2. The antarjonisrti to Paul is not the same. The di- rection of the attack has changed in the interval be- tween the writing of these epistles and those of the next group. Here the opposition comes from Jews. The admission of the Gentiles to the hopes and privi- leges of Messiah's kingdom on any condition is repul- sive to them. They " forbade the apostle to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved" (1 Thess. ii, 16). A period of five years changes the aspect of the contro- versy. The opponents of Paid are now no longer Jews so much as .Judaizing Christians (Ewald, Juhrh. iii, 249 ; Semhchr. p. 14). Tbe question of the admission of the Gentiles has been solved by time, for they have "taken the kingdom of heaven by storm." But the antago- nism to the apostle of the Gentiles having been driven from its first position, entrenched itself beliind a second
barrier. It was now urged that though the Gentiles may be admitted io the Church of Christ, the only door of admission is the Mosaic covenant-rite of circumci- sion. The language of Paul speaking of the Jewish Christians in this epistle shows that the opposition to his teaching had not at this time assumed this second phase. He does not yet regard them as the disturbers of the peace of the Church, the false teachers who, by imposing a bondage of ceremonial observances, frustrate the free grace of God. He can still point to them as examples to his converts at Tliessalouica (1 Thess. ii, 14). The change, indeed, was imminent; the signs of the gathering storm had already ajipeared (Gal. ii. 11), but hitherto they were faint and indistinct, and had scarcely darkened the horizon of the Gentile churches.
3. It will be no surprise that the doctrinal teaching of the apostle does not bear quite the same aspect in these as in the later epistles. Many of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, which are inseparably connect- ed with Paul's name, though implicitly contained in the teaching of these earlier letters — as indeed they fol- low directly from the true conception of the person of Christ — were yet not evolved and distinctlj' enunciated till the needs of the Church drew them out into promi- nence at a later date. It has often been observed, for instance, that there is in the epistles to the Thessalonians no mention of the characteristic contrast of "faith and works;" that the word "justification" does not once oc- cur; that the idea of dying with Christ and living with Christ, so frequent in Paul's later writings, is absent in these. It was, in fact, the opposition of Judaizing Christians insisting on a strict ritualism which led the apostle, somewhat later, to dwell at greater length on the true doctrine of a saving faith and the true concep- tion of a godly life; but the time had not yet come.
4. This difference appears especially in the eschatolo- fjij of the apostle. In the epistles to the Thessalonians, as has been truly observed, the Gospel preached is that of the coming of Christ, rather than of the cross of Christ. There are many reasons why the subject of the second advent should occupy a larger space in the earliest stage of the apostolical teaching than after- wards. It was closely bound up with the fundamental fact of the Gospel, the resurrection of Christ, and thus it formed a natural starting-point of Christian doctrine. It afforded the true satisfaction to those Messianic hopes which had drawn the Jewish converts to the fold of Christ. It was the best consolation and support of the infant Church under persecution, which must have been most keenly felt in the first abandonment of worldly pleasures and interests. More especially, as telling of a righteous Judge who w^juld not overlook ini(iuity, it was essential to that call to repentance which must ev- erywhere precede the direct and positive teaching of the Gospel. "Now he commandeth all men ever\'where to repent, for he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead" (Acts xvii, 30,31).
There is no just ground, however, for the supposition that the apostle entertained precipitate expectations as to the Lord's second coming. His language is suited to every age of the Church. Where an event is cer- tain of accomplishment, but uncertain as regards the precise time, it may be said to be always " at hand" to devout expectation; and this is the aspect which the topic in question, after all that has been written on the subject, wears in Paul's writings taken as a whole. The task of proving that he was mistaken, and therefore that the gift of inspiration was only partial, is as ardu- ous as one would suppose it must be ungratefid.
IV. Relation to the Associated //istori/. — A compari- son of the narrative in the Acts with the allusions in this and the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is equally instructive with the foregoing comjiarison. With some striking coincidences, there is just tliat de-
TIIESSALONIANS
346
TIIESSALONIANS
gree of divergence which might be expected between a writer w ho had borne the principal part in the scenes referred to and a narrator wlio derives his information from others, between tlic casnal half-expressed alliisi()ns of a familiar letter and the direct account of the pro- fesseil historian.