The apostle beseeches the Thessalonians not to be soon shaken in mind, or troubled, "neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." And he adds: "Let no man deceive you in any way"—in any of the ways specified or any other way. Chap. 2:2, 3. There were then persons at Thessalonica busily occupied in misleading the Thessalonians: (1) "by spirit," that is, by prophesies which they professed to have received from the Holy Spirit; (2) "by word," by oral teaching; (3) "by letter as from us," that is, purporting to come from the apostle. Or, perhaps, we should render: "nor by word nor by letter as from us:" that is, neither by oral teaching nor by written communication alleged to have come from me. We can well understand how the unwritten words of the apostle should have been perverted by these false teachers. The question remains: Did they pervert the meaning of his language in the first epistle, or did they employ an epistle forged in his name? The latter has been from ancient times a common interpretation of this clause, and it is favored by the words: "The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write." Chap. 3:17. Yet the supposition of such a forged epistle is something so improbable that many are inclined to adopt the former supposition.
The question respecting "the man of sin" belongs to the commentator. In a brief introduction like the present, we cannot enter upon it farther than to say that, though we are not warranted in affirming that it has its exhaustive fulfilment in the Papacy, yet its chief embodiment thus far has been in that corrupt and persecuting power whose character answers so remarkably to the apostle's description.
34. The epistles to the churches of Philippi and Thessalonica, both lying within the bounds of ancient Macedonia, have a remarkable agreement in their general tone and manner. In both cases we have the same affectionate outpouring of the apostle's heart towards the brethren to whom he writes, and the same abundant personal notices respecting himself and his ministry. Yet they differ precisely as we might suppose they would in view of the fact that the two to the Thessalonians are the earliest of Paul's writings, and are separated from that to the Philippians by an interval of ten eventful years. In writing to the Thessalonians he gives peculiar prominence to the doctrine of our Lord's second coming, perhaps because, in the persecutions which they were undergoing, they especially needed its strengthening and consolatory influence; perhaps also because in the continual maltreatment which he had encountered ever since he entered Macedonia—at Philippi (Acts 16:19-40; 1 Thess. 2:2), at Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-10), at Berea (Acts 17:13, 14), at Corinth (Acts 18:6-17)—he was staying his own soul on the same glorious hope. On the contrary, we find in these earlier epistles no mention of Judaizing Christians, nor any contrast between the two opposite systems of justification by faith and by the works of the Mosaic law, such as appears in his later epistles, that to the Philippians included. Phil. 3:4-9. His opponents at Thessalonica are not Judaizing Christians, but unconverted Jews, whose malignant opposition he describes in strong terms. 1 Thess. 2:15, 16. To the Thessalonians the apostle speaks of himself; but it is of his ministry, and the manner in which he has discharged its duties among them. To the Philippians he also speaks of himself; but then it is from a prison, with a trial for life or death before him, and the retrospect of a long ministry behind him. He unfolds, therefore, as is natural, his deep experiences as a Christian and an apostle of Christ. See above, No. 29. In this contrast between the earlier and the later epistles we have an evidence of their genuineness which is all the stronger because of its indirectness. It is such a mark of truth as no falsifier has power to imitate.
VII. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.
35. The attempt to find for the pastoral epistles a place in Paul's ministry as far as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles is beset with difficulties which amount to impossibilities.
Among these difficulties are the following:
(1.) Whoever carefully studies these three epistles in their connection with each other, and in contrast with the other Pauline epistles, must be profoundly impressed with the conviction that they all belong, as it respects style and tone of thought, to the same period of the apostle's life; and, as it respects subject-matter, to the same era when the churches were troubled by the same forms of error. But if we assume that they were written during that part of Paul's ministry of which Luke has left us the record, the second to Timothy must be widely separated from the other two. That was certainly written during Paul's last imprisonment near the close of his life. But when he wrote the first to Timothy and that to Titus he was at liberty and prosecuting his missionary labors in Asia Minor and the vicinity. It must have been then, upon this assumption, during his third missionary tour (when Apollos appears for the first time, Acts 18:24 compared with Titus 3:13), and before his last recorded journey to Jerusalem, his arrest there, his two years' imprisonment at Cesarea, his voyage to Rome, and his imprisonment there for the space of at least two more years.
(2.) There is no part of Paul's history "between his first visit to Ephesus and his Roman imprisonment, which satisfies the historical conditions implied in the statements of any one of these epistles." Conybeare and Howson, vol. 2, Appendix 1. The student may see the arguments on one side in Davidson's Introduction to the New Testament; and on the other in Alford, and other critical commentators. Reference may also be made to the biblical dictionaries.
(3.) Upon the assumption that the first epistle to Timothy, whom Paul had left in charge of the Ephesian church, was written before his recorded imprisonments at Cesarea and Rome, it must be earlier than his farewell address to the elders of Ephesus, and also his epistle to the Ephesians. But the contents of the epistle manifestly point to a later period, when the errors in doctrine and practice which he had predicted (Acts 20:29, 30), but of which he takes no notice in his epistle to the Ephesians, had already begun to manifest themselves. The more one compares with each other these two epistles, the deeper must his conviction be that the first to Timothy is not the earlier but the later of the two.
(4.) The peculiar tone and diction of the pastoral epistles and the peculiar character of the errors combated in them all indicate a later period in the apostle's life, and a later stage in the history of the churches. To place the first and third of these among those to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, and the second, among those to Philemon, the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians, must appear forced and unnatural. It is much easier to assume the lapse of some years. Even then the contrast between these and the other epistles of Paul in respect to tone and diction is very striking. But it may be explained partly from the peculiar theme of the pastoral epistles, partly from the change which the lapse of time with its manifold experiences had brought to the apostle's style and diction.
We assume, therefore, that the apostle was released from the Roman imprisonment recorded by Luke; and that, not very long before his second imprisonment which was terminated by his martyrdom at Rome, he wrote the three epistles now under consideration. It is well known that this is in accordance with ancient tradition. See the testimonies in Conybeare and Howson, chap. 27; in Alford, and in other commentators.
Against this view is urged the apostle's declaration to the elders of Ephesus that they should see his face no more; whereas, according to the present supposition, he visited Ephesus again after his first imprisonment. As a fair offset to this may be urged on the other side his equally strong declaration to the Philippians that his present imprisonment should have a favorable issue (Phil. 1:25); which was not the case upon the hypothesis of a single imprisonment at Rome. Such declarations, where no doctrine or fact of Christianity is concerned, are not to be taken as revelations of the Spirit. We know, for example, from Paul's own words, that he changed his declared purpose respecting a visit to Corinth, for which his enemies accused him of using lightness. 2 Cor. 1:15-18.
It is urged again that when Paul wrote the pastoral epistles Timothy was a young man. 1 Tim. 4:12; 2 Tim. 2:22. But according to ancient ideas one might be called a young man at any age under thirty-five or even forty years. Paul found Timothy in his second missionary journey, about A.D. 52. It is not necessary to assume that he was then more than twenty years old. At the time of Paul's martyrdom, then, about A.D. 67 or 68, he may have been, for anything that appears to the contrary, a young man in the ancient sense of the word.
36. The false teachers with whom the apostle deals in these epistles are corrupt in practice as well as in doctrine. 1 Tim. 1:6; 6:5; 2 Tim. 2:16, 17; 3:6, 8; Titus 1:15, 16. They were chiefly Jews (1 Tim. 1:7; Titus 1:10, 14; 3:9); but not Jews who held to simple Phariseeism, like the false teachers among the Galatians. They more nearly resembled those who troubled the Colossians—Jews of a speculative turn of mind, who sought to bring into Judaism the semi-oriental philosophy of that day. They were not Gnostics; for Gnosticism was essentially anti-Judaistic, separating the God of the Jews from the God of Christianity, and placing the two in antagonism to each other. The speculations of these false teachers took a direction which was in some respects akin to the Gnosticism of the second century; but the allegation that they were themselves Gnostics rests upon the misinterpretation of certain passages in these epistles, or unwarrantable inferences from them.
37. The genuineness of these epistles is sustained by the unanimous testimony of the ancient church. Only in modern times has it been called in question by certain writers, who rest their arguments wholly on alleged internal evidence.
So far as their objections are founded on the assumed early date of the pastoral epistles—before the close of Paul's imprisonment at Rome recorded by Luke, on their peculiar tone and diction, or on the supposed references in them to the Gnosticism of the second century, they have already been considered. But it is further alleged:
(1.) That they reveal a hierarchical spirit foreign to the character of the apostle Paul. The answer is that no trace of such a spirit is discernible in them. The churches had from the first their officers—bishops or elders and deacons; and the apostle simply gives the necessary directions for the selection of these, with a few brief hints respecting the line of conduct to be observed towards them. 1 Tim. 5:1, 17, 19, 22.
(2.) That the institution of widows (1 Tim. 5:9-16) belongs to a later age. Respecting the exact position of those who were enrolled in the class of widows there have been different opinions. One is that this class consisted of those who were to receive relief from the funds of the church; another, that they were matrons set apart for special service in the church, performing for their own sex duties analogous to those which the presbyters performed for the church generally. The latter opinion is the more probable of the two, as it explains the conditions insisted on by the apostle. But according to either view there is no difficulty in admitting the existence in apostolic times of such an arrangement.
38. In these pastoral epistles we have the affectionate counsels of the great apostle to the Gentiles, when he was now ripe in years and Christian experience and about to close his earthly ministry, addressed to two young men whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers of the churches. They are a rich storehouse of instruction for all to whom God has committed the ministry of reconciliation. Let them, as they hope at last to render up an account of their stewardship with joy and not with grief, prayerfully study and reduce to daily practice these precepts of heavenly wisdom given by the Holy Spirit through the pen of "Paul the aged."