The Epistles to the Thessalonians

Thessalonica was the capital of Macedonia, a great port on the road that linked Rome to the East. Paul founded a Church there during his second journey, but the hostility of the inhabitants forced him to flee after a short stay. Soon after, from Corinth, he wrote to this young community he had had to leave too early: his first letter to the Thessalonians is among the oldest writings of the New Testament, earlier than the Gospels. A second soon followed. Both are borne by one same expectation, the return of Christ.

A young Church in trial

Paul had left behind recent converts, exposed to persecution and deprived of their teacher. He had been to them of a mother’s tenderness, spending himself night and day so as to burden no one; from this affection springs his concern, and the warmth with which he corrects and consoles them. He writes to them first to give thanks and to strengthen them, glad of their fidelity in the midst of trial. Beyond the waiting, he traces for them a holy life, God’s own will: “What God wills is your sanctification: that you abstain from immorality.” 1 Thessalonians 4:3 He presses them to love one another, to work with their hands so as to depend on no one, and to keep joy, prayer, and thanksgiving without ceasing. He sums up their Christian life by the three forces that carry it, faith, love, and hope: “the work of your faith, the labor of your love, and the steadfastness of your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 1:3

The awaiting of the return of Christ

One same expectation runs through the two letters, the return of Christ. The first consoles the Thessalonians anxious for their dead and calls them to vigilance; the second corrects an error that had spread, that of believing the day of the Lord already come. These pages form the oldest written Christian teaching on the last things, and from them the Church still draws what she professes of the return of Christ and of the judgment.