he addresses himself to the other question of the “ when ” of the Parousia, supplementing what was said in the first letter, but adding nothing to what he had already said orally in their presence, and stoutly disclaiming all authority whatever for the statement “ the day is present.” Briefly and allusively, in language which has nothing specifically Christian in it and in style similar to the first chapter (verses 6–10), he recalls the familiar story. The day does not come until the final revolt in heaven and until the lawless one (the man of lawlessness, the son of Perdition) is revealed, which revelation cannot happen, until the controlling or restraining thing or person is removed. Then, however, the tool of Satan will appear, but the Lord will destroy him with the breath of his mouth and annihilate him with the majesty of his presence (2 Thess. ii. 11–12). Following the formal order of the First Epistle, he again thanks God that his converts are chosen to salvation and prays that they may have strength and obey his orders oral or written. Even with a “ finally,” as in the first letter, he is not quite through, for the second point of the letter remains to be treated—the idlers. These, he says, must remember both his example (he was never guilty of begging) and his precept (“ if any man will not work let him not eat ”). They must work quietly and eat their own food. Those who refuse to heed his written orders are to be noted. The test of the genuineness of his letters is his autograph greeting (2 Thess. ii. 13–iii. 18).
The letter meets the known situation excellently. The new material, compared with the First Epistle, is the supplementary discussion of the time of the Parousia (2 Thess. ii. 1 ff.) and the fuller treatment of the idlers (2 Thess. iii. 1 ff.), the points about which the leaders sought advice. The style is Pauline even in the adaptation of Jewish apocalyptic material to Christian purposes. Indeed, the outline of the letter is strikingly similar to that of the First Epistle, and many phrases hold over. At the same time there is a freedom of style suggesting not the imitator but the same author. And above all, especially in the treatment of the idlers, the letter reveals a knowledge of the situation which is even more explicit than that of the First Epistle. On such grounds, together with the excellent external attestation, it is probable, as recent writers hold (e.g. Zahn, Wohlenberg, Harnack, Jülicher, Findlay, Askwith, Charles, Bacon, McGiffert, Moffatt, Milligan, et al.), that the letter is Paul's.
The objection to the Pauline authorship felt by the Tübingen school may, for brevity's sake, be here disregarded. The modern difficulties, expressed mainly by recent German scholars (e.g. Wrede and Holtzmann and others), centre not in the un-Pauline language or in the lack of the personal element, but in the eschatology and the over-Pauline character of the language As to the first objection, the eschatology, it is replied that the section ii. 1-12 is scarcely an interpolation, sinoe it is one of the two main reasons for the letter; that the material of the section is a distinct allusion to, if not a direct quotation of, a definite bit of Jewish apocalyptic, even if we do not connect it, as Bousset does, with a so-called Antichrist legend; that the alleged inconsistency between the eschatology of the First and the Second Epistle does not exist, for in the first letter Paul says not that the day is present, but that the day, when it comes, comes suddenly “ as a thief in the night,” while in the second letter he expressly denies the statement attributed to him, namely, that “ the day is present.” Wrede, in his brilliant argument against the genuineness of the letter (Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonichefbriefes, 1903), inclines to admit that the argument from eschatology is secondary.
As to the second objection, the over-Pauline character of the letter, an objection used with rigour by McGiffert (whose article on these letters in the Ency. Biblica is the most satisfactory discussion known to the present writer), and renewed independently by Wrede, it is to be admitted that the similarity of the second to the first letter is striking, particularly in the fomial arrangement of the material. At the same time, the differences, both in arrangement and in the content of the reminiscences, are not to be overlooked, as McGiffert and after him Wernle (Gött. gel. Anz., 1905, pp. 347–52) have both rightly maintained. Again there should be no disparagement of the new material such as is to be found in Holtzmann's acute discussion (Z. N. T. W., 1901, pp. 97–108). On the whole, the perplexing situation seems to be met on the assumption that Paul writes the Second Epistle either with a letter from Thessalonica before him, which itself suggested the main points of his own epistle, or with a copy or a summary of that epistle before him (cf. Zahn and McGiffert).
The alternative is forgery, as Holtzmann, Wrede and Hollmann (Z. N. T. W., 1904, pp. 28-38) actually hold. The difficulty with this hypothesis is that it does not explain so many facts as the hypothesis of' Pauline authorship. As it is improbable that the forger would write during the lifetime of Paul, the date has to be put either shortly after his death, or with Wrede at the end of the century. But this late date creates the insuperable difficulty that iii. 1 ff. gives a more explicit account of the original situation in Thessalonica touching the idlers than does the First Epistle. The purpose moreover of the forgery could not be to discredit the First Epistle as un-Pauline, for the alleged trouble is that the Second Epistle is too Pauline. Hence the purpose is to correct the statements of the First Epistle. If, however, there is no inconsistency between the two letters on the score of eschatology, what is the forger's purpose? The teaching about premonitory signs is not new to Thessalonica, but is assumed as known, hence the allusive character of the second chapter. The state# ments in ii. 2 and iii. 17 are easily explicable on the hypothesis that the idlers found an anonymous letter and attributed it to Paul, especially when they thought, perhaps in good faith, that the Spirit had indicated that the day is present. Finally, the forger handles Paul's style with miraculous knowledge, not only reproducing phrases from the first letter, but knowing how to amend them to present purposes with singular naturalness. When it comes to putting Christian touches to a Jewish fragment, the touches turn out to be uniquely Pauline, although they are not obviously Pauline (e.g. i. 6–10 “ εἴπερ,” “ obey the Gospel,” “ was believed ”). And even with the thought of Paul, he is curiously at home. So certain is he of the substance of Paul's thought, that he can reproduce it in a concise sentence without recourse to the word “ justification ” (e.g. i. 11). On the whole, then, the situation created by the literary relation of the two letters is best met by the hypothesis that Paul is the author of the Second Epistle.
In addition to the literature mentioned under Colossians, Epistle to the, and the special literature already named in this article, reference should be made to the commentaries on these letters by Ellicott (1858), Jowett (1859), Eadie (1877), Hutchinson (1883), Lightfoot (Notes, 1895), Drummond (1899), Findlay (1892 and 1904), Milligan (1908), and Moffatt (1908); and by Schmidt (1885), Zimmer (1885-93), Schmiedel (1892), Zöckler (1894), Bornemann (1894), B. Weiss (1896) and Wohlenberg (1903).
(J. E. F.)
THESSALY, a district of northern Greece, between Macedonia
and the more purely Hellenic countries towards the
south, and between the upland region of Epirus and the Aegean
Sea. It forms an irregular square, extending for about sixty miles in each direction, and this area, which is for the most part level, is enclosed by well-marked boundaries—by the Cambunian Mountains on the north, and by Othrys on the south, while on its western side runs the massive chain of Pindus, which is the backbone of this part of Greece, and towards the east Ossa and Pelion stand in a continuous line; at the north-eastern angle is Olympus, the keystone of the whole mountain system. The elevation of some of the summits in these ranges is considerable, for three of the peaks of Pindus are over 5000 ft., and Olympus, Ossa and Pelion reach respectively the height of 9790, 6398 and 5350 ft. The country that is contained within these limits is drained by a single river, the Peneius, which, together with the water of its numerous confluents, passes into the sea through the Vale of Tempe.
On the north side of Thessaly there was an important pass from Petra in Pieria bv the western side of Olympus, debouching on the
