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CHAPTER VI.

THE STYLE AND CHARACTER OF THE TWO EPISTLES.

IN STYLE the two Epistles are as nearly as possible identical. The characteristic features of St Paul's dialect and manner as a writer are very apparent; but they have not yet taken the bold and developed form which they present in the Epistles of the second group (Romans, Corinthians, Galatians). In wealth of language, in force of intellect and spiritual passion, these letters do not reach the height of some of the later Epistles. Nor should we expect them to do so. The Apostle's style is the most natural and unstudied in the world. It is, as M. Renan says, "conversation stenographed." In Galatians and 2 Corinthians, where he is labouring under great excitement of feeling, face to face with malignant enemies and with his disaffected or wavering children, his language is full of passion and grief, vehement, broken, passing in a moment from rebuke to tenderness, from lofty indignation to an almost abject humility: now he "speaks mere flames”—but the sentence ends in pity and in tears; "yea, what earnestness, what clearing of himself, what indignation, what yearning, what jealousy, what avenging!" In Romans and Galatians, again, you watch the play of his keen and dexterous logic-large and massive generalisation, bold inference, vivid illustration, swift retort, and an eagerness that leaps to its conclusion over intervening steps of argument indicated only by a word or turn of phrase in passing. But these Epistles afford little room for such qualities of style. They are neither passionate, nor argumentative; but practical, consolatory, prompted by affection, by memory and hope. Hence they represent, as it has been aptly said, “St Paul's normal style,” the way in which he would commonly write and talk to his friends.

In their general character, in simplicity and ease of manner, in the rarity of those involved periods and abrupt transitions which distinguish the polemical Epistles, these letters resemble

that to the Philippians. But it is remarkable that the Epistle to the Philippians contains twice as many hapax legomena to the chapter (i.e. words used nowhere else in the N. T.), as do our Epistles1. For Philippians was written nearly ten years later; and it will be found that as time went on the Apostle's vocabulary constantly enlarged, and the habit of using new and singular words grew upon him.

Ch. i. 2—5; ii. 14-16 in the First Epistle; ch. i. 6—10; ii. 8-10 in the Second, are good examples of St Paul's characteristic practice of extending his sentences to an indefinite length in qualifying and explanatory clauses, by the use of participles and relative pronouns and conjunctions. Later Epistles (Ephesians especially) show how this habit also gained upon the writer. In 1 Ep. i. 8; ii. 11; iv. 4, 14; 2 Ep. i. 9; ii. 7; iii. 6 we find instances of ellipsis and anacoluthon-of those altered and broken sentences, and dropped words left to the reader's understanding, to which the student of St Paul is accustomed. 1 Ep. ii. 14, 15 (the Jews-who killed the Lord Jesus, &c.); v. 8, 9 (salvation--for God did not appoint us to wrath, &c.); 2 Ep. i. 10 (that believed-for our testimony was believed) illustrate St Paul's curious fashion of "going off upon a word," where some word suddenly suggests an idea that draws him away from the current of the sentence, which he perhaps resumes in an altered form. In 1 Ep. ii. 4, 19—20; iii. 6—7; iv. 2 and 6; v. 4—5; 2 Ep. ii. 9 and 11, 10 and 12 we see how expressions of the Apostle are apt to return upon and repeat themselves in a changed guise. 1 Ep. iii. 5; v. 23; 2 Ep. iii. 2—3; iii. 11 (read in the Greek) exemplify the fondness, shared by St Paul with many great writers, for paronomasia, that is for playing on the sound of the words he uses.

There is not a single quotation from the O. T. in these Epistles. St Paul is addressing Gentile converts, and in such a way that Scriptural proof and illustration are not required. But there are a number of evident allusions in that direction, show

1 By counting verses instead of chapters, we find this statement somewhat modified. Philippians contains not quite two hapax legomena in every five verses; 1 and 2 Thess. exactly one in every four. For the number of hap. leg. see Grimm-Thayer's Ñ. T. Lexicon, Appendix IV.

THESS.

3

ing how the writer's mind was coloured by the language of the Old Testament. Compare

1 Ep. ii. 4 with Ps. xvii. 3, &c.;

ii. 16 with Gen. xv. 16;

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i. 9, 10 with Isai. ii. 10, 11, 17, 19—21;

ii. 4 with Dan. xi. 36;

ii. 8 with Isai. xi. 4;

ii. 13 ("beloved by the Lord") with Deut. xxxiii. 12.

More remarkable, and quite unusual in St Paul, are the repeated echoes of the words of Jesus that occur in the passages relating to the Judgement and Second Coming. Compare

1 Ep. ii. 15, 16 with Matt. xxiii. 29-39, Luke xi. 45-52, xiii. 33, 34;

iv. 16, 17 with Matt. xxiv. 30, 31;

v. 1-6 with Matt. xxiv. 36-44, Luke xii. 38-40, 46;

2 Ep. ii. 2 with Matt. xxiv. 6.

In their CHARACTER these oldest extant Epistles of the Apostle Paul can now be easily described. They are the letters of a missionary, written to an infant Church but very recently brought from heathen darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. They lie nearer, therefore, to the missionary preaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles, as we find it, for instance, in Acts xiv. 15-17; xvii. 22—31, than do any of the later Epistles. This accounts for their simplicity, for the absence in them of controversy and the elementary nature of their doctrine1.

They are addressed to a Macedonian Church, and they exhibit in common with the Epistle to the (Macedonian) Philippians a peculiar warmth of feeling and mutual confidence between writer and readers. They are singularly affectionate letters. From 2 Cor. viii. 1, 2; xi. 9 we gather that the generosity which endeared the Philippians to St Paul (Phil. iv. 14—17) distin

1 But compare what is said of the character of the Macedonians in Chapter IV. above.

guished the Macedonian Churches generally. The Apostle can scarcely find words tender enough or images sufficiently vivid to express his regard for the Thessalonians (1 Ep. ii. 7, 11, 17, 19, 20; iii. 9). He feels his life bound up with them (ch. iii. 8). He boasts of them everywhere (2 Ep. i. 4; 2 Cor. viii. I, 2). If he exhorts them, his warnings are mingled with commendations, lest they should think he has some fault to find (1 Ep. iv. I, 9, 10; v. 11; 2 Ep. iii. 4). Again and again he repeats, more than in any other letters, "You yourselves know," "Remember ye not?" and the like,-so sure he is that they have understood and bear in mind his teaching, and are altogether one with him. In like fashion, writing to the Philippians (ch. i. 5), the Apostle gives thanks to God "for your fellowship in the gospel, from the first day until now.”

Further, these two are especially cheering and consolatory letters. The Apostle sent Timothy to "comfort" the Thessalonians "concerning their faith" (1 Ep. iii. 2), and in writing he pursues the same object. Persecution was the lot of this Church from the beginning (1 Ep. iii. 4; Acts xvii. 5—9), as it continued to be long afterwards (2 Cor. viii. 2; comp. what was written to Philippi ten years later, Phil. i. 28, 29). So the Apostle bends all his efforts to encourage his distressed and suffering friends. He teaches them to glory in tribulation. He makes them smile through their tears. He reveals the "weight of glory" that their afflictions are working out for them, till in comparison they seem light indeed. He shows them-and to a generous Christian heart there is no greater satisfaction—how much their faithful endurance is furthering the cause of Christ and of truth (1 Ep. i. 6–8; 2 Ep. i. 3, 4), and how it comforts and encourages himself and his fellow-labourers (1 Ep. iii. 5—7).

Lastly, these are eschatological Epistles: that is, in the language of theology, they set forth "the Last Things" in Christian doctrine, the second coming of Christ, the raising of the dead and transformation of the living saints, and the Judgement of the world; they announce the advent of Antichrist as the forerunner and Satanic counterpart of the returning Christ (2 Ep. ii. 1-12). The latter passage is called the Pauline Apoca

lypse; since it holds in St Paul's Epistles, in regard to its teaching and import, the place of the Book of Revelation in the writings of St John. We have suggested, in Chapter III. of the Introduction, some circumstances that may have led St Paul to dwell at this time especially upon this subject. The persecutions under which the Thessalonians laboured served to incline their thoughts in the same direction,-toward the heavenly kingdom that they hoped would soon arrive to put an end to the miseries of "this present evil world."

By their eschatological views and teachings these letters are linked to ch. xv. of 1 Corinthians, which was probably the next of St Paul's Epistles in order of time to these. Afterwards the subject of the parousia retreats into the shade in the Apostle's writings. For this two causes suggest themselves. Between the writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians St Paul suffered from a severe sickness (2 Cor. i. 8-10; iv. 7—v. 8), which brought him to the gates of death, and profoundly affected his spiritual experience: from this time he anticipated that death would end his earthly career (Phil. i. 20, 21; Acts xx. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 6-8, 18). And again, the disturbing effect of the thought of the Parousia in the Thessalonian Church and the danger of a morbid pre-occupation of mind with this idea such as he had seen there, may have led him to make the subject less prominent in his later teaching. In St Paul's last letters, however, written at the close of life to his helpers Timothy and Titus, he reverts frequently and fondly to "that blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. ii. 13). Long ago had he reconciled himself to the fact that he must first indeed be "absent from the body" in order to be "present with the Lord.” Yet still the coming of the Lord Jesus was the goal of his labours and longings. It was in his eyes the summit of all Christian hope. And these two fervent Epistles, with their bright horizon of promise crossed by lurid thunder-clouds, breathe throughout the constant desire of the Church with which the Book of Scripture closes,

AMEN. COME, LORD JESUS!

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