Chapter 6

Book Overview - 1 Timothy

by John Dummelow

Introduction

1. Authenticity. The First Epistle to Timothy is the first letter of the group called the Pastoral Epistles. Until the beginning of the 19th cent. no doubt was ever expressed as to the Epistle being written by St. Paul, except by the Gnostics; who, as is stated by Tertullian ('Adv. Marc,' v. 21), Clement of Alexandria ('Strom,' ii, 11), and Jerome ('Prol, ad Titum'), rejected all the Pastoral Epistles simply because the teaching contained in them was opposed to their peculiar doctrines. The external evidence, therefore, may be regarded as perfectly satisfactory, passages being quoted from it or alluded to by Clement of Rome, Hegesippus, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and the Pauline authorship directly declared by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, and accepted without demur till a hundred years ago, when T. E. chapter Schmid for the first time (1804), followed by Schleiermacher (1807), Eichhorn (1812), De Witte (1826), Baur (1835), denied its genuineness, arguing entirely from internal evidence.

The internal evidence to which the opponents of the authenticity of the Epistles have appealed is the character of the heresies controverted in them, which, they say, were of a later date than St. Paul, and the use of a number of words and phrases not employed by St. Paul in his other Epistles. The answer to these objections is that the writers in question are mistaken in identifying the heresies denounced by St. Paul with the full-grown Gnostic system of the 2nd cent.; and that it is natural that a man writing a letter or letters many years after his earlier letters, and on a different subject, should use words which do not occur in those earlier letters.

2. Reader. Timothy, or Timotheus. Timothy was possibly converted to Christianity by St, Paul in his First Missionary Journey, when he visited Lystra, 47 a.d. He was the son of a Jewess named Eunice (Acts 16:1; 2 Timothy 1:5), who was married to a Greek husband, and was herself also a convert to Christianity together with her mother Lois. We first hear of him at Lystra on St. Paul's Second Missionary Journey, when he is described as already a disciple (Acts 16:1). St. Paul took him as his companion from Lystra as far as Berœa, where he remained with Silas for a short time after St. Paul's departure (Acts 17:14), and later on rejoined the Apostle at Corinth (Acts 18:5). It is probable that he accompanied St. Paul on his return journey as far as Ephesus, where we find him 'ministering' to St. Paul in his Third Missionary Journey, 55 a.d. From thence he was sent forward by St. Paul to Macedonia (Acts 19:22), where the Apostle joined him shortly afterwards; and he was one of those who accompanied his master on his last visit to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4). Later he was with St. Paul in Rome during his imprisonment, and is associated with him in the Epistles to the Colossians and Philippians. According to this Epistle, St. Paul seems to have paid another visit to Ephesus, 65 a.d., and on his departure left Timothy in charge of the Church of Ephesus as his deputy (1 Timothy 1:3), and soon afterwards wrote to him the First Epistle to instruct him fully in his duties. In the following year he addressed to him the pathetic letter known as the Second Epistle, begging him to come and be with him in his last imprisonment. Whether he was able to fulfil this longing of his master we do not know. Tradition says that the rest of his life was spent at Ephesus as its bishop, subject to the apostolic authority of St. John exercised throughout proconsular Asia. We find from the book of the Revelation that the Church of Ephesus had striven manfully against those 'which say that they are apostles and are not' in fulfilment of St. Paul's last injunctions, but had now 'left its first love' (Revelation 2:4). We may well suppose that Timothy's ministry was marked by the first characteristic, and that it was on his death that the Ephesian Christians fell from their first love. We learn from the two Epistles that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of hands of St. Paul and some presbyters, but when this occurred we do not know.

3. Date and Place of Composition. It was either written from Macedonia or some other point in the Apostle's last journey, 65 or 66 a.d. (1 Timothy 1:3).

4. Contents and Purpose. The Epistle may be regarded as an Apostolic Charge. Its chief purpose is to instruct Timothy as to his attitude to the forms of heresy which were prevalent, and to direct him in his choice of presbyters. The immediate assailants of the faith were a sect, the growth of which we can trace through St. Paul's Epistles. When he wrote the Epistle to the Galatians, 55 a.d., his adversaries were Jews proper, who had embraced Christianity but desired to combine with the gospel the practices and tenets of Judaism. When he wrote to the Colossians, 60 a.d., the sect had imbibed a number of speculative opinions, known later as Gnostic, which were derogatory to Christ, and added them to their previous tenets. When we reach the date of the Pastoral Epistles, 67 a.d., the Jewish basis still remained, but the most prominent feature of the belief was a more developed form of the Colossian heresy, which departed from faith in Christ and attached importance to 'knowledge falsely so called.' After the fall of Jerusalem, 70 a.d., the Jewish element grew weaker and weaker till it was either eliminated or merged in pure Gnosticism (from Gk. gnosis, 'knowledge'), which was a philosophy which attempted to explain the existence of evil by declaring evil to be a necessary quality of matter, denied the reality of Christ's sufferings, and too often found excuses for and was associated with a low state of morality. St. Paul here instructs Timothy to be bold in his opposition to the false teachers, whose doctrine at this time was evidently destructive of both faith and morals.

A secondary object of the Epistle is to give Timothy instructions as to the organisation of the Church, and as to the kind of men whom he should ordain as presbyters and deacons.

Its contents are nine charges to Timothy, interspersed with exhortations to him.

The Pastoral Epistles

General Introduction

The two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus constitute a group by themselves, and are usually called 'The Pastoral Epistles,' because they deal to a large extent with matters of Church organisation and government. That they were all written by one author is generally agreed, not only by those who accept the tradition that St. Paul was the writer, but also by those who reject it. It will be convenient, therefore, to discuss the points common to all three, before dealing with each in detail.

1. Authorship. The authorship of these Epistles is one of the questions of NT. criticism upon which scholars are sharply divided. The objections urged against the Pauline authorship are of different kinds and varying degrees of weight, and may be briefly enumerated as follows: (a) Historical difficulties; (b) References to heresies; (c) Church organisation; (d) The description of St. Paul in the salutations; (e) Language and style.

(a) Historical Difficulties. It is impossible to find a place for these Epistles in the scheme of St. Paul's life, which is derived from the narrative in Acts and the references in the acknowledged Epistles. The journeys to which the Apostle makes reference are inconsistent with his movements as recorded in Acts. According to 1 Timothy 1:3, Timothy had been left at Ephesus while Paul proceeded to Macedonia; but in Acts 19:22; Acts 20:1; Timothy was sent from Ephesus to Macedonia in advance of St. Paul. In 1 Timothy 3:14 the Apostle intended to return to Timothy at Ephesus; but in Acts 20:4; Timothy was with him in Greece, and in Acts 20:14, Acts 20:17; St. Paul did not go to Ephesus, but sent for the Ephesian elders to meet him at Miletus. So in 2 Timothy 4:20 the reference to Trophimus cannot relate to the journey recorded in Acts 20:17 to Acts 21:8, for Trophimus accompanied the Apostle to Jerusalem (Acts 21:29). Again, the references in Titus 1:5; Titus 3:12, where St. Paul speaks of leaving Titus in Crete and asks him to meet him at Nicopolis, cannot be connected with the only occasion on which the Apostle visited Crete according to Acts (Acts 27:8), viz. when he was a prisoner en route for Rome, where Acts leaves him still under arrest.

These difficulties, however, are obviated when the tradition is accepted that St. Paul after his first imprisonment (Acts 28:30; Philippians 1:13) was set free in 62 or 63 a.d., and arrested again in 66 or 67. In the First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (about 97 a.d.) the writer speaks of St. Paul having 'gone to the extreme limit of the west.' This expression in a letter written at Rome seems to point to Spain. St. Paul had once hoped to visit that country (Romans 15:24); and in the 'Muratorian Fragment,' a document of date about 200 a.d., it is indicated that he had done so: a tradition which is mentioned later by Eusebius in the 4th cent., and Chrysostom in the 5th cent. If the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles is established on other grounds, they give powerful testimony to St. Paul's activity during the period after Acts.

(b) References to Heresies. Many critics see in these Epistles, and especially in 1 Tim (1 Timothy 1:4; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 1 Timothy 6:20), references to heresies which prevailed widely in the Church during the 2nd cent., and are classed under the name of Gnosticism. These heresies dealt with solutions of the problem of evil; they combined ideas from Jewish and heathen sources with Christian truth; they tended to represent Christ's earthly career and sufferings as only seeming, not real (Docetism); and they exalted knowledge (gnosis, whence the name) as a special privilege of the few, and superior to faith, the possession of the many.

The references to heresies in the Pastoral Epistles, however, are extremely vague and indefinite. There is no reference to Docetism, such as we find in 1 John (1 John 4:1-3), supposed to have been written at Ephesus before 100 a.d.; and the references to false doctrines in 1 Timothy 4:1-4; 1 Timothy 6:20 do not seem to require a 2nd-cent. date, or to conflict with the Pauline authorship any more than the references to heresies in Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:18, Colossians 2:23 require that Epistle to be denied to St. Paul, and assigned to the 2nd cent. In the early Church, composed, as almost every congregation was, of elements diverse in race, education, and religion, it is not surprising to find the germs of false doctrine from the beginning, showing themselves sometimes in tendencies towards Jewish legalism (1 Timothy 1:7; Titus 1:14; Titus 3:9), as was the case among the Galatians at an earlier date; sometimes in philosophical speculations drawn from heathen sources (1 Timothy 4:7; 1 Timothy 6:20), as was previously the case among the Colossians. The heresies indicated in the Pastoral Epistles seem largely Jewish in origin. They are speculations about the Law (1 Timothy 1:7-10 cp. 2 Timothy 3:14-17), about genealogies (1 Timothy 1:14; Titus 3:9), about Jewish fables (Titus 1:14, and probably also 1 Timothy 1:4; 1 Timothy 4:7); and while the ascetic practices (1 Timothy 4:1-4) which some taught may have had some heathen elements, they are quite as likely to have been suggested by exaggerations of Jewish ceremonialism: see Romans 14:3; 1 Corinthians 8; Colossians 2:16, and cp. 1 Timothy 4:4 with Acts 10:11-15.

(c) Church Organisation. It has been objected to St. Paul's authorship of these letters that the indications of Church organisation are such as point to a time later than that of St. Paul. Titus was appointed to 'ordain elders in every city' (2 Thessalonians 1:5) in Crete; and both he and Timothy were instructed as to the qualifications of 'the bishop' (Titus 1:7-9; 1 Timothy 3:1-7). Timothy was also given instructions regarding the deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-10). The organisation, however, does not seem when examined to be more developed than was necessary in the Churches almost from the beginning. Deacons had to be appointed at a very early date in the Church at Jerusalem-although the name was not then given them, the corresponding verb is used of their work—(Acts 6:4); and elders were appointed by St. Paul in every Church in Galatia on his first missionary journey (Acts 14:23); while at Ephesus, at the end of his third journey, they were evidently a recognised body (Acts 20:17) entrusted with the duties of overseeing and teaching the flock (Acts 20:28). Nor is the term 'the bishop' (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7) necessarily an indication of a post-apostolic date. For (1) it is largely held that the terms 'bishop' (episcopos) and 'elder' (presbuteros) are used synonymously in these Epistles, as they undoubtedly were at an earlier period (Acts 20:28 cp. Philippians 1:1); and (2) even if, as is also influentially maintained, 'the bishop' here means the principal minister of the Church, it would still be hazardous to pronounce the Epistles non-Pauline. Many good authorities trace back the beginnings of episcopacy to the apostolic age, and so it is by no means impossible that in an apostolic Epistle, written as late as 65-67 a.d., the term 'bishop' might occur in its later sense.

(d) Paul an Apostle. Another objection has been found in the fact that, in letters written to intimate friends and disciples, the writer should emphatically assert his apostleship. This trait, it is said, indicates that they were written by some one who was using the Apostle's name at a later time, as the Apostle himself did not mention his apostleship in letters written to those with whom he was on friendly terms, whether churches or individuals (Philippians 1:1; Philemon 1:1). But these Pastoral Epistles are not, properly speaking, private letters. They were probably intended to be read to the Churches: 'the author is writing with his eye on the community'; and the fact that heresy and incipient faction were to be guarded against, sufficiently explains the assertion of apostolic dignity.