1 Thessalonians 2:7

But we were gentle among you Lit., and more graphically, in the midst of you (R. V.); also, were fount gentle same verb as in 1 Thessalonians 2:1, and ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:5 (shewed ourselves toward you, R. V.).

Instead of gentle, babes is the reading of "most of the ancient authorities" (R. V., margin), including the Vulgate (parvuli): the difference in the Greek lies only in the repetition or omission of a single letter. The modern editors (with the weighty exception of Westcott and Hort: see the Note in their New Testament in Greek, vol. II., p. 128), decide in favour of the received reading, (1) because "gentle" better suits the context; and (2) because this Greek word occurs only once besides in the N.T. (1 Tim. 2:24), for copyists are prone to change an unfamiliar into any familiar word resembling it that gives a tolerable sense, and "babes" is a favourite expression of St Paul. If babesbe the genuine reading and it is difficult to resist the evidence in its favour then it must be explained as it is by Origen and Augustine, endorsed by Westcott: like a nurse amongst her children, talking in baby language to the babes.

The gentleness of these apostles of Christ stands in tacit contrast with the airs of authority and the exactions of selfish and vain-glorious men in like circumstances (1 Thessalonians 2:5). The behaviour of the "false apostles" who appeared at Corinth affords us an example of that which St Paul and his comrades avoided. See 2 Corinthians 11:20-21; 2 Corinthians 12:13-18.

We note the union of gentlenessand courage(1 Thessalonians 2:2) in the missionaries: a mark of the true hero, like Wordsworth's -Happy Warrior,"

"who though endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes."

(We were gentle in the midst of you) as though a nurse were cherishing her own children. The "nurse" is motherat the same time a mother with the babe at her breast, the perfect image of fostering love. Comp. Christ's picture in Matthew 23:37.