The life and work of St. Paul

330 THE LIFE AND WOEK OF ST. PAUL.
be false, there might be sinful members among them, but as a body they were
w.islied and sanctified and justified, and the life of even those who were un-
worthy of their high vocation yet presented a favourable contrast to the lives
of the heathen around them. But the expression of thankfulness on behalf
of the Thessalonians is peculiarly full and earnest. It is an overflow of
heartfelt gratitude, as indeed the special characteristic of the letter is its sweet-
ness. 1 St. Paul tells them that he is always giving thanks to God for them all,
mentioning them in his prayers, filled with the ever-present memory of the
activity of their faith, the energy of their love, the patience of their hope.*
He reminds them of the power and fulness and spiritual unction which had
accompanied his preaching of the Gospel, and how they had become3 imitators*
of him and of Christ with such spiritual gladness in the midst of such deep
affliction 6 that they had become models to all the Churches of Northern and
Southern Greece, and their faith had 8
been as a trumpet-blast throngh all the
Mediterranean coasts. So universally was their belief in God known and
spread abroad, that there was no need for St. Paul or his companions to tell
how they had worked at Thessalonica, because every one had heard of their
conversion from idolatry to belief in the very and living God/ and to the
waiting for the return of that risen Saviour who delivereth us from the coming
wrath. 8
He appeals to them, therefore, as to unimpeachable witnesses of the
earnestness of his visit to them, and of the boldness with which he had faced
the dangers of Thessalonica, after such recent and painful experience of the
1 " Habet haec Epistola meram quandam dulcedinem " (Bengel).
s Of. Gal. v. 6. Thus in the very first lines which we possess from his pen we meet
with his fundamental trilogy of Christian virtues faith, hope, love. Of. v. 8 ; Col.
i. 4 ; Eph. i. 15, 18 ; iii. 17, 18, 20, &c. See Reuss, TJUol. Chret. ii. 240.
3 St. Paul, like many emotional and impressible writers, is constantly haunted by
the same word, which he then repeats again and again ^TU aetSoirrxio-aTo semper
0vTu "
Bengel) ; the wrath works as a normal law (i. 1 10).