INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO EPISTLES.

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HE genuineness and authenticity of the Epistles to the Thessalonians have never been doubted in the Church of Christ. They are mentioned as St. Paul's in the fragment called the Muratorian Canon. The first Epistle is alluded to or quoted more than once in the Epistle of Polycarp. Thus chap. xi.: "Abstain from every form of evil; " and 2 Thess. iii. 15, in chap. xi.: "Do not count such as enemies, but call them back as suffering and straying members." Justin Martyr clearly alludes to 2 Thess. ii. 3. "The other [advent] in which He shall come from heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy who speaketh strange things against the most High," &c. (Dial cx.).

Both Epistles are quoted by Irenæus. Thus, Against Heresies, v. 6-1: "And for this cause does the Apostle, explaining himself, make it clear that the saved man is a complete man as well as a spiritual man; saying this in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians: Now the God of peace sanctify you perfect, and may your spirit, soul, and body,' &c. (1 Thess. v. 23)."

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Also Clement of Alexandria: "To this point, says the Divine Apostle. For this is the will of God, even your Sanctification,' &c. (Miscellanies, iv. 12). Also: "Let us not then sleep as do others," &c. (iv. 22). And Tertullian: "The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians. For we read 'how ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son,'" &c. On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chap. 24..

CHARACTER OF THE EPISTLE.

The first matter connected with these Epistles which the careful reader of Scripture has to realize is that they are the earliest of the Epistles. But though they are, in point of time, the first of the

books of the New Testament written for the instruction of Gentile Christians, they assume that the Church to which St. Paul addressed them was already in the possession of all Christian truth. St. Paul does not teach them, as ab initio, one article of the Christian faith. They were acquainted with the fundamentals of all Christian doctrine, either through his own personal instruction, or through that of his companions, Sylvanus, Timotheus, and others.

Glancing over the Epistle, we gather from the very first verse that St. Paul had taught them that they could be "in" God, and "in" Christ. This remarkable way of speaking postulates all that doctrine which pervades such Epistles as those to the Ephesians and Corinthians, that Christians are now in Christ by grace as all men by nature are in Adam.

From the third verse we find that he had taught them the election of God-that they could not have become what they were unless God had chosen them-and the sign of this choice on God's part was that the Gospel came to them "not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." It came to them not with outward miracle only, but in the inward transformation wrought in them by the Spirit of God. This transformation is described in verses 9 and 10 as 66 turning from idols to serve the living and true God; and waiting for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, Who delivered us from the wrath to come." Those two verses, it will be seen, imply instruction in five articles of the creed-in the living and true God, Who is a Father because He has a Son, Whom He gave for us, to deliver us by His Death from the wrath to come. This Son He raised from the dead, and this Son we have to wait for, for He will come again "to judge the quick and the dead." The Thessalonian Church, then, was instructed in those articles of the faith respecting the Son of God incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, and returning, which we find St. Paul taught everywhere as his Gospel (Rom. i. 1; 1 Cor. xv. 1-15). It was the one faith, of the one Lord, professed at the one Baptism.

Furthermore we learn that they had from the first been instructed in all precepts of goodness and holiness. They had "received of him how they ought to walk and to please God," and all that they required was to be urged to "abound more and more (1 Epistle, iv. 1-2). Again he appeals to their perfect knowledge of

their duty when he writes, "Ye yourselves know how ye ought to follow us.'

They were instructed then at the first in all faith and duty. Now it is interesting to note the word by which St. Paul designates this instruction which at the first he delivered to them to keep and observe. He calls it tradition (πapadóσis). “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our Epistle" (2, ii. 15). "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 he received of us (2. iii. 6). This word tradition (paradosis) is the same which is applied to the false glosses by which the Scribes and Pharisees had evaded the true meaning of the word of God, and shows us that traditions may be good or bad-good if they are in accordance with the revealed will of God, or bad if they make void that will.

There is another matter of great importance connected with the earliness of the writing of these letters. They contain no allusion to Justification by faith as opposed to Justification by the works of the law, or by circumcision, as in the Epistle to the Galatians. They contain no allusion to the Election of the Gentiles, or the Reprobation, or casting away of the Jews with which the Epistle to the Romans is so much occupied. There is, as I have noticed, a reference to the election of the Thessalonian Christians, and to the wrath having come upon the Jews to the uttermost; but the first is rather personal election, and the second is the impending doom on their country and chief city. This shows a very early stage in the conflict with which so much of the life of St. Paul was occupied. Though he was everywhere persecuted by the Jews, yet the Judaizers, i.e., those who desired to bring the Gentiles under the yoke of the law for Justification, had apparently not opposed or thwarted his work as they had done when he wrote his letters to the Galatians and Philippians. Neither had he had yet to contend with those incipient forms of Gnosticism (philosophy and vain deceit) which he refers to in the Epistle to the Colossians.

DATE.

With respect to the date of the first Epistle, we are able to approximate to it tolerably closely by taking into account that it must have been written shortly after the return of Timotheus to St. Paul with good tidings respecting the Church at Thessalonica (1 Thess. iii. 6). St. Paul having departed from Philippi came to Thessalonica (Acts xvii. 1) where he planted a Church. Driven from Thessalonica by the persecution of the Jews, he came to Berea, to which place also the enmity of his countrymen pursued him, and so the brethren there sent him away by sea, and brought him to Athens. The persons who had brought him there received a command to bring to him with all speed Silas and Timotheus, and no doubt they shortly rejoined him at Athens. But whilst at Athens he was in such anxiety respecting the state of the Thessalonian Church that he sent Timothy back again to Thessalonica to bring him word respecting their true state (1 Thess. iii. 1). The first Epistle must have been written very shortly after he received this good account, and as his stay appears to have been very short, probably the first Epistle was written soon after his arrival in Corinth, where Timothy and Silas had rejoined him (Acts xviii. 5) and about 52 or 53 after Christ. There seems to have been no special occasion which caused him to write it, except to remind them of what he had taught them.

It seems to be generally agreed that the Second Epistle was written shortly after the first. It seems to have been written for a special purpose-to warn the Thessalonians that they should not be so "moved or "shaken in mind" by what he had taught them respecting the nearness of the Second Advent, as to neglect the duties of daily life, which some among them had begun to do.

THE CITY OF THESSALONICA.

It remains to say a word respecting Thessalonica itself. It was anciently known as Therma, and received the name of Thessalonica from Cassander, the son of Antipater, who rebuilt and enlarged it, and named it after his wife Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great. The harbour was well suited for commerce,