(1) If.<! close rexemhlance in structure to 1 iness., with which is said to be coupled a difierence in tone and colour so great as to make -t >"C'<='1'^'1« * ^.t the two Epistles were written by the same wiiter to the same community about tlie same time (Wrede) This is the most weighty objection that Ims been advanced, but it is by no means conclusive. It may be granted that, apart fron the sections 1- |.--f 3'- - -^", the Second Epistle is almost a reproduction of the tirst Yet amid this general resemblance, we do not find those subtle diflerences of vocabulary and syntax which betray the hand of the imitator. The ditterence
of vocabulary is not g-'f t^-J''^." "^^V^r'T 79? for on natural grounds (Moflatt LiVi, p. /9). There is an un-Pauline stiflness and formality about the style of some passages [e.g. P"'" f" '°). y«t * occurs chiefly in what may he quotations of some semi-liturgical sentences (cf. Findlay, Thessa- lonians, V- Ivii; EBi iv. 5044). A possible ex- planation of the close resemblance between the two Epistles may be that Paul had a copy of 1 Thess. before him when he dictated 2 1 hessa- lonians. Such a reference to the earlier Epistle would be quite natural, in view of its having been quoted to support mistaken ideas about the larou- sia (2-). The colder, more othcial tone of 2 Thess. as compared with the First Epistle may be explained by the necessity for plain speaking occasioned by tiie errors of some Thessalonians. Its more Jewish complexion is due to the essentially Jewish nature of its subject. Harnack's theory that it wa^s ad- dressed exclusively to the Jewish community is ingenious but unconvincing.
?2) Itseschatoloqi/.—(a] A former generation of scholars maintained that the passage 2 "'- (•ontains references to events much later than the death ot Paul (so Kern, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Bahnsen). I his position is no longer tenable. Increased knowledge of Jewish and primitive Christian escliatology has shown that the references of the Epistle are not to actual events but to traditional expectations.
(A) A second argument has been based on the .round that the teaching of 2Th 2>-'-'. which repre- sents the I'arousia as heralded by inany signs, -j incompatible with the view of 1 Th 5>"-, t -t^.t -> be sudden ami unexpected. In any case tl'isis not a fatal objection to the Pauline autliorship of either Kiiistle. Such seeming inconsistencies are characteristic of all primitive Christian concep- tions of the end (e.g. Mt 24--^"-). But it is possib e to exaggerate the discrepancy. Perhaps the mean- ing whil-h the writer of 1 Th S'''- intended to con- vey was that ' tlie day of the I-ord come.s asa tliiet in the night' only f.u- those who are asleep in in- ditleren.e. Those who are awake will not be take unawares (see J!:Bi iv. 5042). If this be he true explanation of the passage, the discrepancy between the two Epistles disappears. .
(3) lieferences to forged epistles.— A. minor ob- jection to the authenticity of 2 Thess. has been Jound in its supposed reference to the existence of for.'ed epistles (2-, M'i" «'' ^«<rroX^! us bi vixwv). It is certainly diHicult to believe that spurious Pauline Epistles were circulated wlule the Apostle was alive. But close examination of the syntax o the verse 2- shows that the clause is 5i w"" shoulil he connected not with ^7r«r7oXf,s but with Opoe.creoi The allusion then is not to spurious epistles, liut to erroneous interpretations of a ,J;l;"»"«1 °".*^ (Askwith, Thessalonian Epi.'itle.i V. 9211.). Vari- ous theories of the origin of 2 T^iess have been formulated on the assumption that the whole or part of it is spurious, e.g. (a) that into a genuinely Pauline Epistle have been interi.olated the two later sections P"'^ and 2'-''-' (P. Schmidt, ad loc.) ; {(i) that 2'-'* is a genuine Pauline fragment lor wliicli a later writer has provided a setting by a close imitation of 1 Thess. (Hausra.th, ^ ^^;tory .of h^ 1 Times, Eng. tr., 4 vols., London, l!^9o, m. 21o) ; (7) that the Epistle was written by Iimothv, wlio vvas inHuenced by a ' CaUgula-apocalypse (Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur dcs Urchristentums, i 111 ti')- (5) that the whole of 2 Ihess. was written to counteract the eschatological views en- couraged by the Pauline Epistles. The writer took 1 Thess. as his model because it contains the most notable outline of Pauline eschatology (V\ rede, ' Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbnets, in TU, new ser. ix. 2). All these theories raise more difficulties than they remove. The style of " Thess is too uniform throughout to lenU any support to the theory of interpol.ation 1 he Epistle must stand or fall as a whole. On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that a forger wishin" to correct Paul's teaching would address his wo^rk to a Church already in possession o a recognized Epistle of Paul. -^Vhen all possible objections have been fully wei-hed, the conclusion which presents the least difficulty is that 2 Thess. is actually what it claims to be-an authentic letter of Paul to the Christians of Thess^alonica. As such it found a place in the canon of Marcion and in the Old Latin and Syriac translations of the NT Earlier still its language (1*) was quoted as Pauline by Polycarp {ad Phil, xi.) though by mis- take he quotes it as a<ldiessed to the Philippians.