JBL 126, no.

3 (2007): 579-593

The Syntax of
in 1 Thessalonians 4:16
DAVID KONSTAN
[email protected]
Brown University, Providence, RI 02912
ILARIA RAMELLI
[email protected]
Catholic University of Milan, 20123 Milan, Italy

In 1 Thess 4:16 we read: ,

, ,
, . The translation in the RSV
runs: "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with
the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in
Christ will risefirst,"etc.1 Our concern in this article is with the final clause: "And
the dead in Christ will rise." Does the Greek mean, "those who are dead in Christ
will rise," as many have taken it, including Jerome in the Latin Vulgate: mortui qui
in Christo sunt resurgent!2 Or is it preferable to take it as meaning, "the dead will

We wish to express our warm thanks to Frederick Brenk, Donald Russell, and Stanley
Stowers for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and for their generous encour
agement; we are grateful also to two anonymous referees for JBL and to James C. VanderKam.
1
Cf. the translation in Karl Staab and Norbert Brox, Cartas a los Tesalonicenses, cartas de la
cautividad y cartas pastorales (Spanish trans, by Florencio Galindo; Barcelona: Herder, 1974), 50:
"... y los muertos en Cristo resucitarn primero." Staab comments: "El estar en Cristo, que para
Pablo constituye el ser mismo de la existencia cristiana, no sufre menoscabo alguno por la muerte
corporal" (pp. 57-58). More tendentious is the version of Ortensio da Spinetoli, in Le lettere di San
Paolo (4th ed.; Milan: Edizioni Paoline, 1988), 75: "e i morti che sono in Cristo risorgeranno per
primi."
2
See James Everett Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul
to the Thessalonians (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912; repr., 1946), 175: "First the resurrection
of the dead saints, and then the rapture of both the risen dead and the survivors
Not 'those
who died in Christ* (1 Cor 15:18), but 'the dead who are in Christ.' As in life and at death so from
death to the Parousia the believer is under the control of the indwelling Christ or Spirit." See also
Traugott Holtz, Der erste Briefan die Thessalonien (EKKNT; Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
579

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

rise in Christ"?3 The choice between the two versions is of considerable importance.
On thefirstinterpretation, only those who have died in Christ will be resurrected,
whereas the second can be taken to signify that all the dead will be resurrected in
Christ4the necessary premise for the thesis of universal salvation or apocatastasis
defended by Origen and other patristic writers, including Gregory of Nyssa.5 In

Neukirchener Verlag, 1986), 201: in 1 Thess 4:16 "die Mglichkeit und Wirklichkeit der Auferstehung ist fr Paulus selbstverstndliche Gegebenheit. Sie wird aber betont auf die Toten cin
Christus' beschrnkt. Die Nherbestimmung wird auf eine geprgte urchristliche Redeweise
zurckgehen, die die Toten als solche ausweist, die zu Christus gehren." In n. 289, Holtz compares
1 Cor 15:8; Rev 4:13; and Eph 4:1, , but the parallels are not exact (see
below). See P. Siber, Christus leben: Eine Studie zur paulinischen Auferstehungshoffnung (ATANT
61; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1971), 57 n. 162.
3
Hung Sik Choi analyzes and classifies the various usages of in Paul ("
in Galatians 5:5-6: Neglected Evidence for the Faithfulness of Christ," JBL 124 [2005]: 467-90, esp.
488 n. 104), noting that in Pauls authentic letters this phrase always refers to the redemptive
sphere, indicating God's saving activity: justification in Christ, reconciliation in Christ, resurrec
tion in Christ, election, blessing, sanctification, forgiving, access to Good, knowledge, life, free
dom, righteousness, sonship, grace, love, all in Christ. This is in line with the interpretation of
1 Thess 4:16 as referring to resurrection in Christ.
4
Stanley Stowers points out that, in this letter, Paul is consoling the Thessalonians because
some of them have died and Christ has not yet returned. Hence, he explains that, at the
resurrection, the living Thessalonians will be rejoined by the dead, and so Paul focuses not on
resurrection in general but rather on the problem at hand. His argument is this: all who have died
in Christ will be saved; therefore, you will be saved, since you all died in Christ. The focus is not
on the distinction between those who did and those who did not die in Christ, but on the salvation
of the entire Thessalonian community. Now, Paul could equally well have consoled the Thessa
lonians by arguing that all who have died will rise in Christ; hence they too will rise in Christusing a general eschatological statement to address a specific case. This is rhetorically forceful: if
all who have died will rise in Christ, then certainly you Thessaloniansgood Christians that you
arewill do so as well. It does not seem to us that the question of which argument Paul chose to
present can be decided on the basis of the context alone, although the context is certainly relevant.
This is why we have elected to focus on the syntax of the phrase, with a view to determining
whether it favors one reading over another. Needless to say, any conclusion drawn must be
compatible with both the text and the context.
5
See, e.g., Ilaria Ramelli, "Nota sulla continuit della dottrina dell apocatastasi in Gregorio
di Nissa: dal De Anima et Resurrectione all'In Illudi Tunc et Ipse Filius? Archaeus 10 (2006): 10545; eadem, "Allegoria ed escatologia: Fuso della retorica nel De anima et resurrectione di Gregorio
di Nissa e il suo rapporto con la tradizione filosofica classica e la dottrina cristiana," in Approches
de la Troisime Sophistique: Hommages Jacques Schamp (ed. E. Amato; Brussels: Latomus, 2006),
193-220; eadem, "Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and
the Biblical and Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis," paper delivered at the
annual meeting of the SBL, Philadelphia, November 20,2005, in the session entitled Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti, and which has now appeared in VC 61, no. 3 (2007): 313-56; eadem,
"La dottrina dell apocatastasi eredit origeniana nel pensiero escatologico del Nisseno," in Gregorio di Nissa: Ihnima e la Resurrezione (Milan: Bompiani, 2007); eadem, " Illud: Tunc et Ipse

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

581

this article, however, we set aside the theological arguments and concentrate
simply on the point of grammar: does the prepositional phrase modify
o , or does it go more naturally with ? For all the potential
significance of the answer to this question, it appears that no one so far has
7
investigated Paul's usage with respect to this specific construction.
We have examined all the occurrences of and in
the NT, numbering eighty-four in all. The expressions are not found in the Gospels
or Acts, but occur almost exclusively in and throughout the Pauline corpus: in
Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon,

Filius...' (ICor 15,27-28): Gregory of Nyssa's Exegesis, Some Derivations from Origen, and Early
Patristic Interpretations Related to Origen's" (seminar paper at the 15th International Conference
on Patristic Studies, Oxford 6-11 August 2007, forthcoming); eadem, Apocatastasi (Milan: Vita e
Pensiero, forthcoming), with rich documentation.
6
Theological arguments concerning the passage assume two forms: first, whether all are to
be resurrected in Christ, or only those who "have died in Christ" (see notes below); second,
determining the meaning of . We do not enter into the latter question here; for
discussion, see Troels Engberg-Pedersen, "Stoicism in the Apostle Paul: A Philosophical Reading,"
in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations (ed. Steven K. Strange and Jack Zupko; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 52-75, esp. 63-67. Engberg-Pedersen states that being "in
Christ" may mean, according to Paul, "a direct bodily participation, in a manner that was probably
to be taken to be quite literally, where we would speak of metaphor." Stanley K. Stowers ("What
Is Pauline Participation in Christ?" in Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities:
Essays in Honor of Edward P. Sanders [ed. Fabian Udoh, Gregory Tatum, and Susanna Heschel;
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming], with bibliography), Alexander
J. M. Wedderburn ("Some Observations on Paul's Use of the Phrases 'In Christ' and 'With Christ?'
/SNT25 [1985]: 83-97), Brenda B. Colijn ("Paul's Use of the 'In Christ' Formula," /23 [1991]:
9-26), and Lars Hartman (Into the Name of the Lord Jesus: Baptism in the Early Church [Edin
burgh: T&T Clark, 1997], 37-50) all tend to interpret in Paul in a baptismal sense.
7
On the Pauline credentials of the Letters to the Thessalonians (the second is commonly
considered deutero-Pauline), see Bonnie Thurston, Reading Colossians, Ephesians, and 2 Thessa
lonians: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Reading the New Testament; New York:
Crossroad, 1995); Earl J. Richard, First and Second Thessalonians (SP 11; Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 1995); Abraham Smith, Comfort One Another: Reconstructing the Rhetoric and
Audience of I Thessalonians (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 1995); Beverly Roberts Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians (Interpretation;
Louisville: John Knox, 1998); Steve Walton, Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the
Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians (SNTSMS 108; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2000); Gene L. Green, The Letter to the Thessalonians (Pillar New Testament Commentary;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Colin R. Nicholl, From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica: Situating
1 and 2 Thessalonians (SNTSMS 126; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
L. Michael White argues that this is the earliest of Paul's letters (From Jesus to Christianity: How
Four Generations of Visionaries and Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith
[San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004], 173-76). For further bibliography, see Stanley E. Porter
and Jeffrey A. D. Weima, An Annotated Bibliography of I and 2 Thessalonians (NTTS 26; Leiden:
Brill, 1998).

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

8

Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, to which we may add

three instances in 1 Peter. In our view, the majority of occurrences favorand none
is incompatible withtaking the phrase in 1 Thess 4:16 with the following verb,
that is, that the dead will rise in Christ. This is, indeed, the normal construction
with a prepositional phrase preceding a verb. As it happens, there are two examples
in the following verse (4:17): oi

* , where the RSV renders: "then
we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord1 (the translations
that follow are based on the RSV, sometimes modified for greater literalness). The
balanced clauses perhaps support taking with the verb as well.
To be sure, the phrase modifies a preceding substantive, and more
particularly the subject of the sentence, in letters that are attributed with certainty
to Paul, but in these cases the article is invariably repeated before the phrase, for
example, Rom 3:24: ; 8:39:
; 1 Cor 1:4:

Wayne . Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald place 1 Thessalonians among "The Undoubted
Letters of St. Paul" and 2 Thessalonians among "The Works of the Pauline School" (The Writings
of St Paul: A Norton Critical Edition [2nd ed.; New York: Norton, 2007], 3-9,101-5). Abraham
J. Malherbe considers both letters authentically Pauline (The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 32B; New York: Doubleday, 2000]) ; the first,
written by Paul four months after he left Thessalonica, is "essentially a pastoral letter" (p. 78).
Malherbe makes good use of patristic interpretations of the letter to show its paraenetic intent
(p. 86), looking especially, in respect to the passage under discussion, to John Chrysostom, who
understands the passage as referring to all the dead; see Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John
Chrysostom (Early Church Fathers; London: Routledge, 2000), 41-52. For 1 Thessalonians as a
consolatory letter, see Matthias Konradt, Gericht und Gemeinde: Eine Studie zur Bedeutung und
Funktion von Gerichtsaussagen im Rahmen der Paulinischen Ekklesiologie und Ethik im 1 Thess
und 1 Kor (BZNW 117; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2003); Konradt defines 1 Thessalonians as
2iparakletischerBrief(p. 38) and reads it in tandem with 1 Corinthians on the issue of resurrection
and eschatology (see esp. p. 181). On Pauls complex eschatology, see also N. T. Wright, Paul: In
Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), part 1, ch. 3: "Messiah and Apocalyptic"; and Joost
Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia: A Traditio-Historical Study of Pauls Eschatology in 1 Corin
thians 15 (NovTSup 84; Leiden: Brill, 1996), who argues for a three-phase process in 1 Cor 15:2023, beginning with Jesus' resurrection and concluding with his parousia (Holleman also notes the
different perspectives Paul adopts in his various letters). See also Joseph Plevnik, "The Taking Up
of the Faithful and the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Thess 4:13-18," CBQ 46 (1984): 274-83;
Ben F. Meyer, "Did Paul's View of the Resurrection of the Dead Undergo Development?" TS 47
(1986): 363-87; idem, "Paul and the Resurrection of the Dead," TS 48 (1987): 157-58. Richard N.
Longenecker offers a history of scholarship on the development of Paul's thinking on the resur
rection of the dead ("Is there Development in Paul's Resurrection Thought?" in Life in the Face of
Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament [ed. Richard N. Longenecker; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 171-202).

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

583

; 1 Cor 4:17: ; Gal 1:22:

; 1 Tim 1:14:
(cf. 2 Tim 1:13: );
3:13: ; 2 Tim 1:1: ; 2:1:
; 2:10: ; 3:15:
9
. Analogous to this use is that of the article alone with
the prepositional phrase (as in the classical construction oi , etc.) in Rom 8:1
, which is equivalent in sense to
; the two constructions are combined in Phil 1:1:
. Of course, one cannot
repeat the article where it does not occur and is not even implicit, as in the case of
an indefinite noun, for example, Rom 6:23:
, "the gift of God is life 10 in Christ," where in the predicate
position does not take the article. The absence of a following verb leaves the
attribution of unambiguous; cf. 2 Cor 12:2:
. . . , "I know a man who was caught up in Christ to the third
heaven."11
In some cases, there is an understood form of the verb "to be" that attaches the
formula to the subject, for example, 2 Cor 5:17: ,
("if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation"); Phil 2:1:
, "if there is any encouragement in Christ"; 1 Cor 16:24:
, "my love be [oris] in Christ with
you all." In other cases, the expression "is X in Christ" is used predicatively, for
example, 1 Cor 4:10: ,
, "we are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ"; Eph 3:21:
9
Malherbe notes the absence of the repeated article, but he nevertheless does not associate
the phrase with the following verb: "'the dead in Christ' describes the dead in their relation to
Christ (cf. 1 Cor 15:23) and does not refer to an immediate state in which they found themselves,
as though the text read hoi nekroi hoi en Khristoi, the dead who are in Christ. The phrase is equiv
alent to 'those who have fallen asleep in Christ* (1 Cor 15:18) and 'the dead who die in the Lord'
(Rev 14:13). Death does not sever their relation with Christ (cf. Rom 8:31-39). Nor is it in con
ception the same as the 'first resurrection* of the souls of the martyrs of Rev 20: 4-5 . . . Paul's
interest is in Christians, and speculation in the fate of non-Christians is misplaced. Paul is offer
ing encouragement, not a comprehensive eschatological treatise" (Letters to the Thessalonians,
275). So too, Ernest Best notes the difference between our passage and the expression,
(A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians [HNTC; New
York: Harper & Row, 1972], 197).
10
For the meanings of as different from , see Ilaria Ramelli and David
Konstan, Terms for Eternity: Ainios and adios in Classical and Christian Texts (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias Press, 2007).
11
Otto Kuss translates: "S de un hombre en Cristo . . . , " taking the prepositional phrase
directly with the noun (Carta a los Romanos, cartas a los Corintios, carta a los Glatas [Spanish
trans, by Claudio Gancho; Barcelona: Herder, 1976]).

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

, "to him be the glory in the church and

in Christ"; Col 1:2: ,
, "to the saints and
faithful brethren at Colossae: Grace be to you in Christ and peace from God our
12
father"; 1 Thess 5:18: , "this is the will of
God in Christ."
Sometimes the expression modifies a substantive or adjective that
has verbal force, for example, in connection with terms for belief: Gal 3:26:
("for you are all sons
of God through faith in Christ Jesus"), where the phrase perhaps depends on
, 13 which is construed like the verb ; but is perhaps
more likely to be predicative and to depend on the verb : thus, the RSV
renders: "for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith".14 Another
12

The parallelism between grace in Christ and peace from God favors this interpretation
over that of the RSV: "to the saints and faithful brethren who are in Christ at Colossae: Grace to
you and peace from God our Father." Cf. also 1 Thess 1:1:
; and 2 Thess 1:1-2.
13
Choi argues forcefully, and perhaps rightly, that in Paul means "Christ's
faithfulness" rather than "faith in Christ"; he provides an extensive review of previous scholarship
(" in Galatians 5:5-6"). In particular, he interprets Gal 3:26
not as "You are children of God through faith in Christ," but "you are children of God in
Christ, through faith," that is, Christ's faithfulness (p. 477). But while the genitive "of Christ" may
be objective ("faith in Christ") or subjective ("Christ's faith"), the phrase
appears to signify rather "faith in Christ." We offer a few illustrations: Sophocles, Trachiniae 588:
' ; Polybius 7.14.2; 18.35.3:
; Diodorus Siculus 1.79.2 (= Hecataeus of Abdera frag. 25 FGH):
, "having placed his entire trust in nobility" (though
the verb may govern the preposition); Philo Judaeus, De cherubim 85:
; Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae reipublicae 805B: ; Origen,
Contra Celsum 1.62 ; and Paul's own
example in Rom 3:25: . Pistis in the non-Christian
authors generally means "trust" rather than "faith" in the Christian sense, but the syntactic
structure is the same, unless "faith in Christ" bears the special sense of "the faith that is in Christ."
We do not reject this interpretation out of hand, but simply note that, if it is correct, it does not
affect our argument concerning 1 Thess 4:16. See also Ilaria Ramelli, "Alcune osservazioni su
credere," Maia n.s. 51 (2000): 67-83; Studi su Fides (pref. by Sabino Perea Ybenes; GraecoRomanae Religionis Electa Collectio 11; Madrid: Signifer Libros, 2002). We note in this
connection that a good number of important testimonia read
instead of ; the former include Mss 1739,917,206s, the Syriac version called Peshitta, Ephraem the Syrian, the Sahidic Coptic version, and even the thirdcentury papyrus p46, which reads (cf. the critical apparatus in Andreas
Merk and Giuseppe Barbaglio, eds., Nuovo Testamento greco e italiano [Bologna: Dehoniane,
1990], 626).
14
Kuss translates: "Todos, en efecto, sois hijos de Dios mediante la fe en Cristo Jess" (Carta
a los Romanos, 425). Cf. Marcello Buscemi, Lettere ai Galati: commentario esegetico (Jerusalem:

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

585

ambiguous instance is Eph 1:1: . . . [ ]

; if "in Ephesus" is deleted, in accord with
important manuscripts and witnesses, the case for the predicative use is still
stronger; so the RSV: "to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus." Again, in
Eph 3:6: . . . , "partakers
of the promise in Christ" = "who partake of...," unless we take thefinalphrase to
depend on the verb "to be."
Dependency on the verbal noun is more likely in Col 1:4,
, "we have heard of your faith in Christ." Romans 16:3,
9-10 is perhaps analogous: ,
. . .
. . . , , "Greet Prisca
and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ... greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in
Christ . . . ; greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ": the sense is, "who has
collaborated with me in Christ, who has been approved in Christ,"15 although it is
possible to understand with and , or even to take the
phrase with the verb : "Greet in Christ...," etc. (see below). Cf. Phlm
23: ; 1 Cor 3:1:
, ' ,
, where again it may be possible to take even
though it appears at the end of the clausedirectly with the preceding verb.16 As

Franciscan Printing Press, 2005), 351: "forse meglio qui unire con ed
esprimere un senso pregnante: 'siamo figli di Dio "per mezzo di Cristo" e soppratutto "in unione
a Cristo Ges."'" Buscemi has a good discussion of the textual variants here, some of which give
the genitive . Contra Joseph B. Lightfoot, Saint Pauls Epistle to the Galatians
(10th ed.; London: MacMillan, 1890), 149, ad : "The context shows that these
words must be separated from . They are thrown to the end of the sentence so
as to form in a manner a distinct proposition, on which the Apostle enlarges in the following
verses: 'You are sons by your union with, your existence in Christ Jesus'" Cf. Hans Dieter Betz,
Galatians: A Commentary on Pauls Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1979), 186: "Two formulas state the conditions for this adoption: 'through [the] faith* (
) and through incorporation in the 'body of Christ,' i.e. 'in Christ Jesus."' These latter
interpretations seem tendentious, at least in light of the apparent structure of the sentence. See,
most recently, Michael E Hull, Baptism on Account of the Dead (1 Cor 15:29): An Act of Faith in
the Resurrection (SBL Academia Biblica 22; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 244-47,
for discussion of this passage in connection with baptism.
15
Cf. C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
(ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), 785: " clearly serves to indicate that it is
in relation to Christ and in the work of the gospel rather than in any other sphere or matter that
they are Paul's fellow-workers." Kuss translates: "mis colaboradores en Cristo Jess" (Carta a los
Romanos, 167).
16
Paul notes, in the preceding verse (2:16), that "we have the mind of Christ"; here he
indicates that, nevertheless, he cannot speak to the Corinthians as though they were already

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

we shall see, this phrase often occurs at the end of a colon but nevertheless depends
on the main verb even when the latter comes much earlier in the sentence. We
stress, however, that the construction of the phrase with verbal nouns or adjectives
is rare and limited to a few words. Had Paul written oi
instead of , the case would
have been rather less ambiguous, although even so, to be perfectly clear, he would
have to have said oi or
.17
Indeed, in the great majority of cases, the phrase modifies the
main verb or participial forms of the verb. In the simplest form, the verb is "to be,"
for example, Rom 16:7: ; 1 Cor 1:30:
; Gal 3:14: '
; Gal 3:28: ,
, ' ;
1 Thess 2:14: , ,
; Phil 2:5:
, supplying "is* or perhaps "you have" (so RSV). We may compare the
use with intransitive verbs, for example, 1 Cor 15:19:
, "we have hoped in Christ"; Phil 3:3: ,
"glorying in Christ"; Phil 1:26: ; Rom
6:11: [] ,
, " .. alive to God in Christ"; 2 Tim 3:12: oi
, "live in Christ Jesus"; Gal 5:6:
("avail");
Phil 3:14: ,
"I press o n . . . in Christ" (although it is possible to understand thefinalphrase as
depending on , "the calling upon God in Christ," where the noun has a
verbal force). Analogous is the construction with passive forms, as in Gal 2:17:
, "to be justified in Christ."18

spiritual Christians, but as still carnal and indeed infants. He may be qualifying this disparaging
description by allowing that they are, at all events, "infants in Christ," that is, Christians, even if
raw beginners; but if the prepositional phrase in fact depends on the sense may be "infants
in respect to Christ," that is, practically ignorant of him.
17
We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for calling our attention to this
question.
18
So too 1 Cor 1:2: ,
, "... sanctified in Christ"; Eph 2:10: ,
; 2 Tim 1:9: , "...
granted . . . in Christ"; Eph 1:10: ,
("be summed up"); 2 Cor 3:14: . . .
. . . ; Eph 2:7:

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

587

Related to the preceding is the predicative use with "to be," as in Rom 12:5:
; Phil 1:13:
; Eph 2:13:
. Similar to this, in turn, is the predicative use with other verbs,
for example, "to have": Rom 15:17: ' , "I have pride
in Christ" (contrast RSV: "in Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud"); 1 Cor
15:31: , ; Gal 2:4:
(RSV: "our freedom which we have in Christ");
Phlm 8: ; 1 Cor 4:15:
. . .
, with the verb "to give birth to" in the latter clause. Several
19
other verbs are employed this way as well.
A subset of the above constructions involves verbs of saying, for example, Rom
9:1: , "I speak the truth in Christ"; 2 Cor 2:17:
; Eph 1:3: (=
, "who blessed")
(this is an example of the phrase at the end

' , "so that he might show the wealth of His grace in his kindness
toward us in Christ."
19
See Eph 1:19-20: . . .
; Eph 3:11: ; 2 Cor 2:14:
, (= ,
"who will cause us to triumph"); Eph 2:6:
("caused us to sit"); Col 1:28:
("that we may present every man mature in Christ," although the final phrase may also be
understood as depending on the adjective , "perfect in Christ"); Phlm 20:
, "refresh my heart in Christ"; Rom 8:2:

, "for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law
of sin and death" (contrast the RSV: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me
[alternate reading] free from the law of sin and death," in which case one would expect |
); Phil 4:7: . . . ...
, "will keep in Christ"; Phil 4:19:
. . . , "will supply... in Christ" (contrast RSV: "will supply every need of yours
according to his riches in Christ Jesus"; Elio Peretto, in Le lettere di San Paolo, 389, translates: "Il
mio Dio soddisfer ogni nostro bisogno in perfezione della sua ricchezza, in Cristo Ges," separating via punctuation thefinalphrase from the verb on which we take it to depend); Eph 4:32:
, which signifies not "as God in Christ forgave you" (RSV) but
rather "God has forgiven you in Christ," that is, thanks to Christ (in accord with the broad sense
of influenced by the usage of the preposition b in Hebrew and Aramaic); 2 Cor 5:19:
, where the sense is not so much "God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself" (RSV) or "In Christ God was..." etc. (so the note in the Oxford
Annotated Bible) as "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" (Pietro Rossano, in Le
lettere di San Paolo, 204, renders: " stato Dio, infatti, a riconciliare con s il mondo in Cristo").

588

Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

of a clause and depending on a verb that comes considerably earlier in the

sentence); 2 Cor 12:19: ; Phil 4:21:
, "greet in Christ" (see further below).
The three occurrences of the expression in 1 Peter are in accord with Pauline
usage. In 1 Pet 3:16 the phrase is enclosed between the article and the
substantive and thus refers to the latter in accord with regular Greek usage:
. In 1 Pet 5:10 the phrase depends on a
participle: ,
while in 1 Pet 5:14 the article functions as in the construction (cf. Rom 8:1,
cited above): , "to all you who are in Christ."
The syntax of the phrase is analogous to that of ; the
expression occurs forty-eight times in the NTforty-seven times in the Pauline
corpus and once in the Apocalypse. Indeed, the dependence of the phrase on a
verbalmost always expressed, though occasionally implicitis even more evident
here than in the case of . We present the passages in more or less the
same order as those involving the phrase above. Thus, with the verb
"to be" we have Rom 16:11:
; with "to be" implicit, 1 Cor 11:11:
. With intransitive or passive verbs, we note Eph
6:10: ; Eph 2:21: . . .
; Phil 3:1: ; Phil 4:4: ; Phil
4:10: ; Phil 4:1: , "stand firm in
the Lord"; 1 Thess 3:8: ; Col 3:18:
, "as is fitting in the Lord" (RSV); Phlm 20:
("benefit in the Lord"). See also Rom 14:14: ; Phil 1:14:
; Phil 2:24: (cf. 2 Thess 3:4:
' ; Gal 5:10:
); Phil 2:19: ; 1 Cor 1:31
(= 2 Cor 10:17): ; 1 Cor 7:39:
, ("she is free to marry whomever she
wants, only in the Lord"); 2 Cor 2:12: , "a door
was opened to me in the Lord." In the predicate position with "to be," see 1 Cor
15:58: ; 1 Cor 4:17: ,
(the construction may also
depend on the verbal force of the adjective , "is faithful in the Lord," in
accord with the formula + ); Eph 6:21:
, (cf.
Col 4:7: ,
); 1 Cor 9:1:
("you are my workmanship in the Lord"); 1 Cor 9:2:
; Eph 5:8: ,
; Col 3:20: . With a transitive verb:

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

589

Col 4:17: ; Phlm 1:16:

. . .
; Rom 16:2: ; Phil 2:29:
; 1 Thess 5:12:
20
.
The only non-Pauline occurrence of the phrase is in Rev 14:13, and it, like the
passage in 1 Thessalonians, concerns those who are dead in Christ. To indicate the
dead, however, John does not use the bare expression oi but
rather repeats the article before the prepositional phrase, and in addition encloses
the phrase between the article and a participle, so that its syntactical structure and
meaning are unequivocal:
' . . . . We have here, then, a
construction quite different from that in 1 Thessalonians, which indeed suggests
what Paul would have written if he had meant to say "those who are dead"or
rather, who have died (the phrase depends on the participle)"in Christ."
The phrases and seem, then, to be regularly attached
to a verb, a participle, or an adjective with verbal force (this last very rarely,
however). If they do modify a substantive, they are either clearly enclosed in a
nominal phrase, as may occur also with a participle (1 Cor 7:22:
), or else they are preceded by a repetition of the article.
Let us,finally,compare our passage in 1 Thessalonians, ol
, and 1 Cor 15:18: , where
20
For dependency on a verb of saying or greeting, see Eph 4:17:
; Rom 16:8: ;
Rom 16:12-13: , ,
, ,
', ; 1 Cor 16:19:
; Rom 16:22:
(here it is apparent that in greetings, the expression , like , tends to
come at the end of the clause or sentence, even when the verb on which it depends, ,
occurs at the beginning: Tertius means "I greet you in the Lord," not "I who have transcribed this
letter [of Paul's] in the Lord"; we take it, then, that in the analogous greetings with the
phrase refers also to the verb ). Analogous, it appears, is Eph 4:1:
, "I, a prisoner, beg you in the
Lord" (contrast the RSV: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you...," which perhaps cannot
be excluded); cf. Phil 4:2: , "I entreat... to agree in the
Lord" (RSV). Still more clearly dependent on the verb is 1 Thess 4:1:
; 2 Thess 3:12: ; see also Eph 6:1:
, , where the idea is "obey in the Lord" rather
than "parents in the Lord" (although the phrase is missing from some manuscripts
and testimonies); Staab (in Staab and Brox, Cartas a los Tesalonicenses, 231) translates "obedeced
en el Seor a vuestros padres." Norbert Huged compares here with in
Col 3:18: , ,
(Vptre auxphsiens [Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1973], 224).

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

it would seem impossible to render "those who have fallen asleep have perished in
Christ" (contrast the RSV: "those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have
perished"), even if Paul is here arguing by way of a reductio ad absurdum: if Christ
has not risen, the dead will not rise in Christ, but rather have perished. However,
even if we understand "those who have fallen asleep in Christ," the case is rather
different from the phrase oi , since here
depends on the participle =
, whereas the parallel interpretation of oi would have
it depending on a substantive.21 It is important to note that in the verse immediately
following (v. 19), and again in v. 22, the phrase () is employed in
the regular manner to modify the verb rather than the substantive. Thus, in 1 Cor
15:19, | ,
does not mean "if in this life in Christ...," etc., but
rather "if we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be
pitied." Above all, 1 Cor 15:22 is important both for the grammar of the phrase
under consideration and for the theological side of the issue, since there it is said,
"for just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ all will rise,"
, .
The position of and the parallelism between the two clauses guarantee the
close connection of both the prepositional phrase and the pronoun with the
following verb: "all will rise in Christ." Had Paul wished to say "all those who are in
Christ will rise," he would have to have written oi
or the like.22
So too, if Paul had wished to say "the dead in Christ will rise" or "those will rise
who have died in Christ," he would have to have written oi
, or else oi oi , which would
have been unequivocal. As the sentence stands, however, oi
, it would seem far more natural to take it to mean "the dead will
21

Kuss translates: "tambin los que durmieron en Cristo estn perdidos" (Carta a los
Romanos, 289).
22
Kuss translates: " . . . as tambin en Cristo sern todos vueltos a la vida" (Carta a los
Romanos, 289), which is ambiguous enough, but he comments: "mientras en Cristo todos los
creyentes alcanzan la plena revelacin de la vida eterna" (p. 292). There is nothing in the Greek
corresponding to "los creyentes." So too Vincenzo Jacone remarks: "Trattandosi della vita gloriosa
non si pu prendere tutti se non nel senso di quelli che avranno unione con Cristo Ges, e S.
Paolo lo suggerisce perch, mentre usa il nel v. 21, ha nel nostro: i grammatici lo dicono
mistico
Dato il contesto ben diffcile spiegare le parole dell'Apostolo per la risurrezione
generale
Si pu affermare che la risurrezione degli empi non esclusa, ma qui non intesa"
(Le epistole di S. Paolo ai Romani, ai Corinti e ai Galati [Rome: Marietti, 1951], 391). In contrast,
see Pietro Rossano, trans., in Le lettere di San Paolo, 176, who translates "cos tutti saranno vivificati
in Cristo," and comments on the interpretation of "all" as "all believers": "Ma che sia implicita
nella sua mente [se. di Paolo] la risurrezione di tutti gli uomini non ve motivo di metterlo in
dubbio." See also n. 24 below.

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

591

rise in Christ," all the more so when compared with the formula in 1 Cor 15:22,
which is certainly by Paul himself, where it is not those who are dead in Christ
whatever that might meanbut all people who will rise in Christ, inasmuch as
Christ is precisely the resurrection (see John 11:25,
).
Although our argument depends first and foremost on an analysis of Paul's
own usage in respect to the prepositional phrases and and
that of other NT writers, it is of interest to note that at least some of the early
Christian exegetes of the NT took the phrase in the way we have indicated. To be
sure, this interpretation, like the opposite one of taking with ,
will have been motivated by theological considerations and so cannot be considered
as independent evidence for the grammatical construction. Nevertheless, it does
show that speakers of ancient Greek who lived relatively near to the time when the
NT texts were written found nothing strange in reading the phrase in the manner
we suggest.
Perhaps the clearest evidence is a passage in John Chrysostom (Homily 8, On
the First Letter to the Thessalonians [PG 62.-439A], who cites the precise words in
4:16 (oi ) and then comments (440A): oi
, , , where the insertion of leaves
little doubt that he took with (cf. 439D, where John
comments: , oi ("for he says that the dead will
rise"; and again, oi ). It is relevant that John maintains
here that all who have lived since Adam will rise again (441A):

("that all the descendants of Adam up until his [Jesus']
appearance will rise then, together with their wives and children"). Again, Cyril of
Alexandria leaves no doubt about how he understood the syntax of this passage,
since he alters the word order in such a way as to make "in Christ" depend
unequivocally on the verb (Commenary on Luke [from the Catenae] PG 72:824A):
' , ("with the archangel's
call and with the trumpet of God he will descend from heaven; for he will sound
the trumpet, and the dead will awaken in Christ"). He interprets 1 Thess 4:16 as a
command uttered to all (Catechism for Those Who Are to Be Baptized 15.21):
'
. So too, in the
Commentary on John, he cites 1 Thess 4:16 in reference to "the time of the
resurrection of all" ( ); 23 cf. On the

23
P. E. Pusey, Sancii patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini in D. Joannis evangelium
(3 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1872; repr., 1965), here 1:348.2.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 3 (2007)

Adoration (PG 68:1105), where Cyril remarks of oi :

"because we all [] must appear before the judgment of Christ" (see also
Maximus Confessor, Scholia to Ecclesiastes 12.39-45). We may compare also two
Greek fragments of Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses (second century), which
paraphrase 1 Thess 4:16:
("announcing the resurrection of the dead in Jesus"; frag. 15,frombook 3), and, less
directly, . . . ( )
("God . . . raised [Jesus] and in him gave salvation to human
beings"; frag. 16). Irenaeus clearly understood Paul to mean that the dead will rise
in Christ, rather than that those who have died in Christ will rise.
In other cases, it is clear that a given commentator takes 1 Thess 4:16 to refer
to the resurrection of all, even though in citing the passage he, like Cyril in the
words quoted above, may omit the phrase . Thus, Gregory of Nyssa (De
opificio hominis 221.23) observes: , , , ,
("just as, at the reconstitution of the universe, says the
apostle, the Lord himself will descend with a command, with the archangel's call,
and with the sound of the trumpet will raise the dead to immortality"; cf. De anima
136C). It is clear at least that Gregory does not understand the expression oi
as limiting the number of those who will be resurrected to those who
have "died in Christ." So too Didymus the Blind, Fragments from the Commentary
on the Psalms, frag. 1289, cites 1 Thess 4:16 and remarks:

("as the command of the resurrection will be made apparent to all
when the just and the unjust shall rise again"). Many other commentators simply
cite or allude to the passage we are discussing without the phrase .24
24

We note here Epiphanius, Panarion 2.306.19 ( , , '

); John of Damascus, Life ofBarlaam andjoasaph 108:
; Dialogue of Adamantius on the Correct Faith
in God 48.23-24: , '
, ; Cyril, Fragments from the Commentary on 1 Corin
thians (Pusey, 3:249-318, here 317.8):
' ; and cf. Macarius Macr.,
Consolation to his Friend John 332.6: (. Sidras, "25
Unedierte byzantinische Grabreden," 5. Thessalonica: ","
1990:311-36); Theodoret of Cyrus, Exegesis of Daniel (PG 81:1425):
; idem, Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (PG 82:648.34,648.50); Ephrem the Syrian, On
Repentance V, p. 78,9 (ed. Phrantzoles); Catenae on the New Testament, Catena on 1 Cor 332.19;
Catena on 2 Corby Ps. Oecumenius, from cod. Paris. Gr. 223,337.31: ,
, , ! ; cf. Olympiodorus Diaconus
Commentary on Job 132.15. They too appear not to take as defining the nature of the
dead who are to rise again.

Konstan and Rametti: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

593

Most interestingly, those who clearly understood "in Christ" to refer to o

invariably felt obliged to rephrase the citation. Thus, Porphyry, Against the
Christians frag. 35, repeats the definite article:
'
("with the archangel's call and with the trumpet of God he will
descend from heaven and the dead, those in Christ, will rise"). And Origen, who
defended the thesis of universal salvation, oddly enough took the passage in this
way as well and placed the problematic phrase between the article and the
substantive (Contra Celsum 5.17): . Origen, however,
had a particular intepretation of "the dead." See his Commentary on John XX
26.227-45, according to which the dead in Christ are those who believed and
attempted to lead a virtuous life, whereas the living are those who are perfect and
no longer sin (note also Methodius of Olympus, Symposium or. 6.4, for the idea
that the dead who will arise are the bodies, while the living are the souls).
Thus, the testimony of the Fathers seems to lend strong support to the case for
taking the phrase in 1 Thess 4:16 with the following verb rather than
with the preceding noun.
In conclusion, we adduce one more passage, this one from 1 Thessalonians
itself. Just prior to the verse from which we began our discussion (4:14), Paul writes:
,
. The RSV renders this: "For
since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will
bring with him those who have fallen asleep." This is surely right. Paul does not
mean that those who have fallen asleep have done so through Jesus, but rather that
God will resurrect them through or thanks to Jesus. To be sure, there is a difference
between and ,25 but both the parallel syntax26 and the
drift of the argument would seem to favor taking here and
in 4:16 with the verb.
25

But not necesssarily as wide as in classical Greek; see M. Zervick, Graecitas Biblica Novi
Testamenti (5th ed.; Rome: Pontifcio Istituto Biblico, 1966) 116-21, esp. 119, for the wide
range of meanings of the preposition in the NT, in part through the influence of the Hebrew
preposition b, which often has an instrumental value. Indeed, in 1 Cor 15:22, the passage that has
the closest bearing on 1 Thess 4:16, Marcion has in place of the more common
; cf. the critical apparatus in Merk and Barbaglio, Nuovo Testamento, 585.
26
Repetition with variation is an extremely common feature throughout the Bible.

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