole question, and if Harnack’s theory be adopted, we are obliged to conclude that this evil was especially present in the Jewish rather than the Gentile part of the community. There is no reason for rejecting this conclusion, even though one would perhaps have rather expected to find restlessness and idleness in Gentile circles. At the same time, it is only fair to notice that this again is one of the strong points against the genuineness of 2 Thessalonians. The natural conclusion from a comparison of the passages in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is that there was a development of the evil in question; but this implies an interval between the two Epistles, and it is generally conceded that if both Epistles are Pauline they must have been written almost at the same time.

Thus Timothy’s report may be summed as covering the following points: (1) The persecution of the Christians in the community. (2) The division between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. (3) The anxiety in the community concerning the Parousia, and the fate of those who died before it. (3) The existence of either forged letters, or the probability of doubt as to the meaning of 1 Thessalonians. (4) The evil tendencies in the community to immorality (especially in the Gentile section) and to an idle restlessness especially, but not exclusively, in the Jewish section. The two Epistles are the comment of St. Paul on this report, and were presumably written soon after Timothy joined St. Paul, according to Acts, in Corinth. The order of events which the foregoing discussion has made appear the most probable may finally be summarized as follows:—

1. St. Paul arrived at Thessalonica in the company of Silas (and possibly Timothy).

2. Three weeks’ preaching in Thessalonica with the synagogue as headquarters, some success among the Jews, and much among the God-fearers.

3. The Jews accuse the Christians, before the Politarchs, of treason to the Roman Emperor; security is taken from Jason, and St. Paul and Silas are condemned by default.

4. St. Paul and Silas (and Timothy?) go to Beroea.

5. The Jews from Thessalonica force St. Paul to leave Beroea.

6. The Beroeans take St. Paul to Athens: Silas and Timothy remain.

7. St. Paul sends a message back to Silas and Timothy to join him in Athens.

8. Silas and Timothy come to Athens.

9. Timothy is sent to Thessalonica, Silas probably to Beroea or Philippi.

10. St. Paul leaves Athens and goes to Corinth.

11. Timothy and Silas join St. Paul at Corinth.

12. On hearing Timothy’s report, St. Paul sends 1 Thessalonians to the Gentile Christian community in Thessalonica.

13. Almost immediately after sending 1 Thessalonians St. Paul sends 2 Thessalonians to the Jewish Christian community in Thessalonica.

Literature.—The best commentaries are those of E. von Dobschütz, in Meyer’s Kritischexegetisch kommentar über das Neue Testament, 1909; G. Milligan, 1908; W. Lueken in J. Weiss’ Schriften des N.T’s.; P. W. Schmiedel, in Holtzmann’s Handkommentar (1891); and J. B. Lightfoot, in his posthumous Notes on the Pauline Epistles. Older and only slightly less valuable works are fully given by E. von Dobschütz (pp. 49–56) in his chapter Zur Geschichte der Auslegung. Apart from commentaries, attention may especially be called to Lightfoot, The Churches of Macedonia, and The Church of Thessalonica in his Biblical Essays; W. Lütgert, Die Enthusiasten in Thessalonich, in Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie, xiii:6 (1909); W. Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefs, in Texte und Untersuchungen, xxiv:2 ; A. Harnack, Das Problem des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefs, in the Sitzungsberichte der konigl. preuss. Akademie zu Berlin, 1910.

Notes:

¹ Acts 17:1.

² Slightly less than English miles.

³ Conditions are no doubt worse now in Macedonia than they were in the first century, but the difference for travelling cannot be very great, and nothing would induce me to attempt such a pace, unless life and death depended.

¹ It seems to me to be probable that the Bezan text is here clearly secondary. The redactor thought that διοδεύειν meant “to pass through,” and altered the text to bring out this meaning. As a matter of fact, the emphasis is not on the διὰ but on the ὁδὸς implied in the verb. I suspect that St. Luke used διοδεύειν here instead of διέρχεσθαι because he wished to indicate that St. Paul went along the great ὁδός, the Via Egnatia, and that a similar shade of meaning can be traced in Luke 8:1.

² Acts 16:1-3.

³ The comment of von Dobschütz is here very much to the point. “To conclude from Acts 17:4 that Timothy did not come to Thessalonica with St. Paul, as has often been done, is to ignore the fact that Timothy is not mentioned in Philippi, where, however, he must have been (so also John Mark in Acts 13:7), and is alluded to in Acts 17:14 (Beroea) only because the narrative is here concerned with the party of travellers, not with the mission as such” (p. 8, note 3).

¹ It reads: καὶ προσεκληρώθησαν τῷ Παύλῳ καὶ τῷ Σιλαίᾳ τῇ διδαχῇ πολλοὶ τῶι σεβομένων καὶ Ἑλλήνων, καὶ γυναῖκες τῶν πρώτων οὐκ ὀλίγαι.

¹ Σάββατα in Acts 17:22, is taken by Zahn (Einl., p. 152) to mean weeks rather than sabbaths. Of course, three Sabbaths imply three weeks, more or less, but I do not think τρία σάββατα is likely to mean anything except “three sabbaths.” St. Luke uses the plural in Luke 4:31; Luke 6:2, Luke 13:10, each time in the sense of “sabbath day.” At the same time, the point is far from certain, for the genitive, either singular or plural, is used, with a numeral prefixed, to give the days of the week. It is possible that an extension of this use gave the meaning of week to σάββατον, but I know no evidence in favour of this (generally accepted) view. Δὶς τοῦ σαββάτου is the nearest approach, but here also it is the genitive. See E. Schürer, Die Siebentätige Woche in the Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vi. (1905) p. 8.

¹ The Greek is ἀγοραιων. That it means “agitators” and not “loafers,” is probably shown by Plutarch, Aemil. Paul., 38, ἀνθρώπους ἀγεννεῖς καὶ δεδουλευκότας, ἀγοραίους δὲ καὶ δυναμένους ὄχλον συναγαγεῖν, κ.τ.λ.

² I cannot help thinking that it is possible to read too much into this phrase. Surely the ο͂ῆυος here is not a special juridical body, but merely the meeting or crowd, whichever we may choose to name it, which had been called into existence by the γοραῖοι.

¹ For the epigraphic evidence for the title, see de Witt Burton, in the American Journal of Theology for 1898, pp. 598–632.

¹ Or possibly “of their husbands.”

² Is it possible that the local authorities in Thessalonica had some power of fetching him to their jurisdiction?

³ This is probable but not certain. Ptolemy regards Thessaly as Macedonian, and possibly Strabo does so also (this is Mommsen’s view, but the point is doubtful). There is, however, no doubt but that it was formerly Achaean. Ramsay thinks it was given to Macedonia in 44. Others suggest a later date, which, if true, is of course fatal to the suggestion made above. (See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 234.)

¹ παρῆλθεν δὲ τὴν Θεσσαλίαν ἐκωλύθη γὰρ εἰς αὐτοὺς κηρῦξαι τὸν λόγον.

² See Rendel Harris, Four Lectures on the Western Text, p. 47.

¹ “But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you.”

¹ Though this view is not inconceivable, it ought not to be forgotten that the view that Thessalonians was sent from Corinth depends on the theory that “Corinth” in Acts is correct; probably it is—but it is only one word, and no one can be trusted not to go wrong on these details.

² It need scarcely be said that there have been many other attempts to solve this problem of the difference between Acts and 1 Thessalonians. For instance, it has been suggested that St. Paul returned to Athens for a short time after he had gone to Corinth, intending to go to Thessalonica; or, that Timothy never reached Athens because St. Paul sent a message to tell him to go first to Thessalonica (so von Dobschütz). Of all these it can be said that they are not impossible, but they seem more complicated and less probable than the usual view. The whole problem defies a final decision, because we have not sufficient data, and opinions are likely to continue to differ as to the greater or less probability of various not impossible solutions.

¹ For the history of the Nero Saga in its early stages the main source is Tacitus, Hist., ii. 8f.; Suetonius, Nero, 40; 47; 57. Zonaras, 11 15; 18. (Dio Cassius, 64); for the later stage of the belief in Nero redivivus the Oracula Sibyllina, books iv. and v., and the canonical Apocalypse of St. John. The chief modern literature on the subject is T. Zahn, Apokalyptische Studien III. in the Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft, 1886; Geffcken, Studien zur älteren Nerosage, in the Nachrichten von der königl. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, 1899; and Bousset’s commentary on the Apocalypse, in Meyer’s Kritischexegetischer Komm. ü. d. N. T., 6th ed., 1906, pp. 411 ff.

¹ The two really indispensable books on this subject are Gunkel’s schöpfung und Chaos and W. Bousset’s Der Antichrist Legende, translated by A. H. Keane, The Antichrist Legend. The latter book gives very full references to the scattered and confused sources from which the outlines of the myth can be built up. Much the same ground is covered, in a more compressed form, by the article by Bousset on “Antichrist” in the Encyclopædia Biblica.

¹In Texte und Untersuchungen, N. F. 9. 2. (der ganzen Reihe 24. 2).

² Holtzmann considers that the only passages in 2 Thessalonians for which no parallel can be found in 1 Thessalonians are 2 Thessalonians 1:5-6, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, 2 Thessalonians 1:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:2-9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Thessalonians 3:2, 2 Thessalonians 3:13-14, 2 Thessalonians 3:17 (Einleitung in das Neue Testament, p. 214).

³ It should be noted that St. Paul’s quotations from the Old Testament are mostly in his polemical passages, and are not due to the nationality of his readers, but to the character of his letters.

¹ Bornemann, in his commentary (p. 461), adds the Epistle of St. James.

² See especially the list of twelve points given by Harnack in his Das Problem des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefs, in the Sitzungsberichte der kön. preus. Akademie, 1910, p. 562 f.

¹ The most complete exploitation of this theory will be found in Dr. Rendel Harris’s article, “A Study in Letter-writing,” in the Expositor for September, 1898.

²I am not sure that this is a right interpretation; the “prophets” may refer to Christian prophets, such as St. James the son of Zebedee, or St. Stephen.

³ 1 Thessalonians 2:14 f.

¹ The objection that κοιμηθέντας implies a peaceful death, and therefore not martyrdom, is unsupported either by literary or psychological criticism. The same word is used of the death of St. Stephen (Acts 7:60), and a martyr’s death is, as a rule, pre-eminently peaceful. There is no doubt disturbance and distress, but it is not the martyr who feels them. The real difficulty is rather the curious genitival phrase, διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ—in what sense διά?

² The warning on p. 86 must be repeated that this, and all other reference to 2 Thessalonians, is based on the hypothesis that the Epistle is genuine, and that Harnack’s theory is correct. But this is by no means so certain as the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians; and to this extent the whole of the reconstruction of Timothy’s report varies in probability according to the Epistle on which it is based.

¹ This, again, is based on Harnack’s theory of 2 Thessalonians, and cannot be regarded as certain.

¹ Bousset’s work is here the necessary complement of Harnack’s: if we did not know that an expectation of an Antichrist was common among the Jews, we should be unable to understand why St. Paul’s teaching as to the Parousia in 1 Thessalonians could be regarded as defective.

¹ Cf. the summary which he gives himself in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, as to the result —which he regards as satisfactory—of his preaching: “Ye turned to God from idols, to become the servants of a living and real God, and to await His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who saves us from the coming wrath.”

¹ The Apocalypse of Baruch shows that the Jewish idea, at least in some circles, was a resurrection of the dead in the form in which they died, followed by a speedy transfiguration into a more glorious condition.

¹ The fact that neither of these alternative views is quite satisfactory is in itself an argument for Wrede’s opinion that 2 Thessalonians is not genuine. Certainly he can explain this particular difficulty better than it is possible to do on the theory of its Pauline authorship. But, then again, he fails, as these views do not, to explain the other features in 2 Thessalonians which seem to be strikingly Pauline. The whole problem is very difficult. No theory is without its weak point, and certainty is unattainable.

¹ Commentary on Daniel 4:19.

² 1 Thessalonians 4:4 f.