In the arrangement of the books of the New Testament, it has become customary to follow the order adopted by Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort, who place the Catholic Epistles before the Pauline. In the Stuttgart edition of the New Testament, however, I have, in accordance with earlier usage, put the Pauline Epistles after the Gospels and Acts. Considering what is said by Hort himself in § 422 of his _Introduction_, and also what we find in No. 6 of Berger’s List of the various arrangements of the books of the New Testament (_Histoire de la Vulgate_, p. 339 f.), it might have been more correct to have put Paul immediately after the Gospels, as in Codex Sinaiticus. But seeing that the Latin and German Bibles at present exhibit the order, Gospels, Acts, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles, and that Meyer’s Commentary is also arranged on this principle, I have retained this arrangement for the sake of uniformity. Here again I must refer the student for matters of detail to larger works, especially to Zahn’s _Einleitung_. A few of the more important passages will be considered in the sequel, but previously something may be said here of the origin and circulation of the collective writings of Paul. 1. Paul, accompanied by Silvanus and Timothy, came from Philippi to Thessalonica on his second missionary journey, somewhere about the year 54, though Harnack puts it as early as 49-50. There he gathered together a church in the short space of three or four weeks, if we may credit the account given in Acts xvii. 2 in this particular. At all events he was not long there. Disturbances similar to those in Philippi arose, which compelled him to leave the city. He came to Athens. In his anxiety over the internal and external circumstances of the newly-founded church at Thessalonica, he sent back Timothy from Athens to confirm those he had left behind. When his messenger returned he wrote to the Thessalonian Church, in all probability not from Athens but from Corinth, where he had gone in the interval of Timothy’s absence. This letter we know as the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. It is uncertain whether the apostle, as in most other cases, dictated the epistle, writing only the salutation and concluding benediction with his own hand (compare 2 Thess. iii. 17: ὁ ἀσπασμὸς τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ Παύλου, ὅ ἐστιν σημεῖον ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολῇ· οὕτως γράφω),[280] or whether he wrote it all himself in large letters, as he did in the case of the Epistle to the Galatians which he wrote πηλίκοις γράμμασι (Gal. vi. 11), either on account of some affection of the eyes or because he was a craftsman and had little practice in writing. The epistle was intended for the entire church at Thessalonica, of which Aristarchus, Secundus, and perhaps also Gaius (see above, on Acts xx. 4), are known to us by name. It was probably addressed to the oldest, or most prominent, or most active member of the Christian community. At the close of the epistle, the writer expressly