ook is wrongly dedicated
to St. Peter only, is probably not the day on which either of the
apostles suffered. It is the day on which their relics were removed
for safety to the catacombs in the time of the persecution of the
Christians by the Emperor Decius, A.D. 258.

[1] The above account places the dispute at Antioch before the third
missionary journey. Some writers of deserved repute place it in the
winter of A.D. 48, before the Council of Jerusalem.

{125}

CHAPTER IX

1 AND 2 THESSALONIANS

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS

[Sidenote: The Author.]

Among all schools of thought there has been an increasing conviction
that this Epistle is genuine. It was included in Marcion's
_Apostolicon_, or list of Pauline writings, it is contained in the
_Muratorian Fragment_, it is quoted by the great Fathers of the close
of the 2nd century, and is found in the Old Latin and Peshitta Syriac
versions of the New Testament. The earnest and affectionate tone of
the Epistle is thoroughly Pauline, and the argument that it is not
genuine because it does not contain the same pronounced anti-Jewish
teaching as we find in Romans is precarious, though it has seemed to
some sceptics to be convenient. The argument might be turned in the
opposite direction. For it would be just as reasonable to say that the
absence of anti-Jewish doctrine proves that the Epistle was written
before the great conflict with the semi-Christian Jews began, as to say
that it proves that it was written by a forger after the conflict was
over. One paragraph in the Epistle points decisively to an early date.
In iv. 13-18 we find that some Thessalonians were under the delusion
that it would be an exceptional thing for a Christian to die before the
second coming of our Lord, and that those who did so die would miss
some of the felicity appointed for the rest. Such a delusion must have
been dispelled at a very early date. Moreover, the {126} comfort which
St. Paul administers to those who are agitated by this notion gives us
the idea that he expected Christ to return in his own lifetime. In
this respect he writes to the Thessalonians something very different
from what he writes in his later Epistles (Phil. i. 21-24; 2 Tim. iv.
6), or even in 2 Cor. v. 1. We need not be surprised that God left the
great apostle in ignorance of an event which it is not given even to
the angels to understand (Matt. xxiv. 36). But a f