■SLCOND EnSTLP- TO THE THESSiV LONl ANS. 109 



coming of" Christ : " This we say unto you by the word of 

 the Lord, that we which arc ahve and remain unto the 

 coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are 

 asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, 

 .... and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we 

 which are alive and remain shall be caught up together 

 with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air ; and 

 so shall we ever be with the Lord. But ye, brethren, are 

 not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a 

 thief." 1 Thess. 4 : 15-17 ; 5 : 4. It should seem that the 

 Thessalonians, or some however among them, had from this 

 passage conceived an opinion — and that not very unnatural- 

 ly — that the coming of Christ was to take place instantly, 

 oTL hv£aT7]K£v ;* and that this persuasion had produced, as it well 

 might, much agitation in the church. The apostle therefore 

 now writes, among other purposes, to quiet this alarm and 

 to rectify the misconstruction that had been put upon his 

 words : "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming oi 

 our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto 

 him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, 

 neither by spirit, nor by word, 7i07' by letter as from us, as 

 that the day of Christ is at hand." If the allusion which 

 we contend for be admitted, namely, if it be admitted that 

 the passage in the second epistle relates to the passage in 

 the first, it amounts to a considerable proof of the genuine- 

 ness of both epistles. I have no conception, because I know 

 no example, of such a device in a forgery, as first to frame an 

 ambiguous passage in a letter, then to represent the persons 

 to wdiom the letter is addressed as mistaking the meaning 

 of the passage, and lastly, to write a second letter in order 

 to correct this mistake. 



I have said that this argument arises out of the text, ij 



* ""On h'£aTj]Kev, nempe hoc anno," namely, in this year, says 

 Grotius ; '■'• hecTTjKev hie dicitur de re praesenti, ut E^om. 8 : 38; 1 Cor. 

 3 : 22; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 9 : 9" — it is here used in reference to some- 

 thing present, as in Rora. 8 : 38, etc. 



8 



