That epistle which the great majority of all modern critics consider
as the earliest of all those writings of Paul that are now preserved,
is the first to the Thessalonians. It is directed to them from Paul,
Silvanus, (or Silas,) and Timothy, which shows that it was written
after Paul had been joined by these two brethren, which was not until
some time after his arrival in Corinth. It appears by the second and
third chapters, that the apostle, having been hindered by some evil
agency of the wicked, from visiting Thessalonica, as he had earnestly
desired to do, had been obliged to content himself with sending Timothy
to the brethren there, to comfort them in their faith, and to inquire
whether they yet stood fast in their first honorable profession; for he
declares himself to have been anxious to know whether by some means the
tempter might not have tempted them, and his labor have thus been in
vain. But he now informs them how he has lately been greatly comforted
by the good news brought from them by Timothy, who had assured the
apostle of their faith and love, and that they had great remembrance
of him always, desiring much to see him, as he them. Making known
to them the great joy which these tidings had caused in him, he now
affectionately re-assures them of his high and constant regard for
them, and of his continued remembrance of them in his prayers. He then
proceeds briefly to exhort them to a perseverance in the Christian
course, in which they had made so fair an outset, urging upon them more
especially, those virtues which were peculiarly rare among those with
whom they were daily brought in contact,――purity of life, rigid honesty
in business transactions, a charitable regard for the feelings of
others, a quiet, peaceable, inoffensive deportment, and other minuter
counsels, according to the peculiar circumstances of different persons
among them. The greater portion of this brief letter, indeed, is taken
up with these plain, practical matters, with no reference to any deep
doctrinal subjects, the whole being thus evidently well-suited to the
condition of believers who had but just begun the Christian course,
and had been in no way prepared to appreciate any learned discussion
of those obscure points which in later periods were the subject of so
much controversy among some of Paul’s converts. Their dangers hitherto
had also been mainly in the moral rather than in the doctrinal way,
and the only error of mere belief, to which he makes reference, is one
which has always been the occasion of a great deal of harmless folly
among the ignorant and the weak minded in the Christian churches, from
the apostolic age to this day. The evil however, was considered by
the apostle of so much importance, that he thought it worth while
to briefly expose its folly to the Thessalonians, and he accordingly
discourses to them of the day of judgment, assuring them that those
who might happen to be alive at the moment of Christ’s coming, would
derive no peculiar advantage from that circumstance, because those
who had died in Christ should rise first, and the survivors be then
caught up to meet the Lord in the air. But as for “the times and the
seasons,”――those endless themes for the discursive nonsense of the
visionary, even to the present day and hour,――he assures them that
there was no need at all that he should write to them, because they
already well knew that the day of the Lord should come as a thief in
the night, according to the words of Jesus himself. The only practical
benefit which they could expect to derive then, from this part of
their faith, was the conviction of the necessity of constantly bearing
in mind the shortness and uncertainty of their earthly stay, and the
importance of watchfulness and sobriety. After several sententious
moral exhortations, he concludes with affectionate salutations, and
with an earnest, solemn charge, that the letter should be read to all
the brethren of the church.
It will be observed, that at the conclusion of the epistle is a
statement that it was written from _Athens_,――an assertion perfectly
absurd, and rendered evidently so by the statements contained in the
epistle itself, as above shown. All the similar statements appended to
his other epistles are equally unauthorized, and most of them equally
false;――being written by some exceedingly foolish copyists, who
were too stupid to understand the words which they transcribed. Yet
these idle falsehoods are gravely given in all copies of the English
translation, and are thus continually sent abroad to mislead common
readers, many of whom, seeing them thus attached to the apostolic
writings, suppose them to be also of inspired authority, and are
deceived accordingly. And they probably will continue to be thus copied,
in spite of their palpable and mischievous falsehood, until such a
revolution in the moral sense of common people takes place, that they
shall esteem a new negative truth more valuable and interesting, than
an old, groundless blunder.
For some time after the writing of the first epistle to the
Thessalonians, with these triumphs and other encouragements, Paul and
his faithful helpers appear to have gone on steadily in their apostolic
labors, with no special obstacle or difficulty, that is commemorated in
the sacred record. But at last their old difficulties began to manifest
themselves in the gradually awakened enmity of the Jews, who, though
at his first distinct public ministrations they had expressed a decided
and scornful opposition to the doctrine of a crucified Savior, yet
suffered the new teachers to go on, without opposing them any farther
than by scornful verbal hostility, blasphemy and abuse. But when they
saw the despised heresy making such rapid advances, notwithstanding
the contempt with which it was visited, they immediately determined
to let it no longer take advantage of their inefficiency in resisting
its progress. Of course, deprived themselves, of all political power,
they had not the means of meeting the evil by physical violence, and
they well knew that any attempt on their part to raise an illegal
commotion against the strangers, would only bring down on the exciters
of the disturbance, the whole vengeance of their Roman rulers, who
were unsparing in their vengeance on those that undertook to defy the
forms of their laws, for the sake of persecution, or any private ends;
and least of all would a class of people so peculiar and so disliked
as the Jews, be allowed to take any such treasonable steps, without
insuring them a most dreadful punishment. These circumstances therefore
compelled them to proceed, as usual, under the forms of law; and
their first step against Paul therefore, was to apprehend him, and
take him, as a violator of religious order, before the highest Roman
tribunal,――that of the proconsul.
The proconsul of Achaia, holding his supreme seat of justice in Corinth,
the capital of that Roman province, was Lucius Junius GALLIO, a man
well known to the readers of one of the classic Latin writers of that
age,――Seneca,――as one of the most remarkable exemplifications of those
noble virtues which were the great theme of this philosopher’s pen.
Out of many beautiful illustrations which may be drawn from Roman
and Jewish writers, to explain and amplify the honest and faithful
apostolic history of Luke, there is none more striking and gratifying
than the aid here drawn from this fine philosophical classic, on the
character of the noble proconsul, who by his upright, wise, and clement
decision, against the mean persecutors of Paul,――and by his indignant
refusal to pervert and degrade his vice-regal power to the base ends of
private abuse, has acquired the grateful regard and admiring respect of
all Christian readers of apostolic history. The name of Lucius Junius
Gallio, by which he is known to Roman writers as well as in apostolic
history, was not his original family designation, and therefore gives
the reader no idea of his interesting relationship to one of the finest
moralists of the whole period of the Roman empire. His original family
name was Marcus Annaeus Novatus Seneca,――which appellation he exchanged
for his later one, on being adopted by Lucius Junius Gallio, a noble
Roman, who being destitute of children, adopted, according to a very
common custom of the imperial city, one of a family that had already
given promise of a fine reward to those who should take its offspring
as theirs. The famous philosopher before mentioned,――Lucius Annaeus
Seneca,――was his own brother; both of them being the sons of Marcus
Annaeus Seneca, a distinguished orator and rhetorician of the Augustan
age. A strong and truly fraternal affection always continued to hold
the two brothers together, even after they had been separated in
name by the adoption of the older into the family of Gallio; and the
philosopher often commemorates his noble brother, in terms of high
respect; and dedicated to him one of the most perfect of those moral
treatises which have immortalized the name of Seneca.
The philosopher Seneca, after having been for many years banished
from Rome by Claudius, was at length recalled by that emperor in the
ninth year of his reign, corresponding to A. D. 49. He was immediately
made a senator, and was still further honored by being intrusted with
the education of Domitius, the son of Agrippina, afterwards adopted by
Claudius as heir to the throne, to which he succeeded on the emperor’s
death, under the name of NERO, by which he has now become so infamous
wherever the Roman name is known. Being thus elevated to authority
and great influence with the emperor, Seneca made use of his power, to
procure for his brother Gallio such official honors as his talents and
character justly claimed. In the eleventh year of Claudius he was made
consul, as is recorded in the Fasti Consulares; and was soon after sent
into Greece, as proconsul of Achaia. Arriving at Corinth in the year
53, he was immediately addressed by the Jewish citizens of that place
in behalf of their plot against Paul; for they naturally supposed that
this would be the best time for the attempt to bend the new governor
to their purposes, when he was just commencing his administration, and
would be anxious to please the subjects of his power by his opening
acts. But Gallio had no disposition to acquire popularity with any
class of citizens, by any such abuse of power, and by his conduct on
this occasion very fairly justifies the high character given him by his
brother Seneca. When the Jews came dragging Paul before the proconsular
tribunal, with the accusation――“This fellow persuades men to worship
God in a manner contrary to the ritual,”――before Paul could open his
mouth in reply, Gallio carelessly answered――“If it were a matter of
crime or misdemeanor, ye Jews! it would be reasonable that I should
bear with you; but if it be a question of words and names, and of
your ritual, look ye to it; for I do not wish to be a judge of those
things.” With this contemptuous reply, he cleared the court of them.
The Jews thus found their fine scheme of abusing Paul under the
sanction of the Roman tribunal, perfectly frustrated; nor was their
calamity confined to this disappointment; for all the Greeks who were
present at the trial,――indignant at the scandalous character of the
proceeding,――took Sosthenes, the ruling elder of the synagogue, who
had probably been most active in the persecution of Paul, as he was
the regular legal chief of the Jews, and gave him a sound threshing in
the court, before he could obey the orders of the Proconsul, and move
off from the tribunal. Gallio was so far from being displeased at this
very irregular and improper outbreak of public feeling, that he took
no notice of the action whatever, though it was a shameful violation
of the dignity of his tribunal; and it may therefore be reasonably
concluded that he was very much provoked against the Jews, and was
disposed to sympathize with Paul; otherwise he would have been apt to
have punished the outrage of the Greeks upon Sosthenes.
“The name of this proconsul was Marcus Annaeus Novatus, but
being adopted by Lucius Junius Gallio, he took the name of his
adopted father; he was brother to the famous Seneca, tutor to
Nero. That philosopher dedicated to Gallio his book, ‘De Vita
Beata.’ The Roman historians concur in giving him the character
of a sweet disposition, an enemy to all vice, and particularly a
hater of flattery. He was twice made proconsul of Achaia, first
by Claudius, and afterwards by Nero. As he was the sharer of his
brother’s prosperity, so he was of his misfortunes, when he fell
under Nero’s displeasure, and was at length put to death by the
tyrant, as well as his brother.” (Calmet’s Commentary. Poole’s
Annotations. Williams on Pearson.)
“In Acts xviii. 12‒16, we find Paul is brought before Gallio by
the Jews, but this proconsul refused to judge any such matters,
as not coming within his jurisdiction. The character for justice,
impartiality, prudence, and mildness of disposition, which this
passage gives to Gallio, is confirmed by Seneca, his brother, in
these words:――Solebam tibi dicere, Gallionem fratrem meum (quem
nemo non parum amat, etiam qui amare plus non potest,) alia
vitia non nosse, hoc etiam, (i. e. adulationem,) odisse.――Nemo
enim mortalium uni tam dulcis est, quam hic omnibus. Hoc quoque
loco blanditiis tuis restitit, ut exclamares invenisse te
inexpugnabilem virum adversus insidias, quas nemo non in sinum
recipit. (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Natural Questions, lib. iv.
in preface, op. tom. iv. p. 267, edited by Bipont.) In our
translation Gallio is styled the _deputy_, but the real Greek
word is Ανθυπατευοντος, _proconsul_. The accuracy of Luke
in this instance is very remarkable. In the partition of
the provinces of the Roman empire, Macedonia and Achaia were
assigned to the people and Senate of Rome. In the reign of
Tiberius they were, at their own request, made over to the
emperor. In the reign of Claudius, (A. U. C. 797. A. D. 44,)
they were again restored to the Senate, after which time
proconsuls were sent into this country. Nero afterwards made the
Achaians a free people. The Senate therefore lost this province
again. However, that they might not be sufferers, the emperor
gave them the island of Sardinia, in the room of it. Vespasian
made Achaia a province again. There is likewise a peculiar
propriety in the name of the province of which Gallio was
proconsul. The country subject to him was all Greece; but the
proper name of the province among the Romans was Achaia, as
appears from various passages of the Roman historians, and
especially from the testimony of Pausanias. Καλουσι δε ουχ’
Ἑλλαδος, αλλα’ ♦Αχαιας ἡγεμονα οἱ Ῥωμαιοι διοτι εχειρωσαντο
Ἑλληνας δε Αχαιων, τοτε του Ἑλληνικου προεστηκοτων. (Pausanias
Description of Greece. lib. vii. p. 563. Lardner’s Works, 4to.
vol. I. p. 19.)
♦ “Ααχιων” replaced with “Αχαιων”
“The words Γαλλίωνος δε ἀνθυπατεύοντος ought to be rendered,
with Heumann, Walch, Antiquities, Corinth, p. 35., and Reichard,
(as indeed is required by the context,) ‘when Gallio had been
made Proconsul,’ or ‘on Gallio’s entering on the Proconsulship.’
(Kuinoel.) In the same sense it was also taken by Beza and
Piscator; and this appears to be the true one. The Jews, it
seems, waited for the arrival of a new Proconsul to make their
request, as thinking that they should then be less likely
to meet with a refusal.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations, Vol. IV.
p. 600.)
“‘_Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the
synagogues._’ verse 17. In the 8th verse we read that Crispus
was the chief ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. And from this
we may suppose that there were more than one synagogue in that
city, or that there might be more than one ruler in the same
synagogue; or that Crispus, after his conversion to Christianity,
might have been succeeded by Sosthenes; but then we are at a
loss to know who the people are that thus beat and misused him;
the Greek printed copies tell us that they were the Gentiles;
and those that read the text imagine, that when they perceived
the neglect and disregard wherewith the proconsul received the
Jews, they, to insult them more, fell upon the ruler of their
synagogue, whether out of hatred to them, or friendship to St.
Paul, it makes no matter. But others think, that Sosthenes,
however head of the synagogue, was nevertheless the friend of
St. Paul, and that the other Jews, seeing themselves slighted
by Gallio, might vent their malice upon him; for they suppose
that this was the same Sosthenes, whose name St. Paul, in the
beginning of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, written about
three years after this time, joins with his own. This opinion,
however, was not universally received, since, in the time of
Eusebius, it was thought the Sosthenes mentioned in the epistle
was one of the seventy disciples, and, consequently, could not
be the chief of the synagogue at Corinth, twenty years after
the death of Jesus Christ.” (Beausobre’s Annotations. Calmet’s
Commentary and Dictionary.)
“‘xviii. 17. ἐπιλαβόμενοι δὲ πάντες οἱ Ἕλληνες There is here
some variation of reading, and no little question raised as
to the true one; which consequently leaves the interpretation
unsettled. Two ancient MSS. and versions omit οἱ Ἕλληνες, and
others read οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. As to the latter reading, it cannot be
tolerated; for why should _the Jews_ have beaten him? Neither
is it likely that they would have taken such a liberty before
so solemn a tribunal. The words οἱ Ἕλληνες are thought by
many critics, as Grotius, Mill, Pierce, Bengel, and Kuinoel,
to be derived from the margin, like the last. Now those were
_Gentiles_ (say they) who beat Sosthenes; and hence some one
wrote οἱ Ἕλληνες. As to the reason for the beating, it was to
make the Jews go away the faster; and to this they were actuated
partly by their hatred towards the Jews, and partly by a desire
to please the Procurator.’ But this appears to be pressing
too much on the word ἀπήλασεν, which has by no means any such
meaning. Besides, it is strange that the words Ἕλληνες should
have crept into nearly all the MSS; even into so many _early_
ones. And, supposing Ἕλληνες to be removed, what sense is to be
given to παντες? None (I think) satisfactory, or agreeable to
the style of the New Testament. It must therefore be retained:
and then the sense of πάντες will be as follows: ‘all the Greeks,
both Gentiles and Christians:’ which is so evident, that I am
surprised the commentators should not have seen it. Some explain
it of the Gentiles, and others of the Gentile Christians. _Both_
indeed had reason to take umbrage at the intolerance and bitter
animosity of the Jews. It is not likely that any should have
joined in the beating, merely to please the Proconsul, who
was not a man to be gratified by such a procedure. So that the
gnomes brought forward by Grotius on the base _assentatio_ of
courtiers, are not here applicable.
“By ἔτυπτον is merely to be understood _beating_, or _thumping
him with their fists_, as he passed along. Anything _more_ than
that, we cannot suppose they would have ventured upon, or the
Proconsul have tolerated.”
“By τούτων, (verse 17,) we may, I think, understand both the
accusation brought forward, and the cuffs which followed; to
neither of which the Proconsul paid much attention; and this
from disgust at the litigious conduct of the Jews; as also from
the custom, mentioned by Pricaeus, of the Roman governors, to
pass by any conduct which did not directly tend to degrade the
dignity of the Roman name, or weaken its influence, in order
that the yoke might be as easy as possible to the provincials.”
(Bloomfield’s Annotations, Vol. IV. pp. 603‒605.)
Illustration: CORINTH――CENCHREA.
Romans xvi. 1. Acts xviii. 18.
His character having been thus vindicated, and his safety thus assured
him by the supreme civil authority, Paul resided for a long time in
Corinth, steadily pursuing his apostolic work, without any direct
hindrance or molestation from the Jews. There is no reason to suppose
that he confined all his labor entirely to the city; on the contrary,
it is quite certain, that the numerous smaller gospel fields throughout
the adjacent country, must have attracted his attention, and it appears,
from the commencement of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that
many throughout all Achaia had received the gospel, and had been
numbered among the saints. Corinth, however, remained the great center
of his operations in Greece, and from this place he soon after directed
another epistle to one of his apostolic charges in Macedonia,――the
church of Thessalonica. Since his former epistle had been received
by them, there had arisen a new occasion for his anxious attention
to their spiritual condition, and in his second letter he alludes
distinctly to the fact that there had been misrepresentations of his
opinion, and seems to imply that a letter had been forged in his name,
and presented to them, as containing a new and more complete account
of the exact time of the expected coming of Christ, to which he had
only vaguely alluded in the first. In the second chapter of his second
epistle, he renews his warning against these delusions about the
coming of Christ, alluding to the fact, that they had been deceived
and disturbed by misstatements on this subject, and had been led into
error, both by those who pretended to be _inspired_, and by those who
attempted to show by _prediction_, that the coming of Christ was at
hand, and also by _the forged epistle_ pretending to contain Paul’s own
more decisive opinions on the subject. He exhorts them to “let no man
deceive them by any of these means.” He warns them moreover, against
any that exalt themselves against the doctrines which he had taught
them, and denounces all false and presumptuous teachers in very bitter
terms. After various warnings against these and all disorderly persons
among them, he refers to his own behavior while with them, as an
example for them to follow, and reminds them how blamelessly and
honestly he behaved himself. He did not presume on his apostolic office,
to be an idler, or to eat any man’s bread for naught, but steadily
worked with his own hands, lest he should be chargeable to any one of
them; and this he did, not because his apostolic office did not empower
him to live without manual labor, and to depend on those to whom he
preached for his means of subsistence, but because he wished to make
himself, and his fellow-laborers, Silas and Timothy, examples for
their behavior after he was gone. Yet it seemed that, notwithstanding
the pains he had taken to inculcate an honest and industrious course,
several persons among them had assumed the office of teaching and
reproving, and had considered themselves thereby excused from doing
anything for their own support. In the conclusion, he refers them
distinctly to his own signature and salutation, which authenticate
every epistle which he writes, and without which, no letter was to be
esteemed genuine. This he specifies, no doubt, for the sake of putting
them on their guard against the repetition of any such deception as had
been lately practised on them in his name.