A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLES OF PAUL THE APOSTLE BY W. KELLY. LONDON: T. WESTON, 53, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1902. INTRODUCTION. It is not without interest, and sometimes of importance, to take into account the order in which the Epistles were written, as far as it can be ascertained: where it cannot, we are entitled to gather that it is of no practical moment. Pro From Corinth the apostle Paul wrote his earliest inspired letters, both the Epistles to the Thessalonians. The subscription at the end of most manuscripts and copied by our translators is given up as unauthorised and untrue. They were written, not from Athens but from Corinth. bably the error arose from a misconstruction of 1 Thessalonians iii. 1, which rather disproves the hasty deduction. Timotheus with Silas carried the report of the Thessalonian state to the apostle at Corinth (Acts xviii. 5), where he abode some eighteen months; and thence no doubt he wrote both. The First carries its own evidence in its joy over their freshness; the Second indicates a decline in their enjoyment of the blessed hope, and the consequent inroad of the enemy. If a date may be safely suggested, the First was about the close of A.D. 52, the Second in A.D. 53. B |