Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/694

 THESSALONIANS

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THESSALONIANS

lethargy duo to the supposed onoiimiiif; Paroiisia. Hence the eschatological passage that follows. The brethren who have died will have part in the Second Coming just as they that are now alive (verses 12-17) ; the time of the Parousia is uncertain, so that watch- fulness and not lethargy are needed (v, 1-11). The letter ends with a series of pithy and pointed exhorta- tions to respect for their religious teacher.s, and to the other virtues that make up the glory of Christian life (v, 12-22) ; the Apostolic benediction and salutation, a request for prayers and the charge that the letter be read in public (verses 2.3-28).

III. Second Epistle. A. Aulhenlicity. (1) Ex- ternal Evidence. — MS. evidence is the same for II Thess. as for I Thess., so, too, the evidence of the ancient versions. The Apostolic and Apologetic Fathers are more clearly in favour of II Thess. than of I Thess. St. Ignatius, in Rom., x, 3, cites a phrase of II Thess., iii, 5, e's ritv inroyj>vT)v tov XpurroO, "in the patience of Christ". St. Polycarp (XI, 3} refers the letter expressly to Paul, although, by a slip of the mem- ory, he takes it that the Apostle glories (II Thess., i, 4) in another Macedonian Church, that of the Philippians; elsewhere (XI, 1) Polycarp uses II The.ss., iii, 15. St. Justin (about A. D. 1.50), in "Dialog.", xxxii (P. G., VI, 544), seems to have in mind the eschatological language of this letter. Besides it is set down as Pauline in the Canon of Marcion (about A. D. 140).

(2) Internal Evidence. — The literary dependence of II Thess. on I Thess. cannot be gainsaid. The writer of the former must ha\e written the latter, and that too not very loii^ then-after. II Thess., ii, 15, and iii, 6, are to be explained liy I Thess., iv, 1-8 and 11. The style of the two letters is admittedly iden- tical; the prayers (I, iii, 11, v, 23; II, ii, 16, iii, 16), greetings (I, i, 1; II, i, 1, 2), thanks (I, i, 2; II, i, 3), and transitions (I, iv, 1;II, iii, 1) are remarkably alike in form. Two-thirds of II Thess. is hke to I Thess. in vocabulary and style. Moreover, the structure of the Epistle, its subject-matter, and its affectionate outbursts of prayer for the recipients and of exhorta- tion are all decidedly Pauline characteristics. The argument from internal evidence is .so strong as to have won over such critics as Harnack (Chronologic, 1,238) andJulieher (Einleitung,40). Schmiedel, Holtz- mann, Weizacker, and others deny the force of this argument from internal e\'idciice. Its very similarity to I Thess. in vocabulary and style is made to mili- tate against the authi^nticity of II Thess. ; the letter is too Pauline; the author was a clever forger, who, some sixty years later, took up I Thess. and worked it over. There has been no motive assigned for such a forgery; no proof given that any post-Apostolic writer was .so cunning as to palm off this letter as a Pauline imitation.

Eschatology of Paul. — The chief objection is that the eschatology of II Thess. contradicts that of I Thess.: the letter is in this un-Pauline. In I Thess., iv, 14-v, 3, the writer says the Parousia is imminent; in II Thess., ii, 2-12, iii, 11, the writer sets the Parousia a long time off. Non-Catholics who hold the Pauline authorship of the two letters generally admit that Paul predicted the second coming would be within his own lifetime and deem that the signs narrated in II Thess., ii, as preludes to that coming do not imply a long interval nor that Paul expected to die before these signs occurred. Catholics insist that Paul can- not have said the Parousia would be during his life- time. Hail lie said .so he would have erred; the in- spired word of (iod would err; the error would be that of the Holy Spirit more than of Paul. True, the Douay Version seems to imply that the Parousia is at hand: "Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and .so shall we always be with the Lord" (I Thess., iv, 16). The Vulgate is no clearer:

" Xos,quivivimus,quiresi(luisumus" etc. (iv, 15-17). The original text solves the difficulty: JiMf'toi fui-Tes oi Tapa\€tir6^evoij fi/xa ffdv avToi^ aptrayqa6fjL€6a. Here the Hellenistic syntax parallels the Attic. The sentence is conditional. The two participles present stand for two futures preceded by ti; the participles have the place of a protasis. The translation is: "We, if we be alive — if we be left — [on earth], shall be taken up" etc. A similar construction is used by Paul in I Cor., xi, 29 (cf. Moulton, "Grammar of New Testament Greek", Edinburgh, 1906, I, 2:30). St. Paul is here no more definite about the time of the Parousia than he was in I Thess., V, 2, when he wrote "that the day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night. " There is in St. Paul's eschatology the very same indefiniteness about the time of the Parousia that there is in the eschatological sayings of Jesus as related in the Synoptics (Matt., .xxiv, 5-45; Mark, xiii, 7-37; Luke, xxi, 20-36). "Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father" (Mark, .xiii, 32). In the deposit of faith given by the Father to the Son, to be given by the Son to the Church, the time of the Parousia was not contained. We readily admit that St. Paul did not know the time of the Parousia; we cannot admit that he knew it wrong and wrote it wrong as the inspired Word of God and a jiart of the deposit of faith.

As for the further objection that the apocalyptic character of ii, 2-12, is post-Pauline and dependent upon so late a composition as the .Apocalypse of John (a. d. 93-96) or, worse still, upon the Nero redivivus story (Tacitus, "Hist.", II, viii), we answer that this assertion is entirely gratuitous. St. Paul got hia apocalyptic ideas from the very same .-source as John, that is either from revelation to himself or from the Old Testament or from tradition. Most of the details of his apocalyptic description of the Parousia are given in other apocalypses (I John, ii, 18; Matt., xxiv, 24; Luke, xxi, 8; Mark, xiii, 22; Deut., xiii, 1-5; Ezech., xxxviii and xxxix; Dan., vii-ix, xi, xii, etc.). The man of sin, Antichrist, Belial, the well-nigh com- plete triumph of evil just before the end of time, the almost general apostasy, the portents, and other items are features familiar to Old-Testament and New- Testament apocalyptic writings.

B. Canonicily. — The canonicity of II Thess. has been treated together with that of I Thess.

C. Time and Place. — II Thess. was written at Corinth not long after I Thess., for both Timothy and Silas are still with Paul (i, 1), and the silence of the Acts shows that, once Paul left Corinth, Silas was not again his companion in the ministry. There seem to be allusions in iii, 2, to the troublous stay of a year and a half at Corinth (Acts, xviii); in ii, 14, to the letter quite recently written to the Thessalonians; and in iii, 7-9, to the ministry of Paul among them as not long pa,ssed.

D. Occasion. — The eschatology of I Thess. had been misunderstood by the Thessalonians; they took it, the day of the Lord was at hand (ii. 2): they were overwrought by the exaggerations of .some meddlers and perhaps by a forged letter which purporteil to have come from Paul (ii, 2; iii, 17). Moreover the disorderly conduct of some (iii, 6, 11) gave the Apostle no little concern; this concern he showed by the letter.

E. Conlenls. — The three chapters into which the letter is now divided, aptly analyze the thought. In the first chapter are a greeting, thanksgiving for the faith and love of the The-ssaloniaiis. and an a.ssurance of Divine recompense to them and to their persecu- tors. In the second chapter is the main thought of the letter — the eschatology. Certain signs are de- tailed which must precede the Parousia. Until these signs appear, there is no reiuson for terror or taking leave of their 8en.scs. The third chapter is the iiMial Pauline request for prayers, a charge to avoid the