In the time of this his abode there, he writeth THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS, which was the first Epistle that he wrote.
The poscript affixed to that Epistle doth date it from Athens [as it seemeth] because of that passage in Chap. 3. 1. We thought it good to be left at Athens alone: whereas 1. There was a Church in Achaia when Paul wrote this Epistle, Chap. 1. 7. now there was none there while Paul was at Athens, for from thence he went to Achaia, and began to plant the Church at Corinth. 2. Timothy and Silas were joynt Writers with the Apostle of this Epistle, Chap. 1. 1. now if they were with him at Athens whilst he abode there, which it may be they were, at the least one of them, 1 Thess. 3. 1. yet was not the Epistle then writ∣ten, for it is questionable whether Silas was there, and Timothy went a messenger thither, and returned again before this was written, Chap. 3. 6. The time of its writing therefore was when Timothy and Silas with him returned from Macedonia and came to Paul at Co∣rinth, Act. 18. 5. and Timothy who had been sent thither purposely, gives a comfortable ac∣count of their faith and constancy. So that this Epistle was written from Corinth, some∣what within the beginning of the first year of Pauls abode there.
In it, among other things, he characterizeth the condition of the unbelieving Jews, Chap. 2. 15, 16. for the Thessalonian Church from its first planting had been exceedingly mo∣lested with them.
He saith, The wrath is come upon them to the utmost: which whether it mean passively, that the wrath of God lay so heavy upon them, or actively, that in their vexation and anger against the Gentiles, that was come upon them, that was foretold for a plague to them, Deut. 32. 21. it sheweth that that Nation was now become unrecoverable: and so he looks upon it as the Antichrist in the next Epistle, as we shall observe there.
Paul abiding still at Corinth, a tumult is raised against him, and he is brought before the tribunal of Gallio the Proconsul, who refusing to judge in matters of that nature, [because the Jews themselves had power to judge such matters in their own Synagogue] the people become their own carvers, and beat Sosthenes even before the Tribunal. This Gallio was brother of Seneca the famous Court Philosopher, Nero's Tutor: and of him Seneca giveth this high Encomion in the Preface to his fourth Book of natural Questions. I used to tell thee [saith he to his friend Lucius] that my brother Gallio, whom no man loves not a little if he can love no more, is not acquainted with other vices, but this of flattery he hates. Thou hast tried him on all hands. Thou hast begun to praise his disposition—He would go away. Thou hast begun to praise his frugality, He would presently cut thee off at the first words: Thou hast begun to admire his affability and unaffected sweetness—For there is no mortal man so dear to any, as he to all—And here also he withstood thy flatteries, insomuch that thou criedst out, that thou hadst found a man impregnable, against those snares that every one takes into his bosom. And again in Epist. 104. Gallio, saith he, when he was in Achaia and began to have a fever, he presently took ship, crying out, that it was not the disease of his body but of the place. To him he Dedicates his Treatise de Beata Vita. See more of this Gallio, Tacit. Annal. 15. Sect. 11.