St. Paul wrote 1st Thessalonians around the year 51 C.E. As an early letter of Paul, this document gives us some indication as to Paul's belief about the person and nature of Jesus Christ, i.e. his Christology. This paper explores ten Christological themes found in 1st Thessalonians, including, One who proclaims the Word of the Lord, Suffering Servant, Comforter/Consoler, Light and Darkness, Voice to the Gentiles, Wearer of Divine Attributes, True Provider of Peace and Security, 'Jesus: Lord, Son of God, Son from heaven,' Divine Reconciliation and Restoration, and Sharer in Divine Purpose and Activity with God the Father. These ten themes are seen throughout Paul's corpus and is a good starting point for understanding early Christian views of Christology through the lens of this Apostle to the Gentiles.

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II Th. 2:1-12 is one of the most difficult passages in the N.T., treating, as it does, of eschatological themes which do not re-appear in Pauline Literature. The thesis is an attempt to deal adequately with these themes. First though, the authenticity of II is considered (chp.1) and held to be by Paul. The eschatology of II. 2 is then related to the eschatology of the two Thessalonian letters and it is concluded that a great deal of pre-Pauline material exists in the epistles, (chp.2). A detailed study is made of the problem which gave rise to II.2 by looking at the pastoral concern of the Apostle, the statement which caused the difficulty (The Day of the Lord has come) and the means by which the error was spread. It is concluded that some at Thessalonica were reading 'present salvation' into the expression 'Day of the Lord', whilst at the same time not denying necessarily a future Parousia of Christ, (chp.4). The next three chapters (5-7) look at the three themes which Paul uses to show the Day has not yet arrived : The Apostasy, The Anomos and The Katechon (ōn). The Apostasy is viewed as religious and takes place within the bosom of the church. The Anomos theme is studied against the suggested backgrounds of historical precursors and the Belial (Beliar) myth. The conclusion reached is the Antichrist (=Anomos) idea is the creation of the early church drawing upon elements found in the descriptions of earlier figures, e.g. Antiochus IV. The Anomos figure must be understood from texts showing Satanic possession since those aid an understanding of his relationship to Satan. Details within the passage of the appearance and activity of the Anomos throw light on the conception of the figure; he is set up as a mocking counterpart to Christ and his parousia, (chp.6). The last chapter argues for a theocentric understanding of the Katechon with the Greek verb being translated 'restrain'. Paul is here referring to God and His restraint. The background to this lies in the thought of God holding onto evil and then allowing it to flourish for a set time. Evidence for this is provided and considered. Paul has developed themes which counter an error in the early church. By dealing with events associated with the Day of the Lord he has shown that the Day cannot have come.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:27:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diones Rafael Paganotto.pdf: 1658443 bytes, checksum: 5363a48387a581804b7fa261e28d9b23 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-11-26 / ADVENIAT / The parousia of Christ is a biblical and systematic data, which attests the second coming of Christ in the end times. This research aims to examine the eschatological description of the Parousia in the First Letter to the Thessalonians, specifically in the perícope from 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18. The presentation of eschatological basis of Paul s thought, before their encounter with the Risen Christ near Damascus, prepares the literary and theological analysis of the pericope, because the Pauline message is directed to a concerned community about the fate of the deads and in doubt about the course of events in the parousia. The resurrection of Christ is closely linked to his parousia, which is, according to Paul, the reason of Christian hope and the certainty of faith that illuminates the present and the future of every Christian / A parusia de Cristo é um dado bíblico-sistemático, o qual afirma a segunda vinda de Cristo no fim dos tempos. Esta pesquisa pretende examinar a descrição escatológica da parusia na Primeira carta aos Tessalonicenses, especificamente na perícope de 1Ts 4,13-18. A apresentação das bases escatológicas do pensamento de Paulo, antes do seu encontro com Cristo ressuscitado próximo a Damasco, prepara a análise literária e teológica da perícope, pois a mensagem paulina é direcionada a uma comunidade preocupada com o destino dos mortos e em dúvida acerca do curso dos acontecimentos da parusia. A ressurreição de Cristo está estritamente ligada à sua parusia, a qual, segundo Paulo, é a razão da esperança cristã e a certeza de fé que ilumina tanto o presente como o futuro de cada cristão

Classics and Modern Europe Language / M.A. Ancient Languages and Culture

Classics and Modern Europe Language / M.A. Ancient Languages and Culture

Text in German, summaries in English and German / Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, wie die paulinische Ethik von der Eschatologie bestimmtwird. Ausgehend von einer Untersuchung der hellenistisch-römischen Jenseitserwartung und ihren (möglichen) ethischen Implikationen werden der 1. Thessalonicherbrief, der1. Korintherbrief und der Römerbrief hinsichtlichdesVerhältnisses von Ethik und Eschatologie analysiert. Durch Bestimmung und Zuordnung eschatologischer Einzelmotive zu ethischen Weisungen wird die These erhoben, dass eschatologische Motive primär der Begründung exklusivethischer Mahnungen dienen, wenngleich sie auch bei inklusiv-ethischen Themen zum Einsatz kommen.Zugleich zeichnet sich ab, dass das (von Paulus charakterisierte)ethisch-moralische Versagen und die Hoffnungslosigkeit der Heiden sowie die Hoffnung und der ethische Anspruch an Christen in Korrelation zueinander stehen. / This thesis examines how Paul’s ethical teaching is determined by his eschatology. Based on a survey of Hellenistic-Roman expectations regarding the hereafter and their potential ethical implications, this study examines 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Romans in order to understand the relation between ethics and eschatology. By identifying and matching individual eschatological motifs with ethical directives the thesis proposed that eschatological motifs are primarily utilized as the foundation for exclusive ethical exhortations, although they also appear in the context of inclusive ethical issues. At the same time, it becomes clear that the moral-ethical depravity and hopelessness of the Gentiles (as they are characterised by Paul) as well as hope and the ethical demands on Christians on stand in correlation with each other / New Testament / D. Th. (New Testament)

This thesis advances a claim for the centrality of a politics of peace in early Christianity, with particular focus given to the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Matthew. In brief, I argue that Paul’s task of announcing the gospel to the nations involved calling and equipping assemblies of people whose common life was ordered by a politics (by which I mean, chiefly, a mode of corporate conduct) characterised by peaceableness, and this theological politics was a deliberate participation in the political order announced and inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth. To this end, there are three main components of the thesis. Chapter Two is focused on the Gospel of Matthew, particularly the way in which violence (and peace) are constructed by the evangelist. Chapter Three bridges the first and third components of the thesis, attending to the important question of the continuity between Jesus and Paul on the issue of non-violence. The third component involves two chapters. Chapter Four attempts to identify the trajectory of violence and peace in Paul’s biography and in the “biography” of his Galatian converts (as he portrays it), and the fifth chapter traces the presence of this non-violent gospel in (arguably) Paul’s earliest letter. The intended effect is to show that a politics of non-violence was an early, central, non-negotiable component of the gospel, that its presence can be detected in a variety of geographical expressions of early Christianity, that this (normally) “ethical” dimension of the gospel has a political aspect as well, and that this political dimension of the gospel stands in stark contrast to the politics of both the contemporary imperial power and those who would seek to replace it through violence.