An
Exposition of
II Thessalonians One & Two
Chapter One
1 - Paul, and Silvanus, and
Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Thessalonica was in
In Acts, we learn that Paul’s missionary efforts first carried
him into
Acts 16:6, 7 indicates that, from Derbe and Lystra, Paul and his
companions attempted to preach the gospel in
The Jerusalem Council is important to our discussion because it
dealt with Jewish resistance to the gospel by false brethren who
attempted to bind circumcision and Judaistic practices upon the
Gentiles. Jewish
opposition to the gospel was not confined to
2-4 - Grace unto you, and peace,
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to
thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that
your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of
you all toward each other aboundeth; So that we ourselves glory
in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all
your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
From the very start, the Jews in Thessalonica incited hatred and
persecution against the brethren.
Luke records that upon entering Thessalonica, Paul
preached in the synagogue that Jesus was Christ (Acts 17:1-3).
As a result “some of them believed, and consorted with
Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and
of the chief women not a few” (v. 4).
But the unbelieving Jews raised such a tumult that Paul
was forced to depart from Thessalonica, traveling to Berea:
“But the Jews which
believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd
fellows of a baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the
city on an uproar” (v. 5). Not content, when the Jews
learned that Paul was preaching in
5 - Which is a manifest token of
the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of
the
The gospel sorts the hearts of men, like seeds falling upon
various soils. Those
who have a love of the truth and own to their sinfulness and
need of a Savior will obey the gospel charge to believe and be
baptized. Those with
moral root and depth will persevere persecution, if not for
their love of the Savior, then for fear of his judgment and
wrath. The
Thessalonians have kept the faith in the face of affliction and
contradiction and so demonstrate the propriety of God’s judgment
granting the reward of the eternal inheritance to those who
abide until the end.
6 - Seeing it is a righteous thing
with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
Here we see the world-wide nature of Christ’s coming and kingdom
at the eschaton; it was not merely universal in effect; it was
universal in fact. After departing
Thessalonica and
7 - And to you who are troubled
rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels,
The Thessalonians would find rest from persecution at the
revelation of Jesus Christ.
The very use of the term “revelation” (Gk.
apokalypsei) implies that the coming of Christ would not be
bodily or visible as is commonly imagined.
Rather, Christ’s revelation would be as depicted in the
Apocalypse of St. John, and would consist in Christ’s
providential judgments upon men and nations, including the
destruction of
8 - In flaming fire taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
The flames are not actual or literal, but figurative.
They are the same flames of fire mentioned by Isaiah,
Malachi, and Joel, and repeated by John the Baptist and Peter on
Pentecost and in his second epistle (Matt. 3:7-12; Acts 2:17-21;
II Pet. 3:10-13).
|
Isaiah 66:6, 15, 16 |
Joel 2:1, 3, 30, 31 |
Malachi 4:1, 5, 6 |
|
A voice of noise from the city, a voice form the temple,
a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his
enemies...For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and
with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger
with fury, and his rebuke with flame of fire. For by
fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all
flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many. |
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound the an alarm in
my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land
tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh
at hand...A fire devoureth before them; and behind them
a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden
before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea,
and nothing shall escape them...And I will shew wonders
in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and
pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness,
and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible
day of the Lord. |
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;
and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall
be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up,
saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leaven them
neither root nor branch...Behold, I will send you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord: and eh shall turn the heart of the
fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, let I come and smite the earth with a
curse.
|
The reference in each case is to the Roman legions that
overflowed
9, 10 - Who shall be punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in
his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because
our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
The eschaton would take men as it found them.
John describes it at the
close of Revelation as hastening upon his generation so fast
that men would scarcely have time to amend their ways or change:
“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is
filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy
still” (Rev. 22:11).
Christ’s wrath upon the nations would provoke wonder and
admiration in the saints.
The world might marvel at the things coming upon it, but
the saints would know and realize that the famines, earthquakes,
pestilences, and political upheavals that rocked the
11, 12 - Wherefore also we pray
always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this
calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and
the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we would be worthy, we must be faithful in word and works.
The Thessalonians would suffer severely during the
eschaton. The intensity of Jewish opposition and persecution
causes them to suppose that the eschatological battle of the
last day has already come (II Thess. 2:2).
In their perseverance, possessed they their souls.
The shout at the defeat of the dragon, beast, and harlot
that the wedding of the bride had come and she was worthy to be
clothed in white (Rev. 19:-10), contemplates the consummation of
the New Testament and award of righteousness at Christ’s coming
by remaining faithful during the persecution under Nero and the
Jews. It is to this
that the second chapter of the epistle looks.
Chapter Two
1 - Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and [by] our gathering
together unto him,
The eschatological gathering is a recurring theme of the
gospels. We first
hear mention of it by John the Baptist:
“Whose fan is in his hand,
and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into
the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire” (Matt.
“Immediately after the tribulation
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not
give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the
sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes
of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other.”
Matt. 24:29-32
The question in all of these cases is into what are the good and
evil gathered, and how was this accomplished?
The fate of the wicked seems plainly to contemplate their
destruction in Gehenna, for this is uniformly described as a
lake of fire, answering to the fiery furnace into which the
wicked were to be cast.
If the wicked were thus gathered into Gehenna, it would
seem to follow that the righteous were gathered into heaven.
If so, the eschatological gathering is but a variation
upon the theme of sorting the sheep and goats in Matt. 25:31-46.
The gathering of the wicked into the furnace of fire was
fulfilled in the cataclysmic events of the eschaton, including
the famines and pestilences that swept the Roman world, and
witnessed the fall of
2 - That ye be not soon shaken in
mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by
letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Although Christ’s coming would bring relief for the saints, the
persecution would get worse before it got better. The day of
Christ’s coming would bring fiery trials to test the church and
purify the saints.
“Every man’s work shall be
made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of
what sort it is” (I Cor.
3 - Let no man deceive you by any
means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling
away first,
The great tribulation would be preceded by the great apostasy.
The Reformers supposed this referred to the errors of the
Catholic church, but the historical context of the epistle
places the falling away (Gk.
apostasia) in the apostle’s time.
D. A. N. Hays in his book,
Paul and his Epistles
says:
“The apostasy (verse 3) is the
definite and final rejection of the true Messiah by the Jews,
which might come, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
suggest, after a period of forty years, in which the claims of
Christianity were to be presented to them even as their fathers
saw the wonders of Jehovah forty years in the wilderness.
The Man of Sin (verses 3, 4) is the false Messiah who
will incarnate within himself all the Jewish opposition to the
gospel. He will be a lawless one, working signs and deceiving,
and his destruction will result in the final establishment of
the Christian Church, verses 8-10.
The Restrainer (verses 6, 7) is the Roman emperor as
representing the restraining power of the
According to this writer, then, Jewish rejection of the Messiah
is the great apostasy.
However, we would amend this definition to include those
who, under persecution, apostatized from the church, returning
to paganism and Judaism.
Thus, the epistle to the Hebrews warns “take heed,
brethren, lest there be in ay of you an evil heart of unbelief,
in departing from the living God” (Heb.
and that man of sin be revealed,
the son of perdition;
There is a long history of Christian tradition identifying the
man of sin and son of perdition with Nero:
“And after many plagues completed
in the world, in the end he says that a beast ascended from
the abyss…that is, of the Romans. Moreover that
he was in the kingdom of the Romans, and that he was
among the Caesars. The Apostle Paul also bears
witness, for he says to the Thessalonians: Let him who now
restraineth restrain, until he be taken out of the way; and then
shall appear the Wicked One, even he whose coming is
after the working of Satan, with signs an lying wonders.’
And that they might know that he should come who then was the
prince, he adds: ‘He already endeavours after the secret of
mischief’ – that is, the mischief which he is about to do he
strives to do secretly; but he is not raised up by his own
power, nor by that of his father, but by command of God.”
[2]
Victorinus here connects the “beast” from the abyss with the
Augustine (A.D. 354-430) is even more explicit:“Some
think that these words refer to the
St. Chrysostom (A.D. 347 to 407) states:
“‘For the mystery of
lawlessness doth already work.’
He speaks here of Nero... But he did not also wish
to point him out plainly: and this not from cowardice, but
instructing us not to bring upon ourselves unnecessary enmities,
when there is nothing to call for it.”[4]
4 - Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped;
Nero was the spiritual “reincarnation” of Antiochus Epiphanes
who attempted to suppress the worship of every god but his own,
and establish one religion in the realm, even to the
persecution, torture, and death of those who resisted or
refused. Nero would
attempt to expunge the true faith from the earth.
But his impiety and irreligion was not confined to
persecuting the faith; for he despised all religion, supposing
himself the only true god.
“Nero was now a god. After the
death of Agrippina a consul-elect had proposed a temple ‘to the
deified Nero.’ When,
in 63, Poppaea bore him a daughter who died soon afterward, the
child was voted a divinity.
When Tiridates came to receive the crown of
so that he as God sitteth in the
The
6 - Remember ye not, that, when I
was yet with you, I told you these things?
It is telling that in the short time Paul was with the
Thessalonians (probably only a few days or weeks at the most) he
found it expedient to apprise them of eschatological events.
Surely, it challenges our credulity to believe that Paul
would explain to these new Christians events thousands of years
off, having no connection with them whatever.
Is it not, rather, more reasonable to conclude that Paul
informed the Thessalonians of these events because they were of
a contemporary-historical
nature, events that would verily overtake them, and that it is
this fact that has caused them to prematurely anticipate the
time of trouble?
And now ye know what withholdeth
that he might be revealed in his time.
The man of sin and son of perdition was then presently held back
from power, but would be revealed in his time; then the great
eschatological battle of the last day would overtake the saints
and they would be gathered by martyrdom into the kingdom of
heaven. God’s
providential oversight of men, governments, and history would
guide events to happen at their appointed season, to accomplish
his own purpose. The comments of Farrar, Russell, and Gentry
follow:
F.W. Farrar: “
J. Stuart Russell: “At
that time Nero was not yet ‘manifested;’ his true character was
not discovered; he had not yet succeeded to the Empire.
Claudius, his step-father, lived, and stood in the way of the
son of Agrippina. But that hindrance was soon removed.
In less than a year, probably, after this epistle was received
by the Thessalonians, Claudius was ‘taken out of the way,’ a
victim to the deadly practice of the infamous Agrippina; her son
also, according to Suetonius, being accessory to the deed.”[7]
Kevin Gentry: “Apparently
something is presently (ca. A.D. 52) ‘restraining’ the Man of
Lawlessness: ‘you know
what is restraining [katechon;
present participle], that he may be revealed in his own time’
(2:6). This strongly suggests the preterist understanding
of the whole passage. The
Thessalonians
themselves know what is
presently restraining
the Man of Lawlessness; in fact the Man of Lawlessness is alive
and waiting to be ‘revealed.’ This implies that for the
time-being Christians can expect some protection from the Roman
government. The Roman laws regarding
religio licita are currently in Christianity’s favor, while
considered a sect of Judaism and before the malevolent Nero
ascends the throne.”[8]
7 - For the mystery of iniquity
doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be
taken out of the way.
The New King James version made the unfortunate choice of
capitalizing pronouns the editors believed referenced God.
Accordingly, they capitalized “he who now letteth,”
providing their interpretation that God or the Holy Ghost is
alluded to by these verses. However, the better view is that “he
who lets” is Claudius, the reigning emperor.
It is our opinion that this passage answers to the
binding of the dragon (imperial
8 - And then shall that Wicked be
revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Nero would come to his end by the coming of Christ.
Having murdered his brother, wife,
mother, aunt, and waged a reign of terror against all his
real and imagined political enemies, having disgraced Rome and
the throne by singing and acting upon the common stage, having
polluted his own body and chastity with unspeakable sins and
vice, having married himself to one man and having taken another
man as his catamite and pretended wife, having done all these
things and more, a conspiracy arose in Gaul to wrest the
government from Nero and settle it upon a more worthy object.
Julius Vindex, governor of
9 - Even him, whose coming is
after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders,
Nero’s arrival at the apex of power would be the culmination all
manner of political posturing and intrigue.
Claudius’ first wife Messellina was put to death for
adultery and marrying another man while still the emperor’s
wife. The uxorious
Claudius next fell victim to Nero’s mother, Agrippina. The great
granddaughter of Augustus and sister of Caligula, Agrippina had
been banished by her brother for plotting his murder, but was
recalled by Claudius upon Caligula’s assassination.
Agrippina became the mistress of Pallas, one of Claudius’
freemen and advisers, and obtained his assistance in persuading
Claudius to marry his niece, uniting the lines of the imperial
family and the Claudian house.
Agrippina succeeded in seducing her uncle by a niece’s
over familiarity, kisses, embraces, and feminine wiles.
But as such marriages were deemed incestuous by Roman
law, the senate passed a law making it legal to wed one’s niece.
Claudius had two children by Messallina, Brittanicus and
Octavia. Nero was
the son of Agrippina’s first husband, but she was able to secure
his adoption by Claudius to put him in line for the throne.
To further strengthen his hope of accession, Agrippina
arranged the betrothal of Nero to his step-sister, Octavia.
Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911 edition describes
Agrippina’s machinations:
“Agrippina's next step was to provide a suitable training
for her son. The scholar L. Annaeus Seneca was recalled from
exile and appointed his tutor. On the 15th of December 51 Nero
completed his fourteenth year, and Agrippina, in view of
Claudius's failing health, determined to delay no longer his
adoption of the toga virilis. The occasion was celebrated
in a manner which seemed to place Nero's prospects of succession
beyond doubt. He was introduced to the senate by Claudius
himself. The proconsular imperium and the title of
princeps juventutis were conferred upon him.' He was
specially admitted as an extraordinary member of the great
priestly colleges; his name was included by the Arval Brethren
in their prayers for the safety of the emperor and his house; at
the games in the circus his appearance in triumphal dress
contrasted significantly with the simple toga praetexta
worn by Brittannicus. During the next two years Agrippina
followed this up with energy. Britannicus's leading partisans
were banished or put to death, and the all important command of
the praetorian guard was transferred to Afranius Burrus, a Gaul
by birth, who had been the trusted agent first of Livia and then
of Tiberius and Claudius. Nero himself was put prominently
forward. The petitions addressed to the senate by the town of
Bononia and by the communities of Rhodes and Ilium were
gracefully supported by him in Latin and Greek speeches, and
during Claudius's absence in 52 at the Latin festival it was
Nero who, as praefect of the city, administered justice in the
forum. Early in 53 his marriage with Claudius's daughter Octavia
drew still closer the ties which connected him with the imperial
house. Agrippina determined to hasten the death of Claudius, and
the absence, through illness, of the emperor's trusted freedman
Narcissus, favoured her schemes. On the 13th of October 54
Claudius died, poisoned, as all our authorities declare, by her
orders, and Nero was presented to the soldiers on guard as their
new sovereign. From the steps of the palace he proceeded to the
praetorian camp to receive the salutations of the troops, and
thence to the senate-house, where he was promptly invested with
all the honours, titles and powers of emperor. Agrippina's bold
stroke had been completely successful. Only a few voices were
raised for Britannicus; nor is there any doubt that Rome was
prepared to welcome the new emperor with genuine enthusiasm. His
prestige and his good qualities, carefully fostered by Seneca,
made him popular, while his childish vanity, ungovernable
selfishness and savage temper were as yet unsuspected.”[9]
10 -
and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not
the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
The Apocalypse of St. John depicts the great tribulation as
dividing the world into two groups: those who obeyed the beast
and those that obeyed the Lamb.
Those who obeyed unrighteousness yielded to deceptions
and slanders against the church, saying they were guilty of
heinous crimes of all sorts, from the burning of
11, 12 - And for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness.
The lies of Nero and the Jews would enlist the
world in the war against Christ and the church.
God does not send the delusion because he is unwilling
that men believe; rather, he sends the delusion because men have
refused to believe.
Man is a free moral agent; faith is tied to our moral facility.
It is not that we cannot believe, but that we
will not; the
implications of submitting to God’s rule in our lives are odious
to us. Not until we
feel the need a savior to restore joy to life and bring
salvation from death are we willing to humble ourselves and
obey.
13 - But we are bound to give
thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
Christ died for all;
salvation is freely
available to all; and God
wants all to be saved.
God’s election is not arbitrary or capricious; he does
not choose one man to salvation, and harden or predestinate
another to damnation.
Rather, the case is like a man who makes a will and sets
conditions upon his gifts and legacies, granting an inheritance
to those who obey, disinheriting those who refuse and rebel.
The choice was made from the beginning by the conditions
set in place, but whether any particular man will receive the
inheritance depends upon his own willingness to respond to the
warning and invitation of God.
The process thus begins with God, for he seeks us and
sets in our hearts the hope of salvation.
The process also ends with God, for he is both author and
finisher of our salvation.
But the middle of the process requires the moral
willingness, responsiveness, and perseverance of man.
14 -Whereunto he called you by our
gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here, at last, is the gathering of the saints to glory at
Christ’s coming mentioned in verse one.
“Being gathered unto one’s people” was a common euphemism
for death in the Old Testament and doubtless is behind the
general imagery here (Gen. 25:17 –
Ishmael; 35:29 – Isaac;
49:33 – Jacob; Num.
“And I looked, and behold a white
cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man,
having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp
sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a
loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle,
and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest
of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his
sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped” (Rev. 14:14-16).
This imagery tracks precisely the language of John the Baptist
who likened the eschatological gathering to a harvest in which
the good were gathered into the granary, but the wicked burned
up like chaff (Matt. 3:10-12).
Another excellent example is recorded in the gospel of
Mark: “And he said, So is
the
It seems clear that John’s imagery in Revelation shows the
fulfillment of the eschatological harvest (gathering) of the
gospel parables: Christ astride a white cloud, reaping the
harvest of the earth.
The term rendered “ripe” in Rev. 14:15 is actually
“dried.” Wheat is
harvested after the plant has died and its head of grain is
dried. Thus, it is
clearly wheat that is being harvested, whence we know that this
is the eschatological gathering of the saints to glory.
But the destruction of the wicked is also shown.
The authors of Christian persecution were the Jews, and
John signifies their fate by a harvest of wrath:
“And another angel came
out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp
sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had
power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the
sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the
clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully
ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and
gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great
winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden
without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto
the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred
furlongs” (Rev. 14:17-20).
“Outside the city” signifies that the war has not yet reached
15 - Therefore, brethren, stand
fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether
by word, or our epistle.
The charge to “stand fast” is in anticipation of the coming
persecution and the temptation to abandon faith in Christ, and
is very like the charge to the Hebrews to “forsake not the
assembling of yourselves together” (Heb. 10:27), that is, not to
forsake the profession of their faith for fear of being
discovered assembled together in worship of Christ.
The saints are to keep the traditions set in place by the
apostles, for these have the authority of Christ.
Human traditions are wrong only when they negate a
commandment of God or are made commandments of men.
If a particular practice does not violate a principle,
precept, or precedent of scripture, then it is not objectionable
and lawful for men to keep.
16, 17 - Now our Lord Jesus Christ
himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath
given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and
work.
The promise of glory establishes and sustains us in the good
words and work of the gospel.
Thus, Paul evokes the consolation and hope of salvation
as the inducement for the Thessalonians to abide faithful and
fruitful. May God grant each of us to follow their example.
[1]
D. A. N. Hays,
Paul and his Epistles (Methodist Book Concern, New
York, NY, 1915), pp 172, 173
[2]
Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ad 11:7; Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 354;
emphasis added
[3]
Augustine, City of
[4]
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on II Thess.,
Nicene-Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. XXIII; emphasis
added.
[5]
Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York,
Simon & Schuster, 1944) p. 280.
[6]
F.W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity
(1891, Columbian Publishing Co, NY), p. 13; cf.
The Life and Work of
[7]
J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (1887,
[8]
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr, Perilous Times (1999, CMP), p.
104-106 (emphasis in original).
[9]
For the whole article on line, see
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero
[10] Dialogue with Trypho, XVIII; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 203.
[1]
D. A. N. Hays, Paul and his
Epistles
(Methodist Book Concern, New York, NY, 1915), pp 172,
173
[2]
Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ad 11:7; Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 354;
emphasis added
[3]
Augustine, City of
God
VII ,
xxv; emphasis added.
[4]
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on II Thess.,
Nicene-Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. XXIII; emphasis
added.
[5]
Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York,
Simon & Schuster, 1944) p. 280.
[6]
F.W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity
(1891, Columbian Publishing Co, NY), p. 13; cf.
The Life and Work of
St. Paul
[7]
J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (1887,
London
Grand Rapids ,
MI
[8]
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr, Perilous Times (1999, CMP), p.
104-106 (emphasis in original).
[9]
For the whole article on line, see
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero
[10]
Dialogue with Trypho, XVIII;
Ante-Nicene
Fathers, Vol. I,
p. 203.
[1]
D. A. N. Hays, Paul and his
Epistles
(Methodist Book Concern, New York, NY, 1915), pp 172,
173
[2]
Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ad 11:7; Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 354;
emphasis added
[3]
Augustine, City of
[4]
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on II Thess.,
Nicene-Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. XXIII; emphasis
added.
[5]
Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York,
Simon & Schuster, 1944) p. 280.
[6]
F.W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity
(1891, Columbian Publishing Co, NY), p. 13; cf.
The Life and Work of
[7]
J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (1887,
[8]
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr, Perilous Times (1999, CMP), p.
104-106 (emphasis in original).
[9] For the whole article on line, see http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero
[10] Dialogue with Trypho, XVIII; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 203.
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