THESSALONIANS, EPISTLES TO THE. Christianity was introduced among the Thessalonians 'in A.D. 50, by St. Paul, when he first passed over from Asia Minor into Europe to preach the gospel: St. Paul found at Thessalonica a synagogue of the Jews, "and went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures," endeavouring to convince them that Jesus was the Christ or Messiah expected by them. Though some of them believed, his success with the Jews does not appear to have been great ; but a con siderable number of the " devout Gentiles " were converted, and many women of distinction ; so the Christian church at Thessalonica was composed both of Jews and Gentiles, of whom the latter were the more numerous. The unconverted Jews stirred up a persecution against him, so that himself and his companions "were sent away by night by the brethren" to the neighbouring city of Bercea. Here, again, the Jews of Thessalonica stirred up a tumult against ,St. Paul, so that he was obliged to retire to Athens, leaving, however, Silas and Timothy at Bercta. At Athens he was subsequently joined by them, and being anxious about his recent converts at Thessalonica, "when he could no longer forbear" (1 Theis., iii., I), he sent Timothy from , Athens "to establish them, and to comfort them concerning the faith." St. Paul then visited Corinth, and on the return of Timothy with "good tidings of their faith and charity, and that they had a good remembrance of him always " (1 Thes., iii. 6), he wrote his first epistle to them, A.D. 52, from Corinth, and not from Athens, as the subscrip tion of the epistle imports.
It was one of the earliest, if not tho very first, of all St. Paul's epistles, the doubt lying between this epistle and that to the Corinth ians, written from the same place. That to the Galatians was also pro bably written from Corinth before the Second Epistle to the Thessa lonians. The genuineness of the first epistle has always been admitted : together with the second epistle, it is quoted and recognised as the work of St. Paul, by Tremens, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and all subsequent ecclesiastical writers. The immediate occasion of St. Paul's writing this epistle was the favourable intelligence brought by Timothy of the steadiness with which the Thessalonians adhered to Christianity, in spite of the persecution with which they were assailed by their own countrymen. Besides being exposed to direct persecution, there can be little doubt that they were also in danger of being moved by the reasonings of their religious adversaries, to which the sudden disappear ance of St. Paul from Thessalonica, and his apparent desertion of them
at a critical moment, might give some plausibility and apparent con firmation. To counteract the natural result of all this was one of the chief objects of Timothy's mission, and the First Epistle to the Thes salonians was written with the same design. Accordingly, in chap. i., after a short introduction, in which he couples the names of Timothy and Sylvanus (the Roman form of Silas) with his own, be expresses his i thankfulness for their " work of faith and labour of love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ," and then (v. 5-10) reminds them of the "proofs of power and of the Holy Ghost" with which the preaching of the gospel among them was accompanied, as evidences of its truth, and commends them for the constancy of their faith.
The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was undoubtedly written soon after tho first ; Sylvanus and Timothy being joined with the apostle in the inscription of this Epistle as well as of the former ; and as in chap. ill., ver. 2, he requests the prayers of the Thessalonians for his deliverance from wicked men, it is not improbable that be wrote it soon after the insurrection of the Jews at Corinth, when they dragged him before Gallic), and accused him of persuading men to worship God contrary to the law. This Epistle seems to have been occasioned by the information which St.. Paul received on the state of the church at Thessalonica from the messenger who conveyed his first letter to the elders of the church, and his report of the effect produced by its con tents. From some expressions in that Epistle (iv. 15; v. 4-6), com pared with chapter ii. of the second, it would seem that a number of Thessalonians had come to the conclusion that the day of judgment was at hand, and would happen in their generation. To correct this misapprehension, and to prevent the anxiety and the neglect of secular affairs which resulted from it, appears to have been the main object and design of St. Paul in writing this Second Epistle to them.
This Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is, next to that to Philemon, the shortest of St. Paul's Epistles, but not inferior to any in- style or spirit, and it is also remarkable as containing a distinct prophecy of the corruptions and delusions which were to arise in the Christian Church.
The undesigned coincidences between these Epistles and the "Acts of the Apostles " are given in Paley's " Horse Paulinx."