Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Paul begs the Thessalonians to pray for the course of the Gospel and for his deliverance from importunate and evil men, professes confidence that the Lord is faithful to strengthen them and keep them from evil, and directs their hearts to the charity of God and the patience of Christ. He charges them to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition received from him, sets before them his own labor night and day with his own hands at tent-making lest he be burdensome to any, ordains the rule that he who will not work, neither let him eat, rebukes the busybodies who do no work but bustle about, exhorts the rest not to grow weary in well-doing, and commands that the disorderly be marked and not kept company with, that they may be ashamed, yet admonished as brothers. Finally he prays the Lord of peace to give them everlasting peace in every place, and signs the salutation with his own hand as the sign of every genuine epistle, closing with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lapide unfolds throughout a moral treatise on the evil of idleness, drawn from the condition of man, the example of creatures, the law and will of God, the merit and reward to come, and the dire effects of leisure illustrated by the falls of David, Samson, Solomon, and Sodom.
Vulgate Text: 2 Thessalonians 3:1-18
1. For the rest, brethren, pray for us, that the word of God may run, and may be glorified, even as among you; 2. and that we may be delivered from importunate and evil men: for all men have not faith. 3. But God is faithful, who will strengthen you and keep you from evil. 4. And we have confidence concerning you in the Lord, that the things which we command, you both do, and will do. 5. And the Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, and the patience of Christ. 6. And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us. 7. For yourselves know how you ought to imitate us: for we were not disorderly among you; 8. neither did we eat any man's bread for nothing, but in labor and in toil we worked night and day, lest we should be burdensome to any of you. 9. Not as if we had not power: but that we might give ourselves a pattern unto you, to imitate us. 10. For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat. 11. For we have heard there are some among you who walk disorderly, working not at all, but curiously meddling. 12. Now we charge them that are such, and beseech them by the Lord Jesus Christ, that, working with silence, they would eat their own bread. 13. But you, brethren, be not weary in well doing. 14. And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed: 15. yet do not esteem him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. 16. Now the Lord of peace Himself give you everlasting peace in every place. The Lord be with you all. 17. The salutation of Paul with my own hand; which is the sign in every epistle. So I write. 18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Verse 2: That We May Be Delivered from Importunate and Evil Men
Lapide explains that here in Greek it is said ὁ πονηρός, that is, the evil one by antonomasia, although τοῦ πονηροῦ in the neuter gender can be taken here, so that it signifies any evil whatsoever. (This concluding note on "the evil one" stands in the epistolary manner, in which various matters are written familiarly and without connection to friends, so that one should not seek connection everywhere.)
Add that the Apostle here does not speak of heretics, who once received the faith of Christ and afterwards apostatized from it, but of unbelievers, Judaizers, and Pagans, who had never received the faith of Christ, but strove by every means to hinder and overthrow it; such was Alexander the coppersmith, as Paul himself acknowledges in II Timothy IV, 14. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others.
You will say: Faith is the gift of God; therefore it is not in our power, but in God's.
I respond by denying the consequence: for faith is not a gift of God in the way that prophecy, the gift of tongues, of miracles, etc., are gifts of God: for these are given to man by God alone; but faith is the gift of God in the same way as prudence, fortitude, temperance, and the other virtues; nay, all good works are said to be gifts of God, because, namely, God by His grace stirs us up and calls us to the act of faith and other virtues; yet so that He leaves us free to assent to this grace or to dissent from it; to embrace it or to reject it; to work and believe with it, or to neglect it and refuse to believe. So Theodoret and others. See the things said at I Corinthians VII, 7, where I explained how each one has his proper gift of chastity from God.
Verse 3: But God Is Faithful, Who Will Strengthen You and Keep You from Evil
3. But God is faithful, who will strengthen you and keep you from evil. — These things are to be connected with verse 12 of the preceding chapter and its last verse: for there he said that God chose them as firstfruits unto salvation, that is, the firstfruits of the faithful and of those to be saved, and prayed that God would confirm them in every good work: here however he says that God will do this, that, because He is faithful and truthful, He may confirm, perfect, and complete the work of faith and salvation which He has begun in them. So Chrysostom and Theophylact. Although it is not necessary in these epistles, since they were written in the epistolary manner (in which, namely, various matters are written familiarly and without connection to friends), to seek connection everywhere.
Will keep you from evil, — from Satan, that he himself may not prevail against you, says Chrysostom and Theophylact.
Verse 4: We Have Confidence in You in the Lord
4. We have confidence in you in the Lord, that the things which we command, you both do, and will do. — Because he had said that God is faithful, that He may perfect in them the work of faith which He had begun, lest now, supposing (says Theophylact) that the whole is of God, they themselves grow torpid and become sluggish, behold here he requires cooperation from them, as if to say: God indeed is faithful, and will do all things that are His, if you in turn do not fail the grace of God, but work together with it; and lest they proudly arrogate this cooperation to themselves, he adds: "In the Lord," that is, in the grace of the Lord, to indicate that all things depend on the Lord and the grace of God.
Finally, not content to say "you do," he adds "and will do," to signify that it is to be done continuously and to the very last breath. So Chrysostom and Theophylact.
Verse 5: May the Lord Direct Your Hearts in the Charity of God
5. May the Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, and the patience of Christ. — In Greek εἰς ἀγάπην τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ εἰς τὴν ὑπομονὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ, that is, may God direct you in the charity, or love, of God, and the patience of Christ.
Note, "may He direct," that is, may He cause you to walk on the straight path of charity and patience, that you may not stray from their footpath, nor turn aside to the right or the left; for this is the straight way to perfection, to salvation, and to heaven, if we walk in the straight path of charity and patience. Paul therefore wishes them to be directed into charity and patience, as into the straight path to salvation: for there are many things which strive to lead us away from this straight path, says Chrysostom and from him Theophylact, namely riches, vain glory, afflictions, temptations, dangers; but God, by either removing or overcoming these impediments, makes us hold to the straight way and assiduously pursue it.
Note: Every Christian who has care for his salvation ought assiduously to pray to God that He may so protect, stir up, and direct him in all things, as He knows to be expedient for his salvation: that He may lead him by those ways which have no scandal of sin, by which God foresees that the man will not fall into sin, but will go straight to heaven with unoffending foot through acts of charity and patience. This ought to be our perpetual vow and assiduous prayer, since on this hinges our salvation, namely that God may bestow on us that way, that state, that measure of helps, by which He knows us most certainly to be saved; and again, by which He knows we shall happily bring to completion the work we undertake. Happy are those who are so directed by God that they can say: "The Lord ruleth me, and nothing shall be wanting to me; He leadeth me forth as a sheep, even Joseph!" Of such a one is it said in Psalm I: "And all whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper."
AND THE PATIENCE OF CHRIST. — First, that you may imitate the patience of Christ, says Anselm. Secondly and better, "in patience," that is, unto perseverance and patient expectation of Christ, and of His glory and crown: for the Greek ὑπομονή signifies perseverance and toleration of some grievous thing under the hope and expectation of liberation or of a reward. Whence the Syriac translates: May our Lord direct your hearts in the love of God, and lamsabberanutheh, that is, in the expectation of Meschicho or Christ: namely that according to His coming to judgment, and to crown your hope, charity, and patience, you should long-sufferingly await; nor, if He delay, should you despair, but firmly believe that what He has promised He will certainly fulfill. So Chrysostom and Theophylact, who add: To the charity of God, they say, the Apostle joined patience, because this is the charity of God, and this is to love God, if for His sake you are patient in adversities and persecutions, do not stir up tumults, are not disturbed, but patiently await deliverance and the crown of glory from Christ the judge.
Verse 6: That You Withdraw Yourselves from Every Brother Walking Disorderly
6. And we charge (παραγγέλλομεν, that is, we command, says the Syriac, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Vatablus) you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, — that is, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, through Jesus Christ Himself: for "name" is put metonymically for the thing signified by the name. Thus it is often said in the Scriptures that the name of the Lord is to be hoped in or invoked, that is, that one is to hope in the Lord, to invoke the Lord. He commands therefore through Christ, that is, in the name, place, power, and authority of Christ, which he exercised as legate, vicar, and Apostle of Christ.
That you withdraw yourselves from every brother (Christian) walking (conducting himself) disorderly. — In Greek ἀτάκτως, that is, in an unsettled, disorderly, turbulent manner, which happens when someone, e.g., despising public laws and the common order, wishes to live according to his own judgment and disordered, unsettled fancy; here he calls ἀταξία the disturbance of order and discipline that follows from idleness, and consequently idleness itself. For just as in camps those soldiers who break military discipline are called ἄτακτοι: so here by Paul those Christians who break ecclesiastical and Christian discipline, prescribed by him as their leader and Apostle, are called ἄτακτοι. And as in camps idleness brings on this disturbance of discipline: for idle soldiers begin to grow sluggish, to flow into luxury, to murmur, to clamor for money, to disturb every order, and at last to rebel; so in the Church of the Thessalonians, and any other, the idleness of many bred their curiosity, curiosity bred restlessness, restlessness broke discipline; for those who are idle to themselves are curious about others and wish to meddle in everything, and thus disturb the order and all things.
And not according to the tradition which they have received from us. — Note again the term "tradition": In Greek it is παράδοσις, which the Syriac translates as "precepts"; Vatablus, "instruction"; tradition therefore is an instruction handed down by word, or, as Chrysostom and Theophylact say, by deed; whence it follows:
Verse 7: For Yourselves Know How You Ought to Imitate Us
7. For yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, — as if to say: I was for you a type and norm of living, I have prescribed and handed down to you the form of life by my own life; follow therefore this instruction of mine, which I handed down to you not so much by words as by deeds. So Chrysostom and Theophylact.
Because we were not disorderly among you. — In Greek it is the same word that our translator rendered in the preceding verse "disorderly," namely ἠτακτήσαμεν, that is, we were disordered, unsettled, turbulent; Ambrose translates: we did not live intemperately (that is, turbulently) among you; our translator gives not word for word but sense for sense, when he translates, "we were not disorderly"; for by this ataxia and disorder the Apostle understands idleness, and the restlessness consequent upon it, and the disturbance of all discipline and order, as if to say: We were not idle among you; and consequently neither restless nor turbulent. "Disorder (says Chrysostom and Theophylact) Paul calls idleness: for God placed man for labor, and fashioned his limbs for this purpose; therefore he who is idle falls away from his own order and creation."
Verse 8: Working Night and Day, Lest We Should Be Burdensome to Any of You
8. Working night and day, lest we should be burdensome to any of you. — Paul therefore practiced a mechanical art, namely tent-making, together with the preaching of the Gospel, as appears in Acts XVIII, 3. Whence Origen, in homily 17 on Numbers: Paul, he says, was transferred from making earthly tents to constructing heavenly ones. Doubtless he sewed tents from skins, which soldiers used in their camps.
You will ask, for what reason Paul, since he was noble and learned in the sacred Letters, learned a mechanical trade?
I respond, that he did so in accordance with the institution of the ancient Rabbis: for thus R. Shemaiah and R. Gamaliel prescribed for those who would learn the sacred Letters, that they should also learn some manual craft, both that they might gain their livelihood thereby, and for the sake of exercising the body and relaxing the mind from studies; and they added that those who neglected it would be more prone to sins. Thus R. Johanan learned shoemaking, R. Judah baking. Thus Charlemagne, on the testimony of Einhard and others in his Vita, wished his sons to learn some mechanical trade and his daughters wool-working or linen-working. The same is done today by some nobles, both for the sake of avoiding idleness and sins, and so that, if work and necessity should arise, by this labor of the hands and their art they might procure their living. The same therefore Paul and the other Apostles did, and exhorted others to the same: for these are their words in Clement, book I of the Constitutions, chap. LXVII: "You who are youths in the Church, take care to be diligent in all necessary matters of old to minister diligently, with all holiness be free for your work, that at every time you may be able to provide for yourselves and the needy, lest you burden the Church of God. For we also, while engaged in the word of the Gospel, do not neglect the intervening hours: for some of us are fishermen, others tent-makers, others farmers, that we may never be idle." And concerning the brethren of the Lord, Eusebius reports, book V of the History, XV, from Hegesippus, that they were summoned before Domitian as descendants of the Davidic and royal blood, whom he had altogether resolved to extinguish. When they showed their hands, partly worn down with calluses, partly torn by mechanical labor, they were dismissed without any trouble from all suspicion of seeking revolution.
Epiphanius records that the same was done by Christian priests and monks, not from obligation, but from humility and spontaneous devotion, in heresy 80: "They labor," he says, "with their own hands in order to share also with the needy; just as in individual monasteries both in the region of the Egyptians and in all others, so they labor for righteousness (so that, namely, by just gain, acquired by their own labor, they may feed themselves and others) like bees, having in their hands the wax of their craft, but in their mouth drops of honey, when with their own hymn-bearing voice they praise the Lord of all according to their own understanding."
An apt and pleasant example is found in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, title X, number 27, and in Rufinus, book III, number 56, concerning John the Short, or the Dwarf: "He," it says, "once said to his brother: I would wish to be untroubled like the angels, doing nothing, but serving God without intermission: and stripping off the clothes he was wearing, he went off to the desert. And after a week had passed there, he returned to his brother, knocking at the door. And the brother said: Who are you? And he: I am John. Then the brother: John has become an angel, and is no longer among men. But he kept knocking, saying: I am he. And he did not open to him, but allowed him to be afflicted. Afterwards however, opening to him, he said: If you are a man, you have work to do, that you may live; but if you are an angel, why do you seek to enter the cell? And he, doing penance, said: Forgive me, brother, because I have sinned."
Hence also Theodosius the anchorite in Theodoret, in the Philotheus, chap. X: It is absurd, he says, that secular people should afflict themselves with labors for themselves, for princes, for the poor; "while we sit with hands folded, but enjoy the labors of others."
St. Augustine wrote on this matter in the book On the Work of Monks, in which he sharply rebukes idle and slothful monks who refused to labor with their hands. The Novatians foolishly twist this against the Mendicant Orders, as if these eat their bread idly, when it is established that they devote themselves to psalmody, prayers, confessions, sermons, and other pious exercises and spend themselves for their neighbor, as St. Thomas rightly teaches, II II, Quaestion CLXXXVII, articles 4, 5; St. Bonaventure, in the book On the Poverty of Christ, before the middle, page I.
Verse 9: Not As If We Had Not the Power, but That We Might Give Ourselves a Pattern
9. Not as if we had not (in Greek ἔχομεν, that is, we have) the power (namely of burdening you with cost, and of asking food from you as my catechumens), but that we might give ourselves a pattern (in Greek δῶμεν, that is, we may give) unto you to imitate us. — He tacitly excuses the other Apostles, who using their own right while evangelizing received food from their people, and at the same time he heightens his own abstinence and charity, in that he had yielded this his own right with such great inconvenience to himself for their consolation and example.
Verse 10: If Any Man Will Not Work, Neither Let Him Eat
10. This we commanded (παρηγγέλλομεν, that is, we commanded) you, that if any man will not work, neither let him eat. — Because it is written in Genesis chapter III, verse 19: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." He therefore who does not labor for bread, it is fitting that he not eat bread, and consequently he is worthy to die of hunger; for he who is idle has a useless existence, and therefore deserves not to exist. For idleness, as Seneca says, is the burial of a living man. He therefore who while living willingly buries himself, and his vigor and strengths, through idleness, is worthy in fact to die and be buried. Wherefore wisely St. Ephrem on that text "Attend to thyself," chap. V: "Let not labor be troublesome to you," he says. "Learn while working, that you may not learn while begging." The same, in the treatise On the Consummation of the World: "Do not flee from labor, lest you lose the crown."
Note here a moral place: how evil, and how much to be avoided by a Christian and by every man, is idleness, and that for many reasons, which the Apostle here insinuates. The first is drawn from the very condition of man; for man is born for labor, the bird for flight, as the Wise Man says.
The second from the examples of other creatures: see the sun and the heavens, how they never rest, but are turned about with perpetual rotation and traverse the greatest spaces. See fire and the elements, how they are never idle, but always act. See horses, oxen, asses, how they run, carry burdens. Go to the ant, O sluggard, and see how diligent and laborious it is.
The third from the suitability of the matter, and from the law and will of God. For God did not give us hands and strength in vain, but willed us to use them and to work. "God," says St. Basil in the Long Rules, rule 27, "who has supplied us with strengths suitable for laboring, will likewise demand from us on the day of judgment equal industry in laboring." Hence Themistocles used to say, "idleness and sloth are the burial of a living man;" and when he himself was dying, in his hundred and seventh year, he grieved, repeatedly saying that he was then dying when he was beginning to grow wise and to work wisely. Hence also that strong and energetic woman is praised, Proverbs XXXI, that she did not eat her bread idly: "She sought," it says, "wool and flax, and worked by the counsel (that is, work and industry) of her hands: she became as the merchant's ship, bringing her bread from afar, and rose in the night, and gave a prey (the Hebrew טרף tereph signifies any kind of food, the metaphor being taken from lions, whose every food is acquired by predation) to her household, and provisions to her maidservants: she girt her loins with strength, and strengthened her arm: she put her hand to strong things, and her fingers laid hold on the spindle." Hence also she received the reward of her labor, for "from the fruit (that is, the labor, the gain) of her hands she planted a vineyard. She shall not fear for her household from the colds of snow: for all her domestics are clothed with double garments. She made for herself a clothing of tapestry, fine linen and purple is her covering; her husband is honorable in the gates; she made fine linen and sold it, and delivered (sold) a girdle to the Canaanite (the merchant): strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day."
The fourth from merit and reward: for the present time is of labor, the future time will be of reward. "This day," says the author of the Imperfect Work, homily 39, "is the day of working; but that day which follows (of blessed eternity) is of holidays."
The fifth from the effects of idleness. "Idleness has taught much malice," says Ecclesiasticus XXXIII, 29; and Ezekiel XVI, 49: "This," he says, "was the iniquity of Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and her own idleness, and her daughters', and they did not put forth their hand to the needy and the poor." For, as Ovid says:
If you take away leisure, the bows of Cupid have perished.
And again:
It is asked why Aegisthus became an adulterer? The cause is at hand: he was slothful.
And another: "Idleness kills the body, sloth the mind, but exercise makes both most beautiful." "By idleness," says St. Augustine in book I of the City of God, "Rome perished, after Carthage was destroyed." Hence also Cleomenes is said to have spoken about Sura Manlius, that he was not acting but bustling about, because in acting he was tumultuous: for he acts who performs his own duty; he bustles who vehemently, but in vain, exerts himself, says Erasmus. There is also an antithesis: ἐργάζεται means he who works at fruitful things; περιεργάζεται, he who works at unfruitful, superfluous, useless, side-things and matters not pertaining to the point. Such are the idle and curious, who are at leisure and eager to hear, narrate, judge, and carp at the deeds of every individual: who, though they do nothing, nevertheless bustle, move, and stir up everyone to do, disturb, and change those things which seem to their restless and turbulent fancy ought to be done and changed. St. Jerome observes in chapter III of Galatians, that the Apostle in his letters often denotes both the vices and virtues proper to the nation to which he writes, and adds that even up to his own times those nations were subject to the same. "Thus," says Jerome, "the Apostle notes the faith, easygoing nature, pride of the Roman populace; the Corinthian women with uncovered heads, the men nourishing their hair, eating indifferently in temples, puffed up with secular knowledge; he praises the Macedonians in charity, in hospitality and in the reception of the brethren; but he rebukes them as idle, awaiting another's food." And these things he warned of not so much from the office of a teacher as from the virtue or vice of the nation.
Verse 11: Doing No Work, but Busybodies
11. For we have heard (ἀκούομεν, that is, we hear) that there are some among you who walk disorderly (in Greek ἀτάκτως, that is, in a disordered, unsettled manner, of which I spoke at verse 6), doing no work, but busybodies. — For since, as Theophylact says from Chrysostom, our mind is mobile (and like a mill that is always turning, and grinds either flour or itself), it is necessary, if it does not undertake fruitful work, that it attempt unfruitful and useless things, and so idly scrutinizes the lives of others, and from this is led to detraction and other trifles.
Hence Cato truly said: "By doing nothing we learn to do evil; and on the contrary, by always acting we learn to act well." Thus the poets relate that Diana preserved perpetual virginity, because she was never idle, and that on the mountains she was always hunting and occupied.
In Greek there is a beautiful paronomasia: μὴ ἐργαζομένους, ἀλλὰ περιεργαζομένους, that is, not acting but bustling. Thus Cicero reports that Domitius Afer, asked why the Lacedaemonians did not destroy their Argive enemies, answered: "They are," he said, "the [trainers] of our youth."
Chrysostom gives the reason in homily 7 on II Corinthians: "Just as," he says, "the earth, not occupied by sowing or planting, will produce any kind of herb: so also the soul, whenever it does not have something to do of necessary things, since it altogether desires to do something, gives itself over to depraved actions. And just as the eye does not cease to see, and on account of this sees evil things, when good ones are not set before it: so also thought, whenever it withdraws itself from necessary things, now busies itself with useless ones: for it is everywhere clear that occupation and solicitude have the power to repel the first attack." Hence St. Anthony heard from God: "Anthony, do you seek to please God? Pray, and when you cannot pray, work with your hands and always do something. As long as David exercised himself in warfare, lust did not assault him; but after he remained idle in his house, he committed adultery, and committed homicide. Samson, while he fought with the Philistines, could not be captured by the enemy; but after he slept in the lap of a woman and idly remained with her, he was soon captured and blinded by enemies. Solomon, while he was occupied in the building of the Temple, did not feel lust; but soon withdrawing from the work, he felt the assault of lust, and worshipped the golden calf."
Finally Chrysostom, in homily 35 on the Acts of the Apostles: "Who," he says, "is more useful, he who lives in delights, or he who exercises himself? What ship, the one that sails, or the one that remains on the shore? What water, that which flows, or that which stands? What iron, that which is moved, or that which no one uses? Does not the former indeed shine, and is similar to silver, while the latter is consumed by rust, and is everywhere useless? Such a thing also happens in an idle soul. For a certain rust seizes it and consumes its splendor and all other things." Then Chrysostom goes on graphically to depict the inertia and shamefulness of the idle man.
Verse 12: That with Silence They Eat Their Own Bread
12. Now we charge (παραγγέλλομεν, that is, we command) those who are such, and beseech them by the Lord Jesus Christ, — that is, through the Lord Jesus Christ. Note: For "we beseech," in Greek it is παρακαλοῦμεν, which first signifies "we exhort"; secondly, "we beseech" or "we adjure." And this fits this place better: for the Apostle mixes prayers with the precept, that they may mitigate the severity of the precept; and lest either the authority of the one commanding or the goodness of the one beseeching be despised, he adds: "In the Lord Jesus Christ."
That working with silence (μετὰ ἡσυχίας, that is, with quietude: thus the Syriac and Vatablus) they eat their own bread (τὸν ἑαυτῶν ἄρτον, that is, their very own bread, not another's). — For it is not fitting, says Theophylact, that they fix their eyes on others' hands, but they should eat their own bread, that is, gained by their own hand and labor.
Again note: Here the Apostle teaches that idle men are curious, garrulous, talkative; that they do not act but bustle: while busy men, as he adds, eat their own bread in silence, and they do many things but speak few, and those weighty. Nazianzen compares the former to swallows, the latter to swans, in the epistle to Celeusius. For when Nazianzen was rebuked by Celeusius for excessive silence, as if naturally taciturn, he answered with this fable wittily: "The swallows," he says, "once mocked the swans because they would not consort with men nor in public, but wished to sing only to themselves around meadows and rivers: on the contrary, Ours, they said, are the cities, and we soothe mortals with our chatter. But the swans, offended by their garrulity, scarcely deemed them worthy of being addressed. When however they were brought to it, they said: But, O illustrious ones, no one will retire into solitude to hear our music: when we have allowed our feathers to be filled by the zephyr, even if not much, yet we modulate something pleasant and harmonious. But you, men disdain even when admitted into their houses, and turn away from your singing, since you are the most loquacious of birds, and could not be silent even with your tongue cut out. Therefore, if you find that my taciturnity also is more excellent than your eloquence," says Nazianzen, "you will cease to disparage our silence."
Cassian treats this place at length in book X, which is on Acedia, chapters VII and following, where in chapter XXIII he says: "A monk who is working is assaulted by one demon, but an idle one truly is laid waste by innumerable spirits." And in chapter XXV, from Abbot Moses he says: "It has been proved by experience that the assault of acedia is not to be fled by declining (for thus it will more sharply invade us), but to be overcome by resisting." It is otherwise in the temptation of lust: for this is to be overcome by fleeing the occasions and enticements.
Verse 13: Be Not Weary in Well Doing
13. And you, brethren, be not weary in well doing. — Up to this point the Apostle has addressed and instructed the idle and restless; now he turns his discourse to the body itself of the Church of the Thessalonians, as if to say: Concerning you, O Thessalonian Christians, I trust and know better things, namely that you, with few exceptions, have exchanged your native disposition and proneness to idleness through the faith and grace of Christ, and that you are no longer idle and restless, but work and do good. Therefore I exhort you to continue thus, and not to grow weary (μὴ ἐκκακήσητε, that is, do not grow sluggish, do not become weary) in well-doing, and in showing charity to all, even to those slothful and idle ones: from whom, although in the following verse and in verse 6, I command you to withdraw yourselves, for their confusion and amendment; nevertheless I do not wish you to allow them to die of hunger, or to be pressed by grave want. So Theophylact.
Verse 14: If Any Man Obey Not Our Word, Note That Man
14. If any man obey not our word by this epistle (namely my admonitions and precepts which I prescribe in this epistle. St. Chrysostom, instead of ἡμῶν, that is, "our," reads ὑμῶν, that is, "your," as if to say: If any man does not obey you when you speak and admonish him about the things I prescribe), note that man (σημειοῦσθε, that is, mark him, as oxen that gore are marked, says Erasmus) and do not keep company with him. — That is, as the Syriac has it, do not converse and have intercourse with him, that he may be put to shame; that is, that seeing himself shunned and neglected by all, he may be ashamed, repent, and be corrected.
Verse 15: Reprove Him as a Brother
15. Reprove him as a brother. — In Greek νουθετεῖτε, that is, admonish, and as it were give back and restore the mind which he has lost; Ambrose reads, "admonish with counsels."
Verse 16: The Lord of Peace Himself Give You Everlasting Peace
16. Now the Lord of peace Himself (God, the source, author, and lover of peace) give you everlasting peace (διὰ παντός, that is, always, perpetually) in every place. — In Greek there is a double reading, the first ἐν παντὶ τρόπῳ, that is, "in every manner," i.e., "peace in every way, in every business," that is, in all opinions, words, and deeds: as Theophylact explains. The latter, ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, that is, "in every place," and thus our translator reads, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and others, and it is more fitting; for he wishes that God may give them peace always and everywhere, that is, in every time and place.
Verse 17: The Salutation, with My Own Hand, of Paul
17. The salutation, with my own hand, of Paul, — as if to say: This salutation, by which I, Paul, salute you, I subscribe with my own hand. The salutation, however, is the prayer which follows, namely: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." The Apostle teaches that our salutations ought to be not bare symbols of friendship, but prayers joined with spiritual gain. So Chrysostom and Theophylact.
Which is the sign (my own) in every epistle: so I write. — As we subscribe "Farewell" to our letters, so the Apostle subscribes:
Verse 18: The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ Be with You All
18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. — For this is found subscribed to all his epistles up to this point. Therefore by this sentence as by a sign he wishes his epistles to be distinguished from the spurious epistles of the pseudo-apostles. So Theodoret. For the relative "which" refers to the word "salutation"; for this is the sign which he places here; and this salutation, as I said, is what follows, "The grace of our Lord Jesus, etc." Secondly, this salutation seems to be the whole hand of Paul, that is, the whole of what Paul subscribed here with his own hand, as if to say: Lest anyone substitute his own letters for mine, as I said some have done in chapter II, verse 2, behold, I subscribe with my own hand, that you may recognize, both from the sentence I have just spoken and from the writing, that the epistle is mine, not adulterated. Perhaps there was also here some character subscribed by Paul, so that he might call this his sign: just as today many trace, by certain whirls which are not easily imitated, what they call a "sign-manual" beneath their letters, so that to those to whom they write it may be evident that the epistle is genuine, not spurious.
Closing Benediction
Grant us, Lord, not to grow weary in doing good; grant everlasting peace; grant Thyself: because Thou art the ETERNITY of peace, of joys, and of all good things. Amen.