In this passage St. Paul represents the believers who are sutt'ering persecution as about to be de- livered from it by the revelation of Christ with flaming fire from heaven. Christ's appearance brings cessation of persecution {dyecnv) for the persecuted saints, and tribulation for the perse- cutors— the traditional view of current Jewish apocalyptic (cf.jl«.s'. 3Ios. x. 10, S Bar. li. 1-6, Ixxxii. 1-2). 'There is no mention of any resurrection of the dead or catching up of dead and living into the air, and it is rather a straining of the text to read all this into the one word S.vecnv. The only natural alterna- tives are either that St. Paul has drawn his account of the Parousia here from the older traditional view, unconscious of the inconsistency with his new view in 1 Th 4""'^ or that the apocalyi>tic parts of 2 Thess. are not Pauline but interpolated, a view which has not been without support.
The 2nd chapter of 2 Thess. gives further im- portant details as to the order of events, and also implies that all the details were already known to the readers and should have preserved them from the panic into which they had been tlirown, apparently by a forged letter or false prediction (2-). The cause of the panic was that they had been persuaded to interpret their persecutions as a sign that the ' day of the Lord ' was already present (ivisTTiKev, 2'-). St. Paul points out that before the ' day of the Lord ' and before the Parousia two events had to occur, as they knew already. ' The apostasy,' not ' a falling away,' but the well-known apostasy of current apocalyptic which we find in Daniel and in the apocalyptic portions of the Synoptics, had to take place. It was already working secretly, but had not yet reached its climax. Then, the ' man of lawlessness,' the Anti- christ of the apocalyptic, was to be revealed, who would bring to a climax the rebellion against God and Christ, and bring about the Divine intervention of the Parousia which would destroy him and his followers.
(a) Resurrection of Christ.
(6) Interval of waiting, some believers fall asleep.
(c) Descent of Christ into the
air, with shout, trump, etc.
(d) Resurrection of dead.
(e) Rapture of living who re-
main and dead who have been raised. CO All are for ever with the Lord.
(g) Coming of the * day of the Lord ' and judgment for sinners.
The curious cryptic passage (2'"') concerning the presence of a restraining force has given much trouble to commentators, but does not touch our question of the Parousia. It is evidently perfectly intelligible to the readers (xoi vw rb xaT^x"" ol&aTe), and seems to belong to the period ^^hen it was necessary to use cryptic references to Komo and Imperial things (cf. Exp, 7th ser., x. [1910] .374 f.). For a fuller discussion see Bousset, Der AiUichrist, p. 77 If.
A comparison of the two Epistles shows the following order of events :
1 Thess. 2 Thess.
(o) No mention of Resurrection
as basis of teaching. (6) Saints persecuted.
(c) Apostasy sets in.
(d) The cr\'ptic restraining in- fluence is removed.
(e)The Anticlirist is revealed and manifests his power by miracles.
(/)The Parousia takes place accompanied by angels and flaming;; fire.
(j7) It causes deliverance to the saints, destruction to Antichrist, and judgment to the followers of Anti- christ.
The point of view is so dififerent that it certainly makes it extremely ditficult to maintain, at the same time, the Pauline authorship of both passages and the theory of a rigidly consistent Pauline scheme of eschatology.
(6) The second group of Epistles, Eomans and Corinthians, ofiers a number of important passages, but very few with such details of the order of the apocalyptic scheme as Thessalonians.
(1) In Rom. the whole outlook upon the Christian position is coloured by the thought of the future, the Parousia and its attendant results. But the Parousia itself is hardly mentioned directly. The picture of the future presented in Rom. IS as follows : the general statement of a coming time of wrath and judgment when God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ, according to St. Paul's gospel (2'"*- 1^) ; those who are justified look forward to the glory of God ; they will be saved from wrath through Christ (5'-'»; cf. 1 Th l'»), they will reign in life (5") ; the justified have been predestined for this purpose and will finally be conformed to the image of Christ (S-"- ^°) ; their bodies will be quickened through the power of the Spirit of Christ already dwellin" in them (8"); when they are manifested the whole creation also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption (8'""-') ; when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in (i.e. the full number of those predestined from the Gentiles for salvation), the elect of Israel, all Israel, will be saved (IT-*- '"); ' salvation is nearer than when we believed ' (13") ; all must stand before the tribunal of God (14'") ; Satan will shortly be bruised under the saints' feet (16-").
It is evidently difficult to draw clear conclusions from these passages. They suggest rather a fluid than a rigid eschatology. They present tlie ajipear- ance of the gradual, half-conscious modification of the older lines of eschatology by the working of the new principle of the consequences of the Resurrection, an element which is of course wholly foreign to the Jewish schemes of apocalyptic, and peculiar to the Christian scheme. The universalism of S-^-'" 11^ is in apparent contrast with the older eschatological conception of a fixed number to be saved as reflected in 8=^* IP (cf. Lk 14=^ Ac 3"). The chief point as to the Parousia is the concen