Chapter Four

The Second Letter to the Thessalonians

§ 27. Anticipation of the Parousia in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians

In his exegesis of both letters to the Thessalonians, the theologian Schmidt seeks to construct an opposition between the first and the second.¹ According to the second letter, the is preceded by the arrival of the Antichrist with war and turmoil; but according to the first, peace and security reigns before the , which arrives unexpectedly. According to the second letter, the Antichrist is to come as a warning and an intermediate sign. But this playing-off of different ideational [vorstellungsmäβiger] views against one another is not in the spirit of Paul. Paul is not concerned at all about answering the question of the When of the Parousia. The When is determined through the How of the self-comportment, which is determined through the enactment of factical life experience in each of its moments. Consideration of the second letter should confirm our results thus far. We will not go into the question of authenticity, nor the exegesis (cf. Hollmann in the Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft [Journal for Scholarship on the New Testament], 1901 and 1904²). Only lack of understanding can disown Paul of the second letter to the Thessalonians.

Initially, we will get clear about the situation of the second letter. In what way did the first letter affect the Thessalonians? That is not so easy to see; but we can highlight some main features. The second letter presents a response to the present standpoint of the congregation. There are those in the congregation who have understood Paul, who know what is crucial. If the depends upon how I live, then I am unable to maintain the faith and love that is demanded of me; then I approach despair. Those who think this way worry themselves in a real sense, under the sign of real concern as to whether or not they can execute the work of faith and of love, and whether or not they will hold out until the decisive day. But Paul does not help them; rather he makes their anguish still greater (II Thess. 1:5: [evidence of the righteous judgment]). Only Paul himself could have written this. The overburdened nature (plerophory) of expression in the second letter has an entirely particular motivation, and is a sign of its authenticity.

1:11: [of his call]. Now at issue is to ask God that one will be dignified by the calling (). Christians must be , those who are called, as opposed to those who are cast away (2:13-14: [obtain the glory]: the looking around for the of the Lord-concern). Paul sets those who have understood him up against those who, in more imminent expectation of the , no longer work and loiter idly (3:11: [mere busybodies not doing any work]). They occupy themselves with the question (2:2), whether the Lord will come immediately. These people make an idling out of unconcern for the contingencies of life. They are concerned in a worldly manner, in all the bustling activity of talk and idling, and become a burden to the others (cf. I Thess. 4: 11). Thus they have understood the first letter otherwise.

One may not read the lines from II Thess. 2:13-14 as an isolated “apocalypse.” Compare with 2:5! We are not dealing with a theoretical instruction. There, Paul reports the appearance of the people of unlawfulness, the son of ruin, of the adversary, and the like. He will come before the (2:3: [first]). That is correct in terms of content. But that is not what is crucial primarily. The passage has been interpreted this way: Paul went back, became milder, no longer teaches the immediate imminence of the Parousia; he has become more careful and wants to comfort the people. Yet the entire tenor, the entire mode of expression of the second letter, speaks against this. This is not deprecation, but rather an increased tension, also in the individual expressions. The entire letter is still more urgent than the first: no taking-back, rather an enlarged tension. The Thessalonians are to be referred back to themselves. The overburdened character of the expression in Paul is to be understood first from out of this, [for] everywhere here precisely the complexes of enactment of factical life are emphasized. The following passages are characteristic of this:

II Thess 1:3 (and 2:13): [we must always give thanks].

1:3: [your faith is growing]. The is not a takingto-be true, or else the would have no meaning; the is a complex of enactment that is capable of increase. This increase is the proof of genuine consciousness.

1:4: [therefore we ourselves boast] is an increase of , praise.

1:11: (decision) [every good resolve and work of faith] (cf. ).

2:8: [by the manifestation of his coming] (emphasis of what is current).

2:9: [lying wonders].

2:10: [wicked deception] (that is certainly a Hebraism). Everywhere the sense of enactment, here the love of truth, is emphasized through the overburdened expression.

2:10: [to love the truth].

2:11: [powerful delusion]. The particular vivacity. What is urgent in the situation is everywhere stressed in the [full conviction] of the expression.

2:13: [through the sanctification by the spirit and through belief in the truth] (: truth stands in relational connection to faith). That shows that the itself represents a context of enactment, which can experience an increase.

2:14: [you may obtain the glory], look about in the .

3:1: [so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly]: so that the proclamation runs [?]

In order to understand this “overburdened nature of the expression” (plerophory), one must imagine Paul in the urgent anguish of his vocation. The [those who are perishing] is missing a real enactment, which will not at all let itself be expressed positively; for the complex of enactment can be explicated neither positively as a mere course of happenings, nor negatively through some negation or other. The complex of enactment determines itself first in and with the enactment. Paul's kind of answer occurs in the same sense as in the first letter. Again, he opposes two modes of factical life. One does not see this if one focuses one's view only on the content. In the so-called “apocalypse” (II Thess 2:2–13) is found precisely (2:10) what is decisive: [and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth].

The decisive position is characterized through . The (“not”) is neither a non privativum nor a non negativum, but rather has the sense of the “enactmental not.” The “enactmental not” is not a refusal of enactment, not a setting-oneself-outside of the enactment. The “not” concerns the position of the complex of enactment to the relation which is motivated from out of it. The meaning of the “not” can be clarified only out of the historical context. The without has no relation. It would have to have a positive emphasis, but then a “yet enacting” would also be in error. Because then that which has the character of enactment would be characterized as a happening. But that which has the character of enactment is only co-possessed in the enactment itself, cannot for itself be objectified. The thoughts of negative theology grew from similar motifs of the “beyond yes and no.” In order to escape the Antichrist as Antichrist, one must have first entered into the complex of enactment of the religious situation; for the Antichrist appears as God. The problem of negative theology appears, in a pale form, in medieval mysticism.

§ 28. The Proclamation of the Antichrist

The meaning of the proclamation of the Antichrist is the following: one must take the Antichrist for Antichrist. After all, he pretends to be a god. (Cf. II Cor. 4:4: [the god of this world], after Irenäus Satan.) The facticity of knowledge is necessary for this. Whether one is a true Christian is decided by that fact that one recognizes the Antichrist. The event which should come before the is thus, in its relational sense, one that is directed to the people (— [those who are called into the glory]). With the arrival of the Antichrist, each must decide1—even those who are unconcerned decide through this lack of concern. Already whoever remains undecided has removed himself from the complex of enactment of the anguish of expectation, and has joined the (cf. II Cor. 4:3).

In the exegesis, the eschatological phenomenon is considered objecthistorically. It is said that people then had believed that the end of the world had come (millenarianism). Around 120 A.D. this stops; later millenarianism returns to life repeatedly in medieval millenarianism and in modern adventism. It is said that these millenarian ideas are temporally-historically determined, and therefore have no eternal validity. One attempts to examine the eschatological ideas according to their lineage. Thereby one is led to late Judaism, further to ancient Judaism, finally to ancient Babylonian and ancient Iranian notions of the end of the world. With that one believes to have “explained” Paul, freed from all churchly ties—that is to say, to have determined how Paul himself was to have looked.

We will see that precisely this “objectivity” is, in the highest sense, constructed. For this view never puts into question whether those who have eschatological ideas of this kind indeed have them as ideas. In talk without qualification of “ideas,” one misrecognizes the fact that the eschatological is never primarily idea. The content of the idea may certainly not be eliminated, but it must be had in its own (relational) sense. The enactmental understanding from out of the situation eliminates these difficulties. It is a difficult problem for the history of culture—a problem that is very close to the concept of philosophy—to shed light upon how it so happens that the history of dogma (history of religion) has taken precisely this criticized ideational attitude. The main problem with this is not how the history of dogma entered in this ideational way, but rather why it never turned in another direction.

Origenes saw this problem in his Commentaries on The Gospel of John and on the individual writings of the Old Testament. Equally well did Augustine see this problem of the historical that lies in Christian life experience.³ It is a false conception to form a general concept of the historical and then impose it onto the individual formulations of problems, rather than proceeding from the respective complex of enactment (for example, from that of artistic creation or of religious experience). Likewise, the philosophical methods corrupt the sense of the history of religion. That which Paul says has a peculiar expressive function, from which one cannot tear out the “ideational content,” in order, for instance, to compare it with the content of ancient Babylonian ideas. The original complex of enactment, in which the eschatological is found for Paul, is important, independently of connections that exist between Persian and Jewish eschatological ideas. The “obstinate waiting” is not some ideational “expectation,” rather a [serving God].

The obstinate waiting stands in the complex of enactment of the entire Christian life (see Schema in § 26 “The Expectation of the Parousia” p. 67). Thus the second letter to the Thessalonians is easy to understand, despite some difficulties. The situation is, in relation to the first letter, changed insofar as the words “the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night” are understood correctly by some (calm [?] obstinate waiting) and incorrectly by others. These latter set the work aside, stand around and chat, because they expect him every day. But those who have understood him must be despairing, because the anguish increases, and each stands alone before God. It is these to whom Paul now answers that the anguish is an [proof] of the calling; the others he sharply rejects. The event of the Parousia is thus directed, in its sense of happening, toward the people who bifurcate into the called and the rejected. Of the rejected , the Lord of this world—that is, Satan—has blinded their sense. They cannot [testing] (I Thess. 5:21), that is to say, test.

§ 29. Dogma and the Complex of Enactment

It is noticeable how little Paul alleges [vorgibt] theoretically or dogmatically; even in the letter to the Romans. The situation is not of the sort of theoretical proof. The dogma as detached content of doctrine in an objective, epistemological emphasis could never have been guiding for Christian religiosity. On the contrary, the genesis of dogma can only be understood from out of the enactment of Christian life experience. The allegedly dogmatic doctrinal content of the letter to the Romans is, also, only understandable out of the enactment in which Paul stands, in which he writes to the Romans. His procedure of proof is nowhere a purely theoretical complex of reasons, but is rather always an original complex of becoming of the kind that, in the end, is also merely shown in a proof. What reigns here is the opposition of basic comportments of practical life: and , which does not mean “the rejected ones,” but rather “to be in the state of becoming rejected,” etc. The participium praesentis instead of participium perfecti emphasizes the enactment that is still in process. At issue is an acceptance, which is a final deciding.

The has a positive sense, in disabling knowledge. This thus grounds the [to know] and [testing]. Paul sees these two types of people under the pressure of his calling as the proclaimer. The (love as enactment) [truth] means a complex of enactment, which enables for the of the divine. On the basis of this , the knower first sees the great danger in store for the religious person: whoever does not accept the enactment cannot at all see the Antichrist who appears in the semblance of the divine ( [he opposes above every so-called god]), and becomes enslaved to him without even noticing it. The danger becomes apparent only to the believers; the appearance of the Antichrist is directed precisely toward the believers, the appearance is a “test” for those who know. The believe (2:11) the [delusion], they are deceived precisely in their highest bustling activity with the “sensation” of the Parousia, and fall from their original concern for the divine. For this reason, they will be absolutely annihilated—Paul knows no mere afterlife [Postexistenz] for the damned away from God—and they lose [life]. The appearance of the Antichrist in godly robes facilitates the falling-tendency of life; in order not to fall prey to it, one must stand ever ready for it.

The appearance of the Antichrist is no mere passing occurrence, but rather something upon which each one's fate is decided—even that of the alreadybelieving. As who opposes himself to the divine, he is the enemy of the believer, although he makes his appearance in the form of the divine itself. The revelation () is only a revelation for one who possesses the possibility of distinguishing. Thus the warning (II Thess. 2:3) that they should not let themselves be deceived. 2:11: The rejected believe the lie; they are not indifferent; they are highly busy, but they are deceived and fall prey to the Antichrist. Thus, they do not neglect what is Christian as irrelevant, but rather show a peculiar increase, which fulfills their blindness and completes the fall [Abfall] to the anti-godly, so that a return is impossible. In Paul, to be damned means an absolute annihilation, absolute nothingness; there are no levels of hell, as in later dogma. The recoiling and increasing reformulation of Christian life experience into objective form was effected through the apologetic reaction of defense against paganism and its science.

The [comes first] (2:3) does not mean extension of the deadline, rather precisely, in the sense of Christian facticity, an increase of the highest anguish. Thus Paul concludes in 2:15, with a summary of his eschatological account: ' (tradition?) [so then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us either by word of mouth or by our letter]. To the Christian, only his of the complex of enactment in which he really stands is to be decisive, but not the anticipation of a special event that is futurally situated in temporality. In late-Judaism, the anticipation of the Messiah refers primarily to such a futural event, to the appearance of the Messiah at which other people will be present. Ezra IV shows already acquaintance with the Christian prevalence of enactment, as opposed to the event-complex that is expected. From this complex of enactment with God arises something like temporality to begin with. II Thess. 2:6-7: [and you know what is now restraining him] (that, which holds back the Antichrist) .— [for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work].

Theodoret,⁴ Augustine, and others see in the precipitous order of the Roman Empire, which suppresses persecution of Christians by Jews. This passage could be regarded as an objection to our argumentation. Paul would be here concerned with the objective. But: the secret of sin ( ) is already at work; that is what is decisive. Sin is just as much a mystery as faith. [but only until the one who now restrains it is removed]. The verses 6-7 encompass the problem of the Christian attitude toward a non-Christian surrounding world and communal world, and thus the problem of salvation history. From this context I Thess. 4:13 can be understood: [as others do who have no hope] (). That is to say, all who stand outside the Christian context of becoming are without guidance as to the question of the dead. The way in which God resurrected Christ, so too will he bring the dead to him along with Christ. “That we believe.” (). But we do not have to concern ourselves with such curious questions, for faith gives us certainty. Mark 9:1: Individuals among you will not die, before the [the kingdom of God] comes [has come to power].

Paul, too, still expected the Parousia before his death. The great presentation [Aufmachung] in which the Antichrist appears facilitates faith for the believers, if they already are decided. The decision itself is very difficult. The expectation must already be such that through faith, the deception of the Antichrist will be recognized as deception. The “before” is thus here increase of the highest anguish. That is why (2:15) Paul says only: stand firm and master the traditions that you have experienced. The questions of content may not be understood detachedly. The opposition of dogmatism and morality is actually misguided, too. The title “eschatology” is just as oblique, because it is taken out of Christian dogma and designates the doctrine of final things. Here we do not understand it in this theoretical-disciplinary sense.

---

1. Cf. P. Schmidt, Der erste Thessalonicherbrief neu erklärt, nebsteinem Excurs über den zweiten gleichnamigen Brief, Berlin, 1885, p. 111f.

2. [There is probably a confusion in the transcription. The correct details are: H. J. Holtzmann, “Zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief,” Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 2, 1901, pp. 97–108; G. Hollmann, “Die Uneichtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefes,” Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 5, 1904, pp. 28–38.

3. [Cf. the lecture “Augustine and Neo-Platonism” in this volume.]

4. [Bishop of Kyrrhos in Northern Syria, 393–ca. 466 A.D.]