7:5 



TIMOTHY. 



TIMOTHY. 



71 



sum, he withdrew to Chalcia in Eubcea, where he died soon after, in 

 B.C. 354. The injustice of this sentence waa tacitly acknowledged by 

 the Athenians after the death of Timotheus, by the manner in which 

 las son Couon was allowed to settle the debt of his father : nine-tenths 

 of the penalty were remitted, and the other tenth Conon was per- 

 mitted to expend in repairing the city walls. 



Timotheus was no less distinguished as a man than as a general. 

 He was of a very humane and disinterested character. He sacrificed 

 all his property in the service of his country, while other men of his 

 ago used public offices only as a means of enriching themselves. 

 When Alcetas and Jason came to Athens to protect him, they lodged 

 in his house, at which time he was so poor, that he was obliged to 

 borrow furniture to receive his illustrious friends in a manner worthy 

 of their station. Even his enemies, when they came to know him, 

 could not help feeling attachment and esteem for him. 



(Xeuophon, Ilellen., v. 4, 63, &c., vi. 2, 11, &c,; Isocrates, De Per- 

 mutatione ; C. Nepos, Timotheus ; Diodorus Sic., xv. and xvi. ; com- 

 pare Thirlwall and Grote, Histories of Greece.) 



TIMOTHY, to whom the Epistles of St. Paul, known by his name, 

 are addressed, was a native of Lystra, a city of Lycaonia, in Asia 

 Minor. His father was a Greek, or Gentile, but his mother, Eunice, 

 was a Jewess. Both his mother and grandmother Lois were Christian 

 believers (2 Timoth,, i. 5), who were probably converted to the faith 

 by the preaching of Paul and Barnabas on the occasion of their first 

 apostolical journey among the Gentiles. Whether Timothy was him- 

 self converted by St. Paul or by the teaching of his mother does not 

 appear ; but it is certain that she had taken great pains with her son's 

 education, for from a child, as St. Paul says, " he had known the 

 Holy Scriptures." (2 Timoth., iii. 1 5.) His devotion to his new faith 

 was so ardent, and the progress he made in the knowledge of the 

 gospel so great, that he gained the esteem and good word of all his 

 Christian acquaintance. Accordingly when St. Paul paid his second 

 visit to Lystra, the believers both of that city and Iconium commended 

 him so highly to Paul, that he " would have Timothy go forth with 

 him " as the companion of his travels. Previously to commencing 

 them however St. Paul circumcised Timothy, " because of the Jews," 

 who were numerous and powerful in those parts and likely to take 

 offence at the preaching and ministration of an uncircumcised teacher. 

 (Acts, xvi. 1-3.) He was then solemnly admitted and set apart to the 

 office of an evangelist, or preacher of the gospel, by the elders of 

 Lystra and St. Paul himself laying their hands upon him (1 Tim., iv. 

 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 6), though he was probably not more than twenty years 

 of age at the time. From this period (A.D. 46) mention is frequently 

 made of Timothy as the companion of St. Paul in his journeys, as 

 assisting him in preaching the gospel, and in conveying his instructions 

 to the different Christian churches. His first mission was in company 

 with St. Paul and Silas, when they visited the churches of Phrygia 

 and delivered to them the decrees of the council of elders at Jerusa- 

 lem, by which the Gentiles were released from the obedience to the 

 law of Moses as a requisite for salvation. From Phrygia he proceeded 

 in the same company to Troas, and thence to Macedonia, where he 

 assisted in founding the churches of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Bercea, 

 at the last of which cities he and Silas were left when St. Paul was 

 driven from Macedonia by the persecution of the Jews in that country 

 and retired to Athens. In this city St. Paul was subsequently joined 

 by Timothy (1 Thess., iii. 1), who gave him such an account of the 

 afflicted state of the Thessaloniau Christians as induced him to send 

 Timothy back to " establish and comfort them, concerning their faith :" 

 a charge both of difficulty and danger. From Athens St. Paul went 

 to Corinth, where he was joined by Timothy and Silvanus, who both 

 assisted him in converting the Corinthians and establishing the 

 Corinthian church, for a period of a year and a half. (2 Cor., i.) 

 When St. Paul left Corinth, Timothy appears to have accompanied 

 him on his return to Asia, where they resided nearly three years, 

 without interruption, except during the visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem, 

 to keep the feast there, in which however it does not appear that he 

 was accompanied by Timothy. Towards the expiration of their 

 residence at Ephesus, St. Paul despatched Timothy and Erastus 

 together to precede himself on a journey to Macedonia. (Acts, xix. 

 22.) It would also seem (1 Cor., iv. 17) that St. Paul at the same time 

 charged Timothy to visit the church of Corinth. On returning from 

 Corinth to Macedonia, Timothy was joined by St. Paul from Ephesus, 

 and henceforward they were frequently together, till Timothy was 

 appointed by St. Paul to govern the Church of Ephesus. In the in- ' 

 terval between St. Paul's joining Timothy in Macedonia and the 

 appointment of the latter to the superintendence of the Church at 

 Ephesus, Timothy appears either to have accompanied St. Paul on his 

 first journey to Rome, or to have visited him there. St. Paul, as is 

 well known, was a prisoner at Rome, though under but little restraint, 

 and from Hebrews (xiii. 23) we may conclude that Timothy also suf- 

 fered imprisonment either at Rome or elsewhere in Italy; and that 

 he was released before St. Paul left that city. The subsequent history 

 of St. Paul and Timothy is not clearly given either in the Acts of the 

 Apostles or the Epistles of the New Testament ; but it is reasonable 

 to suppose that when they were both set at liberty, they renewed the 

 journeys made for founding new churches and revisiting old. (See 

 Hebrews, xiii. 23; Philipp., i. 1 ; ii. 19; 1 Tim., i. 3.) 



Timothy was eventually left with the charge of the Church at 



Ephesus, where St. Paul had made his headquarters in Asia. How 

 long Timothy exercised this office is not known, nor can we determine 

 the time of his death. An ecclesiastical tradition relates that he 

 suffered martyrdom, being killed with stones and clubs (A.D. 97) while 

 he was preaching against idolatry in the neighbourhood of the temple 

 of Diana at Ephesus. His supposed relics were removed to Constan- 

 tinople, with great pomp, in 356, in the reign of the Emperor Con- 

 stautine. Shortly after Timothy's appointment to the superintendence 

 of the Church of Ephesus, St. Paul wrote to him his first Epistle ; 

 the date of which was probably about A.D. 64, after St. Paul's first 

 imprisonment at Rome. Some critics indeed assign to it as early a 

 date as 56, supporting their opinion by 1 Tim. i. 3, from which it 

 appears (1.) that Timothy was in Ephesus when the Apostle wrote his 

 first letter to him ; (2.), that he had been left there when Paul was 

 going from Ephesus into Macedonia. A careful examination however 

 of the narrative in the Acts will convince the reader that the contem- 

 plated journey into Macedonia, of which the Apostle speaks (1 Tim. 

 i. 3), is some journey not mentioned in the Acts, and therefore subse- 

 quent to St. Paul's release from his first confinement at Rome. But 

 whatever doubt there may be as to the date of the first, there is none 

 about the genuineness of either of the two Epistles to Timothy. 

 They have always been acknowledged to be the undisputed production 

 of the Apostle Paul. The object and design of the First Epistle to 

 Timothy were such as we might have expected from the relation 

 between St. Paul the writer, and Timothy, to whom it was addressed. 

 It was written with the view of guiding and directing Timothy in his 

 responsible and difficult ministry as the head of the Church at Ephe- 

 sus, to instruct in the choice and ordination of proper officers, and to 

 warn him against the false teachers (Michaelis thinks they were 

 Essenes) wh o had " turned aside " from the simplicity of the gospel, 

 to idle controversies and " endless genealogies," and who, setting them- 

 selves up as teachers of the Law of Moses, had insisted upon the 

 necessity of obedience to it as a requisite for salvation. 



The Epistle was written from Nicopolis in Macedonia (' Titus,' iii. 

 12), and not from Laodicea, as the subscription informs us. The 

 undesigned coincidences between it and the Acts of the Apostles are 

 given in Paley's ' Horse Pauliuse,' p. 323-338. 



The Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy appears from chap, i., vers. 

 8, 12, 17, to have been written by St. Paul while he was a prisoner at 

 Rome; but whether he wrote it during his first imprisonment, 

 recorded in Acts, xxviii., or during a second imprisonment, has been 

 much questioned. According to the uniform tradition of the ancient 

 church, it was written during the second confinement. The modern 

 critics, who refer it to the time of the first, are for the most part anti- 

 episcopalians or Romanists : the former being concerned to deny the 

 permanency of Timothy's charge at Ephesus ; the latter not knowing 

 how to account for the omission of Peter's name in the salutations 

 from Rome. The arguments adduced by Macknight (Preface to 2 

 Timothy) in support of the opinion of the ancient church are, we 

 think, conclusive. St. Paul, it is generally agreed, returned to Rome 

 after his first imprisonment, early in 65 ; where, after being kept hi 

 bonds as an ' evil-doer ' for more than a year, he is believed to have 

 suffered martyrdom, in 66. As therefore the Apostle requests 

 Timothy (iv. 21) to come to him at Rome before winter, it was pro- 

 bably written in July or August, A.D. 65 ; and it is generally supposed 

 that Timothy was at Ephesus when St. Paul addressed it to him. 



The immediate design of St. Paul in writing this Epistle was, it 

 would seem, to apprise Timothy of the circumstances that had recently 

 happened to himself at Rome, and to request his immediate presence 

 there. Accordingly we gather from the last chapter of this Epistle, 

 that St. Paul was closely confined as a malefactor for some crime laid 

 to his charge ; that when he was brought before the Roman magis- 

 trates to make his first answer, " no man stood by him, but all men 

 forsook him; " that only Luke was with him : that being thus deserted 

 by almost all, he was greatly desirous of seeing Timothy, " his dearly 

 beloved son in the gospel," before the " time of his departure," which 

 he knew " was at hand." He therefore requested him to come to 

 Rome immediately, but being uncertain whether he should live to see 

 Timothy again, he gave him in this Epistle a variety of admonitions, 

 charges, and encouragements. This Epistle in fact is an appropriate 

 and affecting sequel to the first, the principal injunctions and warnings 

 of which it repeats, but with additional earnestness and fervour. St. 

 Paul, as if for the last time (chap, i.), conjures Timothy to apply him- 

 self with all his gifts of grace to his holy work, to hold fast the 

 doctrine which he had received from him, and not to be ashamed 

 either of the testimony of the Lord or of St. Paul's own sufferings. 

 In chap. iii. St. Paul gives a description of the " perilous times which 

 should come," and which were to be anticipated by every possible 

 exertion in performing the duties of a Christian minister. To this 

 work, in chap, iv., he exhorted him by a solemn charge before " God 

 and the Lord Jesus Christ, the judge of the quick and the dead." He 

 then depicted his own present state, and his presentiment of an 

 approaching martyrdom ; and after requesting the immediate presence 

 of Timothy, concluded by sending to him the greeting of some of the 

 brethren of the Church at Rome. Whether Timothy arrived at Rome in 

 time to find St. Paul alive, does not anywhere appear : the latest authen- 

 tic information we have concerning him being given in this letter. 



The Epistles to Timothy, in conjunction with those to the Thessa- 



