THESPESIA 351 THESSALY bush, common in the tropical jungles of India, with a good jfiber, as has T. popul- nea. THESPIAN (from the name of Thespis, the reputed founder of the Greek drama, who was bom in Xarca, Attica, and flourished about 550 B. c), pertaining or relating to the representa- tion of dramatic tragedy, or to the Tragic Muse; as the Thespian art. THESPIUS, in mythology, a king of the Thespiades, and father of 50 daugh- ters, all of whom bore children to Her- cules. The Thespiades were conducted to Sardinia by lolaus. THESSALONIANS, EPISTLES TO THE, the Pauline epistles. The first epistle to the Thessalonians, the earliest extant epistle of the Apostle Paul, was written at Corinth probably about the beginning of the year A. D. 53, or, at latest, in A. D. 54, within a year and a half of the founding of the Church at Thessalonica xmder the circumstances related in Acts, xvii: 1-10. Some time after leaving Thessalonica, the apostle had heard of "sufferings" to which his converts there had been subjected by their unbelieving fellow-countrymen (I Thess. ii: 14; iii: 2-4), and there was some cause for fear lest "the tempter" had "tempted" them from their faith (iii: 5). He accordingly sent Timothy from Athens to learn further about their state, and to "establish" and "comfort" them (iii: 2, 5). Timothy brought back to the apostle, then in Corinth, a fairly satisfactory account of their faith and loyalty, but mentioned some matters of Christian doctrine and life in which they were deficient; hence the epistle. Of the two parts of which it is com- posed the first is mainly personal and explanatory (i.-iii.), and the second ethi- cal and doctrinal (iv., v.), warning in particular against sins of impurity, per- haps also of commercial greed (iv: 6), and still more specially against a ten- dency of the Thessalonians toward pious idleness in view of Christ's imminent second coming and toward a hopeless sorrow on account of those of their num- ber who had already died. With regard to the second coming, the apostle's own doctrine is that it may be expected at any time. The second epistle consists of three parts. The first part is introductory, and mainly an expression of the vn*iter's thankfulness for the steadfastness the Thessalonians have displayed under conr tinued persecution (i. 1-12), The second part (ii. 1-12) is eschatological and warns the readers against supposing "that the day of the Lord is now present" (so revised version; authorized version has "at hand"). On the contrary, it will not be except the falling away ("the apos- tasy") come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. The third and concluding part of the epistle (ii. 13-iii. 18) is of a practical nature, and substantially repeats the exhortations of I Thessalonians. The genuineness of this epistle was first doubted by J. E. Ch. Schmidt (1801); the volume of opinion in this sense has steadily increased since then, and is now very great. The argument turns chiefly on ii. 1-12. The difficulty about the eschatological passage in question is, in a word, that no traces of such a view occur in any other writing of the Apostle Paul, whether prior or subsequent to the supposed date of II Thessalonians. It is impossible to fix with any ac- curacy the da;;e of the verses in ques- tion. They are conceived in the spirit of a great deal of the apocalyptic that was current in Jewish (and in a less degree in Christian) circles during the last two centuries of Judaism. On the hypothe- sis of its genuineness, in whole or in part, II Thessalonians must have been written shortly after I Thessalonians and before the apostle's sojourn of 18 months in Corinth had come to an end. Apart indeed from ii. 1-12, II Thessalonians may conceivably have been written before I Thessalonians, a view which has been argued for by Grotius among others. THESSALY, the largest division of ancient Greece; lay S. of Macedonia and E. of Epirus; being separated from the latter by Mount Pindus, and from the former by the Cambunian Mountains; the Maliac Gulf and Mount CEta bound- ing it on the S. It is a vast plain shut in on every side by mountains; on the N. and W. by those already named, on the S. by Mount Othrys, and on the E. by Mounts Pelion and Ossa, the only open- ing being the Vale of Tempe in the N. E., between Ossa and Olympus. This plain is drained chiefly by the Peneus river (now Salambria) and its tributa- ries, and is the most fertile in all Greece. Thessaly was originally inhabited by so- called Pelasgians, who, however, were either expelled or reduced to slavery by Dorian immigrants from the more rugged region of Epirus about 1000 B. C. The Penestae, descendants of the old inhabi- tants, held a position analogous to that of the Helots in Sparta. There were
