NT: Acts 15:1–29
Catechism: the sixth commandment, 2331–400
Lectionary: 1 Thess 4:1–8; Memorial of Saint Augustine
[4:3]
In this section Paul boldly proclaims the will of God for the Thessalonians, describing the way of life that God demands. First, he says that God desires their holiness (hagiasmos), a word that is very uncommon outside of Jewish and Christian literature. In the †Septuagint it refers to the consecration or sanctification of things set aside or purified to serve God (e.g., Amos 2:11; 2 Macc 14:36). In effect, Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they have become sacred vessels, recipients of God’s Holy Spirit who must behave accordingly (1 Cor 6:19). Sanctification was not limited to sexuality for Paul, but in this passage it is defined as abstention from sexual immorality (porneia). Contrary to what the NABRE translation might suggest, the Greek word porneia refers specifically to sexual immorality, not all immorality. In classical Greek, porneia referred to prostitution, but by Paul’s day Jewish writers used it to refer to almost any sexual relationship outside the relationship between a husband and a wife. The specific form of porneia that Paul has in mind here may be adultery (see below on v. 6), though scribes who made copies of the letter in antiquity understood Paul to be condemning every possible type of sexual immorality: from the fourth century on, Paul was quoted as saying “abstain from all fornication.” It is possible that Timothy had informed Paul of specific instances of fornication, possibly of adultery between members of the church.2
LIVING TRADITION
The Universal Call to Holiness
The Second Vatican Council cited 1 Thess 4:3 in support of its teaching that God calls all Christians to holiness, not just smaller groups of spiritual elites:
The Church, whose mystery is being set forth by this Sacred Synod, is believed to be indefectibly holy. Indeed Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is praised as “uniquely holy,” loved the Church as His bride, delivering Himself up for her. He did this that He might sanctify her. He united her to Himself as His own body and brought it to perfection by the gift of the Holy Spirit for God’s glory. Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 39 [italics added])
This passage deserves careful attention because Catholics have sometimes thought that there are two tiers of Christians: those who are called to lives of radical holiness and those who do only the bare minimum. Such a distinction is completely foreign to Paul, who taught that God’s sanctifying Spirit is at work in all the baptized. As St. John Paul II put it while commenting on Jesus’s words to the rich young man (Matt 19:21), “This vocation to perfect love is not restricted to a small group of individuals. The invitation, ‘go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor’, and the promise ‘you will have treasure in heaven,’ are meant for everyone” (Veritatis Splendor [The Splendor of Truth] 18 [italics original]).
[4:4–5]
After describing holiness in negative terms (avoid sexual immorality), Paul offers positive instructions: each of them must learn how to acquire a wife for himself. The phrase “acquire a wife for himself” is notoriously difficult to interpret.3 The word translated as “wife” is skeuos, which means “vessel.” What would it mean for the Thessalonians to learn how to acquire their own vessels? The NABRE interprets “vessel” as a metaphor for a wife. If this is correct, Paul would seem to be telling all the unmarried men to find wives. Though this interpretation was favored by some ancient Greek readers of Paul (St. Basil the Great, Theodore of Mopsuestia), there are serious difficulties with it. There is no clear evidence that the word skeuos was ever used in other Greek literature to refer to wives, despite the claims of some scholars to the contrary. First Peter 3:7 does refer to wives as “the weaker vessel,” but the implication is that husbands are vessels too. A second difficulty with this interpretation is the unlikelihood of Paul telling all the Thessalonians that they must acquire a wife. Paul himself was not married, so it would have been odd to demand that all the Thessalonians, who were to become imitators of him (1 Thess 1:6), must get married (see 1 Cor 7:7–8).4
Another interpretation, one favored by many English translations (NRSV, NIV, CEB, ESV), understands “vessel” as a metaphor for human beings or their bodies. As Theodoret puts it, “Some interpret ‘his own vessel’ as ‘spouse,’ but I think ‘vessel’ means ‘his own body.’ For it is not only to those who have married he offers the legislation.”5 In other words, Paul would be telling all the Thessalonians, married and single, that they must learn to control themselves. Unlike “vessel” as wife, there is good evidence for “vessel” as a metaphor for human beings. Indeed, Paul himself uses skeuos to refer to humans (Rom 9:21–23; 2 Cor 4:7–12). This interpretation has its own weaknesses, however. It is not clear what it would mean to “acquire” one’s own body. Interpreters have taken ktaomai to mean “control,” an interpretation for which there is little clear evidence. While “body” seems much more likely than “wife,” it remains uncertain what it means to “learn to acquire” one’s own body. St. John Chrysostom suggests that Paul said this because controlling one’s body is difficult and requires repeated effort to learn; that is, one must learn to acquire self-control.6 While not free of difficulties, this is perhaps the best explanation we have.
Why did Paul speak of “vessels” instead of stating what he meant more clearly? Skeuos (“vessel”) is used frequently in the †Septuagint to refer to sacred vessels in the tabernacle or the temple, and it is also commonly used as a metaphor for people who are either used by God or used for evil. The metaphor of person as vessel emphasizes the different purposes that a person’s life might have: a holy vessel for God or a profane vessel for ordinary things. For instance, 2 Timothy encourages becoming an honorable, pure, and holy vessel by avoiding sinful desires. The italicized words all have parallels in 1 Thess 4:3–8:
In a large house there are vessels not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use and others for dishonorable use. If anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honorable use, consecrated, useful to the master, ready for every good work. Flee youthful desires and pursue justice, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from purity of heart. (2 Tim 2:20–22 [my translation])
Regardless of one’s opinion about the authorship of 2 Timothy, this passage provides a helpful parallel to 1 Thess 4:4–5. In both cases, the recipients are encouraged to act as holy vessels, pursuing purity and avoiding sinful desires. Paul contrasts the life to which God has called them, which is characterized by growth in holiness, honor, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, with lust, uncleanliness, and estrangement from God. They are to use their body in a way that is holy—that is, as vessels of God’s Holy Spirit, like the sacred vessels used in the temple.
Verse 5 continues the sentence begun in 4:3. As holy vessels, the Thessalonians are to conduct themselves in holiness, not in lustful passion. The word translated as “lustful” (epithymia) could refer to good or bad desires, but here it describes “passion” (pathos) and probably refers to sexual urges. Warnings against passion do not appear in the Old Testament, but they were a common topic of conversation among moral teachers in Paul’s day, especially Stoic philosophers. One of the most influential philosophies of the first century, Stoicism taught that the passions were excessive impulses toward a particular thing that rob one of freedom.7 Stoics taught that lust or desire (epithymia) was one of the four main types of passion, along with fear, pain, and pleasure. Similar warnings against the passions can be found in Paul’s other letters and some early Christian writers.8
Readers today might well wonder what business Paul has telling the Thessalonians to control their passions. Modern people often see sexual urges and other emotions as more or less
unchangeable and uncontrollable features of a person’s makeup. In contrast, many people in Paul’s day thought that passions could be mastered under the correct tutelage. For instance, the noncanonical book 4 Maccabees (first century AD) acknowledges that no one is able to eradicate their passions and desires, but “reason” provides a way not to be enslaved by them (3:2). Some ancient Jews argued that the Torah is the best antidote to the passions.9 Paul taught that knowing God and receiving the Holy Spirit are what empower a person to overcome the passions (see 1 Thess 4:7–8). In his letter to the Galatians he would go on to name enkrateia (“self-control” or “self-mastery”) as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:23; see also Rom 1:26; Col 3:5). Similarly, in this letter Paul is confident that God will provide what is necessary for the Thessalonians to conquer their lusts.
Paul associates lustful passion with the Gentiles who do not know God. It was not uncommon for ancient Jews to link the Gentiles’ false ideas about God with deviant sexual behavior (e.g., Wis 14:12; Rom 1:26). In this letter, Paul characterizes the Gentiles as those who worship idols, give in to their passions, and remain ignorant of the true and living God (1 Thess 1:9; 4:5). The people of Israel, on the other hand, were to be a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). Their holiness was meant to render them fit to commune with God (Num 15:40–41; Ps 51:11). The astonishing thing was that the Gentile Thessalonians had themselves become dwelling places of God’s Spirit and, as such, were called to be “blameless in holiness” (1 Thess 3:13). Yet, as anyone acquainted with ancient philosophy can attest, Jews and Christians were not the only people in the Greco-Roman world who were concerned about sexual ethics. The first-century Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, for instance, condemned all sexual activity outside of marriage, including sex between a man and his own female slaves, which was widely practiced.10
Given the presence of such “ethical pagans,” why would Paul describe non-Jews as those who are controlled by their passions? There are two obvious reasons why Paul would talk this way in a letter to new converts. First, though ethical teaching was popular, acts of what Paul called porneia were widespread. Sex with married women was frowned upon because it trespassed on the honor of the cuckolded husband, but generally speaking, men were not discouraged from occasional sex with prostitutes or slaves. Thus, despite the presence of high-minded teachers like Musonius Rufus, it was not for nothing that the apostles instructed Gentile converts to “abstain from porneia” (see 1 Thess 4:3). Second, by speaking of the “Gentiles who do not know God” as some other mass of people, Paul reinforces the Thessalonians’ sense of belonging to a new group. The Thessalonians were themselves Gentiles who had only recently turned to worship “the living God” (1:9). By speaking of “the Gentiles who do not know God” as some other group of people, Paul reinforces the Thessalonians’ sense of belonging.
[4:6]
Since antiquity some interpreters, especially those who read the text in Latin, have thought that verse 6 marked the beginning of a new topic—namely, honesty in business dealings in the church. The words translated as exploit (pleonekteō) and this matter (pragma) are sometimes used to refer to greed with money. The Douay-Rheims Bible, which is based on the Vulgate, translates the clause as “And that no man overreach, nor circumvent his brother in business.” Other ancient interpreters, such as John Chrysostom and Theodoret, take verse 6 to be a continuation of the discussion of chastity that began in verse 3, and there is good reason to believe that they were correct.11 Verse 6 continues the sentence that began in verse 3 and repeats the language of holiness that pervades this discussion of sexuality. Exploiting a brother probably refers to harming a fellow member of the community by having sex with his wife, daughter, or slave. St. John Chrysostom offers a compelling explanation of why Paul would refer to fornication as the exploitation or robbery of a brother:
God has assigned a wife to each man, and he has set boundaries to nature, namely, that intercourse is with one only. Therefore, transgressing with another is both robbery and “exploitation.” Or rather, it is more grievous than any robbery, for we do not suffer so much when our possessions are carried away as when marriage is undermined.12
In other words, the man who sleeps with another man’s wife exceeds the boundaries that God has set out for him and takes something that is not his. Modern readers can hardly fail to notice that Paul does not warn against defrauding a sister in these matters. The apostle appears to presuppose a patriarchal view of sex and family in which illicit sex with a woman is an offense primarily against the woman’s husband or father. This very passage, however, contains ideas that would be used in the later tradition to begin moving toward the understanding that sexual sins are offenses primarily against the person directly involved and against God (see Reflection and Application on 4:3–8).
Paul stresses the gravity of committing fornication, reminding them that the Lord is an avenger in all these things. Most acts of porneia were legal under Roman law, adultery being the main exception. Nevertheless, those who commit these acts should expect to face divine judgment. The “Lord” who will execute justice is probably Jesus. Kyrios (“Lord”) always refers to Jesus in 1 Thessalonians, and early Christians expected that Jesus “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,” as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed puts it (see, e.g., Acts 10:42; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5). The word translated as “avenger” (ekdikos) refers here to one who ensures that justice (dikē) is done (see also 2 Thess 1:9). The image of Jesus as an avenger who will mete out just punishments on Christians who did not live holy lives is startling and stands in apparent tension with Paul’s claim that the Thessalonian converts are God’s chosen and beloved ones (1 Thess 1:4; 5:9). How could God choose them and then avenge their fornication? These two ideas run throughout Paul’s Letters: God offers grace unconditionally (Rom 5:6–11), but God will also judge everyone according to their deeds (see 2 Cor 5:10; Rom 14:10). The Thessalonians have received the Holy Spirit, but they are expected to live holy lives (1 Thess 4:7). God empowers them to do this (1:6; 3:12–13), yet they must choose to live in holiness.
[4:7–8]
Verse 7 acts as a good summary of this section as a whole. In responding to God’s call, the Thessalonians accepted the obligation to live in a particular way. Paul makes this point using the “not X but Y” form that he relies on so often in this letter: God did not call us to impurity but to holiness. God’s call is a gift, but it also imposes obligations. To respond to the call requires the church to follow the way of life that God reveals. The antithesis between impurity (akatharsia) and holiness (hagiasmos) evokes both the moral and †cultic realms. Morally, holiness describes a way of life ordered by love, and impurity refers to sin, especially sexual sin. These words also have a cultic sense, however; holiness refers to the realm of God, and impurity is what makes a person unfit to have access to God. The two fields of meaning, moral and cultic, are both in play in this passage. It is by living morally upright lives that the Thessalonians maintain their sanctity as recipients of God’s Spirit. To give in to moral impurity would be to reject God’s presence.
Unlike the NABRE, Paul does not use the same preposition in both halves of the antithesis. A better rendering would be “God did not call us to impurity but in holiness” or perhaps “through sanctification.” That is, God’s call has a sanctifying power on their lives. As 2 Thess 2:13 puts it, “God chose you as the firstfruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit” (italics added). God called the Thessalonians by giving the Holy Spirit to them (see commentary on the word of God in 1 Thess 2:13). This is why Paul sees the refusal to embrace sanctification as such a serious problem: it is tantamount to rejecting the Holy Spirit, a point that is reinforced in verse 8. Paul ends the section with another warning, repeating once again that the call to avoid fornication is not merely his personal preference but rather is God’s command. Those who reject this command reject God, who gives his holy Spirit to you.
Reflection and Appl
ication (4:3–8)
In ancient Greece and Rome the social status of a woman determined whether it was moral or legal for a man to have sex with her.13 Men were permitted to have sex with low-status women such as slaves, prostitutes, and courtesans. Such acts of porneia were seen as acceptable outlets for male sexual energy. Even if the man was married, sex with a low-status woman was not considered adultery (moicheia). Men also had complete authority over the bodies of their own slaves, whether male or female. Sex with free, respectable women, however, was considered adultery, in part because sex with them would dishonor their husbands or fathers. In other words, men were given great sexual license, provided the woman in question was low status and therefore sexually available. As Salvian, a fifth-century bishop, famously puts it while complaining about Roman culture, they are forever “forbidding adultery, building brothels.”14 While preaching on 1 Thessalonians, St. John Chrysostom staged a direct attack on all these assumptions, arguing that one’s status before God is what matters, not one’s social or marital status. Chrysostom compares the offense of sex with a list of possible women, descending in order of honor: a queen (basilis), a married slave, an unmarried slave, and a prostitute. The congregation listening to Chrysostom seems to have shared the widespread assumption that sex with a queen would be completely incomparable to sex with a prostitute because of their different levels of respectability. Though he expects the congregation to get angry, Chrysostom cites 1 Thess 4:8 to argue that no matter who the woman is, “the crime is the same” because in every case “you have committed the same crime against God.” Even if one has sex with a prostitute and there is no husband to take offense, “nevertheless God avenges, for he avenges himself.” Unfaithful men are punished “not by Roman laws but by God.” He continues, “Listen carefully to what I say, for even if this message is difficult to bear, it must be said to set things right for the future. It is adultery not only when we corrupt a married woman. Even if the woman is available and free, it is adultery if we men are married. So what if she isn’t married? You are!”15
First and Second Thessalonians Page 11