1 Thessalonians 2:18

“We did crave to reach you,” διότι (= because) not being required with the English stress on did. The whole verse is parenthetical, syntactically. καὶ … Σατανᾶς. The mysterious obstacle, which Paul traced back to the ultimate malice of Satan, may have been either (a) an illness (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7, so Simon, die Psychologie des Apostels Paulus, 63, 64), (b) local troubles, (c) the exigencies of his mission at the time being (Grotius), or (d) a move on the part of the Thessalonian politarchs who may have bound over Jason and other leading Christians to keep the peace by pledging themselves to prevent Paul's return (Ramsay's St. Paul the Traveller, 230 f., Woodhouse, E. Bi [32], 5047, Findlay). Early Christian thought referred all such hindrances to the devil as the opponent of God and of God's cause. The words ἐν Ἀθήναις (1 Thessalonians 3:1) rule out Zimmer's application of (b) to the emergency at Corinth, while the silence of Acts makes any of the other hypotheses quite possible, though (d) hardly fits in with the ordinary view of the Empire in II. 2 Thessalonians 2:2 f. and renders it difficult to see why the Thessalonians did not understand at once how Paul could not return. The choice really lies between (a) and (c). Kabisch (27 29), by a forced exegesis, takes 1 Thessalonians 2:20 as the explanation of this satanic manœuvre. Satan prevented us from coming, in order to rob us of our glory and praise on the last day, by wrecking your Christian faith; he was jealous of our success among you.

[32] Encyclopædia Biblica