Thessalonians
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~bt Qtambrtb_gt 35tble for l,tboolu anb ctollt_gtu. THE EPISTLES TO THE TH ESSA LO N I A N S. iLonbon: c. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. l!lill!llgobl: 263, ARGYLE STREET. «ambdbge: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. l.eip)i11: F. A. BROCKHAUS. Lll,ebl )l!orli: MACMILLAN AND CO. SKETCH MAP OF MACEDONIA AND ACHAIA ILLUSTRATING THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS ,. A 0 ' 4. .,, > --•-JT PAUL \.!J VISIT TO liUR E ---- -VJA fONATIA ~bt 4Camllrfll!lt 35tlllt for i,cboolu anll 4Collt!ltU. GENERAL EDITOR :-J. J. s. PEROWNE, D.D. BISHOP OF WORCESTER. THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND MAP BY THE REV. GEORGE G. FINDLAY, B.A. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGES IN THE WESLEYAN COLLEGE, HEADING LEY. EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. ~ambdb'ge: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1894 [All Rights reserved.] (!!:ambrillge: PRINTED BY C, J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVRRSJTY PRESS, PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. THE General Editor of The Cambridge Bible for Sc/tools thinks it right to say that he does not hold himself responsible either for the interpretation of particular passages which the Editors of the several Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New Testament more especially questions arise of the deepest theological import, on which the ablest and most conscientious interpreters have differed and always will differ. His aim has been in all such , cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that 1-2 PREFACE. mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided. He has contented himself chiefly with a careful revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like. Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series. PREFATORY NOTE. THE care of this volume of the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges was intrusted in the first instance to the Rev. W. F. Moulton, D.D., Headmaster of the Leys School, Cambridge, who was compelled by the pressure of other duties to relinquish the work. This he did (as he permits me to say) with very great reluctance and regret. It is a loss to all who may have occasion to use this book, that it is prepared by other hands than those of the original Editor. I am happy to state, however, that Dr Moulton has not only favoured me with most valuable counsels and sugges tions in the preparation of the Commentary, but has, under conditions of peculiar difficulty, found time to revise the proof-sheets; and the following pages, however defective in other respects, will bear some traces of his extreme accuracy, his admirable judgement and finished scholarship. GEO. G. FINDLAY. 1-IEADINGLEY, January, 1891. CONTENTS. PAGES I. INTRODUCTION. Chapter I. The City of Thessalonica .•. ... ...... ... 9-12 Chapter II. How the Gospel came to Thessalonica 13-16 Chapter III. The Gospel of Paul at Thessalonica .. 16-22 Chapter IV. The Occasion of the Two Epistles . 22-27 Chapter V. The Genuineness of the Two Epistles 27-31 Chapter VI. The Style and Character of the Two Epistles ... ...... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... 32-37 Chapter VII. Analysis and Digest of the Epistles . .. 3 7-43 II. TEXT AND NOTES................................. 45-169 III. APPENDIX. On the Man of Lawlessness 170-180 IV. INDEX ................................ 181-183 MAP ...................... .. .. ........... .facing Title. * * The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener's * Cambridge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordi nary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his In troduction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge University Press. "The Apostolic Letters, which made glad The young and foe-girt Churches of the Lord." AUBREY DE VERE, ART THOU THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE BLESSEDf-AND 'JESUS SAID, I AM: AND YE SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, AND COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN, INTRODUCTION_. CHAPTER I. THE CITY OF THESSALONICA, MOST of the ancient cities in which St Paul laboured have in the course of ages either perished or sunk into insignificance. Rome still remains, "the eternal city," holding a unique place amongst the world's great capitals. And along with Rome, though in a far inferior position, Thessalonica has retained its identity and its importance throughout the immense changes of the last two thousand years. The town first appears in Greek history under the name of Therma,-so called from the warm mineral springs in its v1cm1ty. Its later designation was given to it by Cassander, who on seizing the vacant throne of Alexander the Great in Macedonia married his sister Thessalonica. Her name was, no doubt, a memorial of some victory gaine_d by her father Philip of Macedon over his neighbours in Thessaly. Founding a new city upon this site in 315 B.C., the usurper called it after his high born wife. Cassander's foundation rapidly grew into a place of commercial and political consequence. After the Roman conquest of Macedonia (168 B.c.), Thessa lonica was made the· head of one of the four districts into which the kingdom was divided, and on their subsequent reunion became the capital of the whole province. It was declared a "free city," with important rigl_its of self-government, after the civil war which ended with the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi (42 B.C.), having fortunately sided with the IO INTRODUCTION. victors. Hence the Thessalonian magistrates are correctly pesignated "politarchs " in Acts xvii. 6. At the same time, it was the seat of the Roman proconsular administration of Mace donia, and an important military station. The geographer Strabo (about 24 B.c.) describes Thessa lonica as the most populous town of Macedonia; a contem porary author speaks of it as "the mother of all Macedonia." It is referred to in similar terms by Lucian in the second cen tury, and by Theodoret in the fifth. At the beginning of the tenth century it is computed to have held a population of above 200,000. To-day, under the Turkish rule, Saloniki (or Salo nica) numbers perhaps 100,000 souls, and is rapidly increasing. In size it is the third, and in importance quite the second, city of Turkey in Europe. The Jews still flourish here, even more than in the Apostle's time; they form a third or more of the population. The remainder are chiefly Greeks, mixed with Turks and Bulgars. The city is now, as it was in the first century, the emporium of Macedonia and one of the chief ports of the .tEgean. Saloniki is moreover the terminus of the great trunk line of railway recently completed, running south through the heart of the Balkan peninsula, which will give it largely the command of the trade of Central Europe with the Levant. It is destined still to play, in all probability, an im portant part in the political and religious history of South Eastern Europe. The city owes its importance to its geographical position. It stands in a remarkably fine and picturesque situation, on a hill sloping down to the sea, and guarded by high mountain ridges on both sides. Below the city there stretched far to the south-west the broad and well-sheltered Thermaic Guif (now Guif of Saloniki), with the snowy heights of Mount ·Olympus, the fabled home of the Greek gods, bounding the horizon. This bay forms the north-western corner of the .tEgean Sea, occupying the angle which the Greek peninsula makes with the mainland. It lies mor,eover near the mouth of the chief passes leading down from the Macedonian uplands, with the wide Danubian plains spread beyond them in the north. And INTRODUCTION. II in Roman times the city held a special importance from its situation midway between the Adriatic and Hellespont along the Via Egnatz"a, the great military road which formed the main artery linking Rome to her eastern provinces: posita in gremio imperz"i nostri, says Cicero. See the map facing the title-page. Cicero spent some months in Thessalonica during his exile from Rome in 58 B.c., and again in Pompey's winter camp, pitched here before the fatal battle of Pharsalus (48 B.c.); here he also halted on his way to and from Cilicia, his province in the East (51-50 B.c.); and from Thessalonica he wrote a number of characteristic letters, which it would be interesting to compare with those of the Apostle Paul addressed to the same place. St Paul visited Macedonia a second time, on his way from Ephesus to Greece during the third missionary journey (Acts xx. 1, 2), spending doubtless considerable time at Thessalonica; and we find two Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus (Acts xx. 4), attending him on his subsequent voyage to Jerusa lem. Aristarchus remained with the Apostle a long while, and is honourably mentioned in Col. iv. 10, as "my fellow captive," during his imprisonment at Rome. It was from Macedonia (the subscription states, conje·cturally, "from Philippi") that St Paul addressed, in 58 (or 57) A.D., his second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor.