2 Thessalonians 2:5

D* Ambrst, ετι εμου οντος, for ετι ων.

5. Οὐ μνημονεύετε ὅτι ἔτι ὤν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ταῦτα ἔλεγον ὑμῖν; Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I used to tell you these things? cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23; 1 Corinthians 15:1 f.; Philippians 3:18. With οὐ μνημονεύετε (wrongly rendered in Vulg. “Num retinetis?”—Ambrose, Beza, “Annon meministis?”) cf. in Pauline usage 1 Thessalonians 2:9; Acts 20:31. For ὢν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, see note on 1 Thessalonians 3:4, also 2 Thessalonians 3:1 below. Ἔτι ὣν implies that St Paul had spoken of these matters, as we should expect, toward the end of his ministry, when he had not “as yet” left them; cf. Acts 18:18; John 20:1, &c., for ἔτι. On the probable duration of the mission in Thessalonica, see Introd. p. 20. Ἔλεγον, imperfect, of repeated discourse; cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:4.

The first person singular in this reminder interrupts the plural pervading the Letter, and only appears again in 2 Thessalonians 3:17. St Paul’s self-consciousness comes to the surface. What had been said on this mysterious and awful subject came from the principal writer (see 2 Thessalonians 1:1), who had dealt with it on his own distinct authority; whereas in 1 Thessalonians 3:4 and in 1 Thessalonians 4:15—passages in different ways parallel to this—the communicative plural was used, no such personal distinctiveness of teaching being implied: cf. notes on the singular of 1 Thessalonians 2:18; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 5:27; and Introd. pp. xxxix. f.

The reminder gently reproves the readers, who should not have been so easily disturbed by the alarmists, after what the Apostle had told them; it obviates further explanation in writing on a subject bordering upon politics, the more explicit treatment of which might have exposed the missionaries to a renewal in more dangerous form of the charges that led to their expulsion from Thessalonica: see Acts 16:6 f.; Introd. pp. xxix. f. St Paul’s enemies would be quick to seize on anything calculated to compromise him with the Roman Government.