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| The First Epistle to the Thessalonians. The Shorter Epistles Pungent in Sense and Very Valuable. St. Paul Upbraids the Jews for the Death First of Their Prophets and Then of Christ. This a Presumption that Both Christ and the Prophets Pertained to the Same God. The Law of Nature, Which is in Fact the Creator's Discipline, and the Gospel of Christ Both Enjoin Chastity. The Resurrection Provided for in the Old Testament by Christ. Man's Compound Nature.
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Chapter XV.—The First
Epistle to the Thessalonians. The Shorter Epistles Pungent in Sense and
Very Valuable. St. Paul Upbraids the Jews for the Death First of Their
Prophets and Then of Christ. This a Presumption that Both Christ
and the Prophets Pertained to the Same God. The Law of Nature, Which is
in Fact the Creator’s Discipline, and the Gospel of Christ Both
Enjoin Chastity. The Resurrection Provided for in the Old Testament by
Christ. Man’s Compound Nature.
I shall not be sorry to bestow attention on the
shorter epistles also. Even in brief works there is much
pungency.5892
| 5892 Sapor. We have here a
characteristic touch of his diligent and also intrepid spirit.
Epiphanius says this short epistle “was so entirely corrupted by
Marcion, that he had himself selected nothing from it whereon to found
any refutations of him or of his doctrine.” Tertullian,
however, was of a different mind; for he has made it evident, that
though there were alterations made by Marcion, yet sufficient was left
untouched by him to show the absurdity of his opinions. Epiphanius and
Tertullian entertained, respectively, similar opinions of
Marcion’s treatment of the second epistle, which the latter
discusses in the next chapter (Larder). | The Jews had slain
their prophets.5893
I may ask, What has
this to do with the apostle of the rival god, one so amiable withal,
who could hardly be said to condemn even the failings of his own
people; and who, moreover, has himself some hand in making away with
the same prophets whom
he is destroying? What injury did Israel commit against him in slaying
those whom he too has reprobated, since he was the first to pass a
hostile sentence on them? But Israel sinned against their own
God. He upbraided their iniquity to whom the injured God
pertains; and certainly he is anything but the adversary of the injured
Deity. Else he would not have burdened them with the charge of
killing even the Lord, in the words, “Who both killed the Lord
Jesus and their own prophets,” although (the pronoun)
their own be an addition of the heretics.5894
| 5894 All the best
mss., including the Codices Alex., Vat., and
Sinait., omit the ἰδίους, as do Tertullian
and Origen. Marcion has Chrysostom and the received text,
followed by our A.V., with him. | Now, what was there so very
acrimonious5895
in their killing
Christ the proclaimer of the new god, after they had put to death also
the prophets of their own god? The fact, however, of their having
slain the Lord and His servants, is put as a case of climax.5896
| 5896 Status
exaggerationis. | Now, if it were the Christ of one god and
the prophets of another god whom they slew, he would certainly have
placed the impious crimes on the same level, instead of mentioning them
in the way of a climax; but they did not admit of being put on the same
level: the climax, therefore, was only possible5897
| 5897 Ergo exaggerari non
potuit nisi. | by
the sin having been in fact committed against one and the same Lord in
the two respective circumstances.5898
To one and the
same Lord, then, belonged Christ and the prophets. What that
“sanctification of ours” is, which he declares to be
“the will of God,” you may discover from the opposite
conduct which he forbids. That we should “abstain from
fornication,” not from marriage; that every one “should
know how to possess his vessel in honour.”5899
In what way? “Not in the lust of
concupiscence, even as the Gentiles.”5900
Concupiscence, however, is not ascribed to marriage even among the
Gentiles, but to extravagant, unnatural, and enormous sins.5901
The law of nature5902
| 5902 The rule of Gentile
life. | is
opposed to luxury as well as to grossness and uncleanness;5903
| 5903 We have here followed
Oehler’s reading, which is more intelligible than the four or
five others given by him. | it does not forbid connubial intercourse,
but concupiscence; and it takes care of5904
our vessel by the honourable estate of matrimony. This passage (of the
apostle) I would treat in such a way as to maintain the superiority of
the other and higher sanctity, preferring continence and virginity to
marriage, but by no means prohibiting the latter. For my hostility is
directed against5905
those who are for
destroying the God of marriage, not those who follow after chastity. He
says that those who “remain unto the coming of Christ,”
along with “the dead in Christ, shall rise first,” being
“caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air.”5906
I find it was in
their foresight of all this, that the heavenly intelligences gazed with
admiration on “the Jerusalem which is above,”5907
and by the mouth of Isaiah said long
ago: “Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with
their young ones, unto me?”5908
Now, as Christ
has prepared for us this ascension into heaven, He must be the Christ
of whom Amos5909
| 5909 Oehler and Fr.
Junius here read Amos, but all the other readings give Hosea;
but see above, book iii. chap. xxiv., where Amos was read by
all. | spoke: “It is
He who builds His ascent up to the heavens,”5910
even for Himself and His people. Now, from
whom shall I expect (the fulfilment of) all this, except from Him whom
I have heard give the promise thereof? What “spirit”
does he forbid us to “quench,” and what
“prophesyings” to “despise?”5911
Not the Creator’s spirit, nor the
Creator’s prophesyings, Marcion of course replies. For
he has already quenched and despised the thing which he
destroys, and is unable to forbid what he has despised.5912
| 5912 Nihil fecit. This is
precisely St. Paul’s ἐξουθενεῖν, “to annihilate” (A.V. “despise”), in
1 Thess. v.
20. | It is then incumbent on Marcion now to
display in his church that spirit of his god which must not be
quenched, and the prophesyings which must not be despised. And
since he has made such a display as he thinks fit, let him know that we
shall challenge it whatever it may be to the rule5913
of the grace and power of the Spirit and the
prophets—namely, to foretell the future, to reveal the secrets of
the heart, and to explain mysteries. And when he shall have failed to
produce and give proof of any such criterion, we will then on our side
bring out both the Spirit and the prophecies of the Creator, which
utter predictions according to His will. Thus it will be clearly seen
of what the apostle spoke, even of those things which were to happen in
the church of his God; and as long as He endures, so long also does His
Spirit work, and so long are His promises repeated.5914
Come now, you who deny the salvation of the
flesh, and who, whenever there occurs the specific mention of
body in a case of this sort,5915
| 5915 Si quando corpus in
hujus modi prænominatur. | interpret it
as meaning anything
rather than the substance of the flesh, (tell me) how is it that the
apostle has given certain distinct names to all (our faculties), and
has comprised them all in one prayer for their safety, desiring that
our “spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord and Saviour (Jesus) Christ?”5916
| 5916 1 Thess. v. 23. For a like application of this passage,
see also our author’s treatise, De Resurrect. Carnis, cap.
xlvii. [Elucidation I.] | Now he has here propounded the soul and the
body as two several and distinct things.5917
| 5917 It is remarkable
that our author quotes this text of the three principles, in
defence only of two of them. But he was strongly opposed to the
idea of any absolute division between the soul and the
spirit. A distinction between these united parts, he might,
under limitations, have admitted; but all idea of an actual separation
and division he opposed and denied. See his De
Anima, cap. x. St. Augustine more fully still maintained a
similar opinion. See also his De Anima, iv.
32. Bp. Ellicott, in his interesting sermon On the Threefold Nature
of Man, has given these references, and also a sketch of patristic
opinion of this subject. The early fathers, Justin Martyr, Clement of
Alex., Origen, as well as Didymus of Alex., Gregory Nyssen., and Basil,
held distinctly the threefold nature. Our own divines, as is natural,
are also divided in views. Bp. Bull, Hammond, and Jackson hold the
trichotomy, as a triple nature is called; others, like Bp.
Butler, deny the possibility of dividing our immaterial nature into two
parts. This variation of opinion seems to have still
representatives among our most recent commentators: while Dean Alford
holds the triplicity of our nature literally with St. Paul, Archdeacon
Wordsworth seems to agree with Bp. Butler in regarding soul and
spirit as component parts of one principle. See also Bp.
Ellicott’s Destiny of the Creature, sermon v. and
notes. |
For although the soul has a kind of body of a quality of its
own,5918
| 5918 On this paradox, that
souls are corporeal, see his treatise De Anima, v., and
following chapters (Oehler). [See also cap. x.
supra.] | just as the spirit has, yet as the soul and
the body are distinctly named, the soul has its own peculiar
appellation, not requiring the common designation of body.
This is left for “the flesh,” which having no proper name
(in this passage), necessarily makes use of the common designation.
Indeed, I see no other substance in man, after spirit and
soul, to which the term body can be applied except
“the flesh.” This, therefore, I understand to be meant by
the word “body”—as often as the latter is not
specifically named. Much more do I so understand it in the present
passage, where the flesh5919
is expressly called
by the name “body.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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