The life and work of St. Paul

348 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
Valuable to us, and to all time, a are the practical exhortations of this
brief Epistle, 'the distinctly* cause fqr it being written was the desire to dispel
delusions abont the instantaneous appearance of Christ, which prevented the
weak and excitable from a due performance of their duties, and so tended to
diminish that respect for them among the heathen which the blamelessness
of the early Christians was well calculated to inspire. To the Thessalonians
the paragraph on this subject would have had the profoundest interest. To
ns it is less immediately profitable; because no one has yet discovered, or ever
will discover, what was St. Paul's precise meaning; or, in other words, because
neither in bis time, nor since, have any events as yet occurred which Christians
have unanimously been able to regard as fulfilling the conditions which he
lays down. We need not, however, be distressed if this passage must be
ranked with the very few others in the Now Testament which must remain to
us in the condition of insoluble enigmas. It was most important for the
Thcssalonians to know that they did not need to get up every morning with
the awe-inspiring expectation that the sun might be darkened before it set,
and the air shattered by the archangelic trumpet, and all earthly interests
smitten into indistinguishable ruin. So far St. Paul's assurance was perfectly
distinct. Nor, indeed, is there any want of clearness in his language. Th
difficulties of the passage arise exclusively from our inability to explain it by
subsequent events. But these one or two obscure passages in no wise affect
1
the value of St. Paul's writings. Since his one object is always edification,
we may be sure that subjects which are with him purely incidental, which
are obscurely hinted at. or only partially worked out, and to which he scarcely
ever afterwards recurs, are non-essential parts of the central truths, to the
dissemination of which he devoted his life. To the Messianic surroundings
of a Second personal Advent he barely again alludes. He dwells more and
more on the mystic oneness with Christ, less and less on His personal return.
He speaks repeatedly of the indwelling presence of Christ, and the believer's
incorporation with Him, and hardly at all of that visible meeting in the air
8
which at this epoch was most prominent in his thoughts.
"We may assume it as a canon of ordinary criticism that a writer intends
to be understood, 3 and, as a rule, so writes as to be actually understood by
those whom he addresses. "We have no difficulty in seeing that wliat St. Paul
here says to the Thessalonians ia that Christ's return, however near, was not
BO instantaneous as they thought, because, before it could occur, there must
come " the apostasy," which will find its personal and final development in the
apocalypse of " the man of sin "
a human Satan who thrust himself into the
temple of God and into rivalry with Him. Then, with an air of mystery and
secrecy which reminds ns of the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of St.
See Reuss, Thtel. Chrit. ii., p. 10.
* 1 Cor. . viii. . 6; Gal. . iii. . 28: . Eph. Iv. . 8, , &c. .
^ "No man write* unintelligibly on purpose" (Paly, HOT. Pairfinae). He acutely
points out how the very obscurity or this passage furnishes one strong argument for tJEre
gcnuinencM of the Epistle, which I note by way of curiosity that Hilgenfeld regards aa
Tl
a little Ptui:e Apocalypse of the last year of Trajau "
(Einleit, 6421