2 Thessalonians 3:6

6. ημων, after κυριου, supplied by אADcGKLP &c., is wanting in BD*, Cyp: a suspicious complement; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:1.

(a) παρελαβετε, in BG 43 73 80 go syrhcl, Or Thdrt Ambrst;

(b) παρελαβοσαν, א*A, D* (without παρ-), 17, Bas; WH margin.

The Latin Versions and Fathers, generally, read the 3rd plural;

(c) παρελαβον, אcDb, cKLP;

(d) παρελαβε, in a few minn., syrpeah, Oec.

παρελαβοσαν (see Expos. Note on the grammatical ending) is the hardest reading, and best accounts for the others. Weiss, however, says it “betrays the Alexandrian emendators.”

παρελαβετε, obvious in itself, may have been further suggested by 1 Thessalonians 4:1. On the other hand, WH, who agree with Weiss in preferring (a), think that -οσαν may be due to an “ocular confusion with -οσιν (παραδοσιν) in the line above” (Appendix, p. 165).

For παρʼ ημων B has αφʼ ημων, which Weiss deems original, explaining παρʼ as an assimilation to the verb, and to 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:1.

6. Παραγγέλλομεν δὲ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου [ἡμῶν] Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. But we charge you, brothers, in the name of the [or our] Lord Jesus Christ. The general ἃ παραγγέλλομεν (2 Thessalonians 3:4 : see note) is particularized; and the confidence in the loyalty of the readers there expressed is put to proof. The charge is addressed to “brothers”; it is not the mere command of a superior, but appeals to the sense of a common duty in the readers. At the same time, it is a command—not a personal wish, nor advice open to debate and qualification; it is delivered ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρ. Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ—on the authority of “Jesus Christ” as “Lord” of His people, by those who have the right to speak “in” His “name”: see note on ἐν κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ, 1 Thessalonians 4:1, and cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:12 below; also Romans 1:5; 1 Corinthians 5:4; Philippians 2:9 ff.; Colossians 3:17; James 5:10. After the disregard of their admonition in Epistle I., the writers feel they must speak in the most peremptory and solemn tone; they pronounce as judges in the Sovereign’s name. They speak collectively, since the action taken devolves on them in their joint responsibility for the well-being of the Church.

στέλλεσθαι ὑμᾶς�, that you hold aloof from every brother walking in disorderly fashion. Παραγγέλλω takes the regular infin., as in 1 Timothy 1:3 and often in St Luke; construed with ἵνα of the thing commanded in Mark 6:8; with ὅτι in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, by way of apposition to the immediate object τοῦτο. The verb στέλλομαι (middle)—synon. with μὴ συναναμίγνυσθαι (2 Thessalonians 3:14)—signifies (transitively) to avoid in 2 Corinthians 8:20, the only other N.T. example; cf. however ὑποστέλλομαι, ὑποστολή, Hebrews 10:38 f., Acts 20:20; Acts 20:27. Apparently this meaning, to contract, to draw within oneself—sometimes to shrink, flinch—is derived from the maritime figure of furling or shortening sail—ἱστία στέλλἐιν (lit. to set, fix in position) or στέλλεσθαι (Homer, &c.: see examples in Liddell and Scott); it is complemented by ἀπό also in Malachi 2:5 (LXX). Ἀπὸ … ἀδελφοῦ: for this is a matter between “brethren” (cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:15; 1 Corinthians 5:11 f.). The general avoidance of the man will be at once a punishment for him and a safeguard to the rest (2 Thessalonians 3:13), who might be infected by his company. This implies surely exclusion from Church-meetings, including the Agapé and the Lord’s Supper; but it is not an absolute bar to personal intercourse: cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:15. For ἀτάκτως, see note on 1 Thessalonians 5:14—the adverb is a N.T. hap. leg.—also 2 Thessalonians 3:7; 2 Thessalonians 3:11 below; for περιπατεῖν, 1 Thessalonians 2:12. Bengel observes on ἀτάκτως, “Igitur Ordo mendicantium non est ordo, sed gravat rempublicam ipsam” (2 Thessalonians 3:8).

καὶ μὴ κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ἣν παρελάβετε [or -οσαν] παρʼ ἡμῶν, and not in accordance with the tradition which you [or they] received from us. Μὴ (περιπατοῦντος) κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν κ.τ.λ.—not οὐ—for this is an assumed condition of the στέλλεσθαι: see Winer-Moulton on μή with participles, pp. 606 ff. (μή encroaches on οὐ in this connexion in later Greek: cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:12); for οὐ with participles, cf. 2 Corinthians 4:8; Colossians 2:19, &c. For περιπατεῖν κατά κ.τ.λ. (Hebraistic), cf. Mark 7:5; the phrase is elsewhere only Pauline in N.T.—Romans 8:4; Romans 14:15; 1 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 10:2; Ephesians 2:2. For παράδοσις, see note on 2 Thessalonians 2:15; this includes παραγγελία as well as διδαχή: cf. 1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:1 above.

The irregular παρελάβοσαν is strongly attested (see Textual Note): the harshness of the concord (the third plural referring to παντὸς�), beside the anomalous ending, makes the substitution of -οσαν for -ετε on the part of copyists unlikely. At the same time the 3rd plural -οσαν, for imperfect and strong aorist indicative (also for optatives), is established in the κοινή (LXX; rare in Papyri: see Winer-Schmiedel, Grammatik, pp. 112 f.); Romans 3:13 (from LXX) and John 15:22; John 15:24, in the critical texts, afford examples. The termination is an Æolic (Bœotian) contribution to the mixed vernacular κοινή, favoured perhaps by the tendency to parisyllabic inflexional endings. On παραλαμβάνω, see 1 Thessalonians 2:13.

6. THE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE OF ANTICHRIST

Martin Luther’s historic protest adversus execrabilem bullam Antichristi inaugurated the Reformation in 1520 A.D. It was one of Luther’s firmest convictions, shared by all the leading Reformers of the 16th century, that Popery is the Antichrist of prophecy; Luther expected that it would shortly be destroyed by Christ in His second advent. This belief was made a formal dogma of the Lutheran Church by the standard Articles of Smalkald in 1537 A.D.[9] It has a place in the English Bible; the translators in their address to James I. credit that monarch with having given, by a certain tractate he had published against the Pope, “such a blow unto that Man of Sin, as will not be healed.” Bishop Jewel’s Exposition of the Thessalonian Epistles, delivered in the crisis of England’s revolt from Rome, is the most characteristic piece of native Reformation exegesis, and gives powerful expression to the Lutheran view. In the 17th century, however, this interpretation was called in question amongst English Divines. The late Christopher Wordsworth, in his Lectures on the Apocalypse, and in his Commentary on the New Testament, has contributed a learned and earnest vindication of the traditional Protestant position.

[9] Melanchthon admitted a second Antichrist in Muhammad. He distinguished between the Eastern and Western Antichrists. The conjuction of Pope and Turk was common with our Protestant forefathers.

This theory has impressive arguments in its favour, drawn both from Scripture and history. It contains important elements of truth, and applied with great cogency to the Papacy of the later Middle Ages. But many reasons forbid us to identify the Papal system with St Paul’s ἄνθρωπος τῆς�. Two considerations must here suffice: (1) the Apostle’s words describe, as the Fathers saw, a personal Antichrist; they cannot be satisfied by any mere succession of men or system of Antichristian evil. (2) His Man of Lawlessness is to be the avowed opposer and displacer of God, and had for his type such rulers as Antiochus Epiphanes and the worst of the deified Cæsars. Now however gross the idolatry of which the Pope has been the object, and however daring and blasphemous the pretensions of certain occupants of the Papal Chair, Romanism does not, either openly or virtually, exalt its chief ἐπὶ πάντα λεγόμενον θεὸν ἢ σέβασμα; one must seriously weaken and distort the language of the Apostle to adjust it to the claims of the Roman Pontiff. The Roman Catholic system has multiplied, instead of abolishing, objects of worship; its ruling errors have not been those of atheism, but of superstition. At the same time, its adulation of the Pope and the priesthood has debased the religious instinct of Christendom; it has nursed the spirit of anthropolatry—the man-worship, which St Paul believed was to find in the Man of Lawlessness its culminating object.