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see nothing in it which negatives the supposition, that St Paul pursued the same plan at Thessalonica which he adopted in other places; and that, though he resorted to the synagogue only three Sabbath days, yet he remained in the city, and in the exercise of his ministry amongst the Gentile citizens, much longer; and until the success of his preaching had provoked the Jews to excite the tumult and insurrection by which he was driven away.

Another seeming discrepancy is found in the ninth verse of the first chapter of the Epistle: "For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God.” This text contains an assertion, that, by means of St Paul's ministry at Thessalonica, many idolatrous Gentiles had been brought over to Christianity. Yet the history, in describing the effects of that ministry, only says, that "some of the Jews believed, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few"-ch. xvii, 4. The devout Greeks were those who already worshipped the one true God; and therefore could not be said, by embracing Christianity, "to be turned to God from idols."

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This is the difficulty. The answer may be assisted by the following observations: The Alexandrian and Cambridge manuscripts read (for των σεβομένων Ελληνων πολυ πλήθος, σε of the Greeks a great multitude,”) των σεβομένων και Ελληνων πολυ πλήθος, "of the devout persons, and Greeks, a great multitude;" in which reading they are also confirmed by the vulgate Latin. And this reading is, in my opinion, strongly supported by the considerations, first, that coμsvo (the devout) alone, i. e. without 'Exants (Greeks), is used in this sense in the same chapter (ver. 17). Paul being come to Athens, diediyeto ev ty συναγωγή τοις Ιεδαίοις και τοις σεβομένοις, " disputed in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons;" secondly, that σεβομενοι Ελληνες

quevo and 'Exanvis no where come together. The expression is redundant. The must be 'Exλs. Thirdly, that the xa is much more likely to have been left incuriâ manûs (by the carelessnes of the copyist), than to have been put in. Or, after all, if we be not allowed to change the present reading, which is undoubtedly retained by a great plurality of copies, may not the passage in the history be considered as describing only the effect of St Paul's discourses during the three Sabbath days in which he preached in the synagogue? and may it not be true, as we have remarked above, that his application to the Gentiles at large, and his success amongst them, was posterior to this?

CHAPTER X.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.

No. I.

It may seem odd to allege obscurity itself as an argument, or to draw a proof in favour of a writing from that which is naturally considered as the principal defect in its composition. The present Epistle, however, furnishes a passage, hitherto unexplained, and probably inexplicable by us, the existence of which, under the darkness and difficulties that attend it, can be accounted for only upon the supposition of the Epistle being genuine; and upon that supposition is accounted for with great ease. The passage which I allude to is found in the second chapter: "That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that WHEN I WAS YET WITH YOU I TOLD YOU THESE THINGS? And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time; for the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he that now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way; and then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming"-ver. 3-8. It were superfluous to prove, because it is in vain to deny, that this passage is involved in great obscurity, more especially the clauses distinguished by Italics. Now, the observation I have to offer is founded upon this, that the passage expressly refers to a conversation which the author had previously holden with the Thessalonians, upon the same subject: "Remember ye not when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth." If such conversation actually passed; if, whilst " he was yet with them, he told them those things," then it follows that the

Epistle is authentic. And of the reality of this conversation it appears to be a proof, that what is said in the Epistle might be understood by those who had been present to such conversation, and yet be incapable of being explained by any other. No man writes unintelligibly on purpose. But it may easily happen that a part of a letter which relates to a subject, upon which the parties had conversed together before, which refers to what had been before said, which is in truth a portion or continuation of a former discourse, may be utterly without meaning to a stranger who should pick up the letter upon the road, and yet be perfectly clear to the person to whom it is directed, and with whom the previous communication had passed. And if, in a letter which thus accidentally fell into my hands, I found a passage expressly referring to a former conversation, and difficult to be explained without knowing that conversation, I should consider this very difficulty as a proof that the conversation had actually passed, and consequently that the letter contained the real correspondence of real persons.

No. II.

CHAP. iii, 8, " 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 power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us."

In a letter, purporting to have been written to another of the Macedonic churches, we find the following declaration:

"Now, ye Philippians, know also, that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me, as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only."-Phil. iv, 15.

The conformity between these two passages is strong and plain. They confine the transaction to the same period. The Epistle to the Philippians refers to what passed "in the beginning of the Gospel," that is to say, during the first preaching of the Gospel on that side of the Ægean Sea. The Epistle to the Thessalonians speaks of the Apostle's conduct in that city upon "his first entrance in unto them," which the history informs us was in the course of his first visit to the peninsula of Greece.

As St Paul tells the Philippians, " that no church commu

nicated with him, as concerning giving and receiving, but they only," he could not, consistently with the truth of this declaration, have received any thing from the neighbouring church of Thessalonica. What thus appears by general implication in an Epistle to another church, when he writes to the Thessalonians themselves, is noticed expressly and particularly: "Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you."

The texts here cited further also exhibit a mark of conformity with what St Paul is made to say of himself in the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostle not only reminds the Thessalonians that he had not been chargeable to any of them, but he states likewise the motive which dictated this reserve; 66 not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us-(ch. iii, 9). This conduct, and, what is much more precise, the end which he had in view by it, was the very same as that which the history attributes to St Paul in a discourse, which it represents him to have addressed to the elders of the church of Ephesus: "Yea, ye yourselves also know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak." -Acts, ch. xx, 34, 35. The sentiment in the Epistle and in the speech is in both parts of it so much alike, and yet the words which convey it show so little of imitation or even of resemblance, that the agreement cannot well be explained without supposing the speech and the letter to have really proceeded from the same person.

No. III.

OUR readers remember the passage in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which St Paul spoke of the coming of Christ: "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep: for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven-and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds-and so shall we be ever with the Lord. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."-1 Thess. iv, 15-17, and ch. v, 4. It should seem that the Thessalonians, or some, however, amongst them, had from this passage conceived an opinion (and that not very unnaturally) that the coming of Christ

was to take place instantly, or Ter," is at hand,"* 2 Thess. ii, 2; and that this persuasion had produced, as it well might, much agitation in the church. The Apostle, therefore, now writes, amongst other purposes, to quiet this alarm, and to rectify the misconstruction that had been put upon his words:"Now, we beseech you brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." If the allusion which we contend for be admitted, namely, if it be admitted that the passage in the second Epistle relates to the passage in the first, it amounts to a considerable proof of the genuineness of both Epistles. I have no conception, because I know no example, of such a device in a forgery, as first to frame an ambiguous passage in a letter, then to represent the persons to whom the letter is addressed as mistaking the meaning of the passage, and, lastly, to write a second letter in order to correct this mistake.

I have said that this argument arises out of the text, if the allusion be admitted: for I am not ignorant that many expositors understand the passage in the second Epistle as referring to some forged letters, which had been produced in St Paul's name, and in which the Apostle had been made to say that the coming of Christ was then at hand. In defence, however, of the explanation which we propose, the reader is desired to ob

serve

1. The strong fact, that there exists a passage in the first Epistle, to which that in the second is capable of being referred, i. e. which accounts for the error the writer is solicitous to remove. Had no other Epistle than the second been extant, and had it, under these circumstances, come to be considered, whether the text before us related to a forged Epistle or to some misconstruction of a true one, many conjectures and many probabilities might have been admitted in the inquiry, which can have little weight when an Epistle is produced containing the very sort of passage we were seeking, that is, a passage liable to the misinterpretation which the Apostle protests against.

2. That the clause which introduces the passage in the second Epistle bears a particular affinity to what is found in the passage cited from the first Epistle. The clause is this:

* 'Oti viσTMηxiv, nempe hoc anno (viz. this year), says Grotius, T hic dicitur de re præsenti, ut (i. e. is here spoken of as concerning what is present, as) Rom. viii, 38; 1 Cor. iii, 22; Gal. i, 4; Heb. ix, 9.

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