§ 13. The Pastoral Epistles

[H. A. W. Meyer, vol. xi.: Timothy and Titus by B. W. Weiss, 1893 (ed. 6); Hand-Commentar iii. 1: Col. Eph. Philem. Pastoral Epistles, by H. von Soden, 1893 (ed. 2). The bestspecial commentary is that by H. J. Holtzmann (1880), which contains a great deal of information on the exegesis and criticism already applied to this subject. The monograph of F. H. Hesse, ʽDie Entstehung der N.T. lichen Hirtenbriefe,ʼ 1889, seeks to prove that the three Epistles were formed from a genuine Pauline foundation by recastings, by the additions of copyists, and above all by the incorporation of other canonical documents; but it has little method, and therefore little convincing power. Contributions to the discussion are to be found in F, Spittaʼs ʽZur Gesch. und Litt. d. Urchristenthums,ʼ i. 1893, pp. 35-49, and A. Harnackʼs ʽDie Chronologie der altchristlichen Litt.ʼ i. 1897, pp. 480-5. ]

1. For about a century, the name of Pastoral Epistles has been applied to the three letters which we find in the New Testament addressed to Timothy and Titus under the name of Paul, and containing instructions as to their pastoral labours among Christian communities; no objection can be raised against it.

The First Epistle to Timothy begins immediately after the address and greeting to speak of false teachers who dealt in mythologies, and who, while the Law was yet indispensable for sinners, represented a false antinomianism.¹ The idea that Paul would have been fully competent to deal with this subject (ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγώ)² leads up to a thanksgiving to the mercy of God in having transformed him, once a blasphemer and a persecutor, into a minister of the Gospel for sinners.³ This heritage with all its responsibilities, but also all its rights over those who fell away, he bequeathed to Timothy.⁴ To this he adds certain corresponding instructions: first, that wherever there were Christians prayers should be made for all men, including kings and rulers⁵—this being based on the universality of the divine decree of mercy—and then as to the manner in which men should pray and the demeanour proper for women both while praying and at other times.⁶ Here follows an enumeration of the conditions required for attaining the office of bishop,⁷ and then for that of deacon,⁸ while in conclusion emphasis is laid on the importance of these directions, since the House of God was in question —the pillar of truth⁹; in contemplating which the author breaks out into a hymn in praise of the great mystery of godliness and of Him who was manifested in the flesh. Chap. iv. is devoted to a description of the particular duties of Timothy: first, with regard to false doctrines of dualistic and ascetic tendency, which diverted attention from the main issue, viz. godliness¹⁰; and then touching his own personal conduct.¹¹ Chap. v., too, begins with advice for his behaviour in his intercourse with the old and the young, and continues in apparently the same strain on the subject of the widows,¹² except that here the tone of the master directly addressing his disciple is once more replaced by that of the teacher of Canon Law, as in the passages about the elders¹³ and about the duties of slaves.¹⁴ Between these last two, however, come three verses¹⁵ connected with what goes before by an association of ideas only to be explained as coming from certain definite experiences of the writerʼs; in them Timothy is charged for his healthʼs sake even to take a little wine, and also to rest assured that in cases of sin as well as of good works everything would be brought to light. From here to the end¹⁶ we have an earnest exhortation to hold fast in seriousness, truth and purity the wholesome word of Christ to the end of the world, heedless of the false teachersʼ strife of words. Vv. vi. 17-21 bear the marks of a later addition, the first three containing rules for the rich, and the last a protest against ʽso-called knowledge (gnosis).ʼ

In the Second Epistle to Timothy the address and greeting are followed, as we are accustomed to find in Paulʼs Epistles, by a thanksgiving and prayer, the latter to the effect that Timothy might, like Paul, in spite of all sufferings, continue in his steadfast faith and in sound doctrine.¹⁷ After a few personal observations¹⁸ the thread of i. 14 is caught up again at chapter ii.; Timothy is exhorted to learn to wait steadfastly, rejoicing in the battle, for the fruits of his labours, which could not fail to appear,¹⁹ and while holding aloof from heretical disputations and foolish hair-splittings, to work in all gentleness and virtue for the recovery of those who had been led astray.²⁰ From iii. 1 toiv. 5 amore exact description is given of the various forms of these vessels of dishonour in the House of God—vessels which now, in the last days, must reveal themselves; it was for Timothy to fulfil the duties of his office towards them, in steadfastness and temperance, following the teaching and the example of Paul and furnished completely with all sacred knowledge. Paul himself felt that he was nearing his end.²¹ Upon this a number of personal communications, charges and greetings²² lead up to the final blessing.

The Epistle to Titus, which is about half as long as the First Epistle to Timothy—the Second Epistle standing midway between the other two in this respect—has a somewhat longer superscription.²³ First of all, the principles are laid down²⁴ which were to govern the choice of the Elders, this being a particularly important point, because there existed a detestable heresy which had lately been making formidable 7 progress.²⁵Vv. ii. 1-10 prescribe the manner in which, according to sound doctrine, the old men, the women, the young men and the slaves were to be treated: that is, what rules were specially to be impressed upon these respective classes, for Godʼs mercy required a decided renunciation of worldly lusts from all alike.²⁶ Titus is then commanded to watch over his own authority, to see that obedience was rendered to rulers and to secure quiet living,²⁷ for with the regenerate²⁸ good works must take the place of the old vices. Upon this follow a few short directions for his treatment of false teachers and schismatics,²⁹ and then a few messages and greetings and the final blessing.

2. The most superficial glance at the contents of the three Epistles will be enough to demonstrate their close connection one with another. Justas they appeared at the same moment in history and have almost without exception stood side by side in the New Testament, so they mutually correspond in word and thought—perhaps even more remarkably than does Ephesians with Colossians. Hence they can only be examined in common, and we are led from the very outset to expect a common origin for all three. It is true that the first attempt at criticism on this domain was Schleiermacherʼs denial³⁰ of the Pauline authorship of 1. Timothy alone, while later writers, too, have wished to consider 2. Timothy at least as authentic, although they have abandoned 1. Timothy and Titus. But more difficulties are hereby created than removed. The three Epistles are dominated but by one object—that of providing guarantees for the steady continuance of the Christian community-life upon a sound Apostolic basis. This was to be brought about, first, by a decided rejection of all false doctrine and schismatic tendency; secondly, by the establishment of strict rules of morality and discipline in all classes of the community, and, thirdly, by the intelligent and careful organisation of the clerical order—i.e. the offices and stations of honour—an institution which would be the means of doing most for both. The latter is dwelt upon least strongly in 2. Timothy, and most in 1.; the second finds expression most abundantly in Titus, while in 2. Timothy the personal and epistolary style is better represented than it is in 1. and in Titus. In spite of these differences, however, the Epistles still present the appearance of a single whole. In their language they display a remarkable similarity, nor do Titus and 1. Tim. constitute by any means a separate group, partially opposed to 2. Timothy, while a fairly large number of somewhat unusual expressions are only to be found here in the whole of the New Testament, but here in all three. Such is the expression πιστ ὸςὁ λόγος ʽfaithful is the saying,ʼ which occurs thrice in 1. Timothy and once each in 2. Timothy and Titus.³¹ There are, moreover, whole sentences which exhibit almost verbal agreement: such as the εἷς ὃ ἐτέθην ἐγὼ κήρυξ καὶ ἀπόστολος of 1. Timothy ii. 7 and 2. Timothy i. 11, and numerous others.³²

3. Nearly, however, as the three Epistles are related to one another both in form and matter, so far are they removed from the genuine Epistles of Paul.

(a) It is true that Paul did write to individual persons, that he would have approved of the tone of these Epistles, and that he himself was accustomed to oppose false teachers and to demand their unequivocal rejection by others. He was acquainted with bishops and deacons,³³ as early as 1. Thessalonians³⁴ he exhorted his readers to recognise those that were placed in authority over them, and we might find a parallel for the rules of the Pastoral Epistles concerning the old and the young, men, women and slaves, in the domestic codes of Colossians and Ephesians. Much in the Epistles has precisely the Pauline ring: the addresses, the greetings, personal communications like those of 2. i. 15-18 or iv. 16-18 and 6-8, and many other things of the kind.³⁵ Striking expressions like γνονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς,³⁶ or κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου³⁷ are common to 2. Timothy and Romans, while the phrase τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης is found both in 1. Timothy and 2. Corinthians³⁸; πιστεύεσθαι in the sense of ʽto be entrusted withʼ is only to be found in Paulʼs Epistles outside 1. Timothy³⁹ and Titus,⁴⁰ and in the sense of ʽto be believed inʼ appears only in 2. Thessalonians⁴¹ and 1. Timothy⁴².� This resemblance extends, moreover, to such innocent forms of expression as ἀφυρμὴν διδόναι τινί, which occurs only in 1. Timothy⁴³ and 2. Corinthians,⁴⁴ while ἀφυρμή appears elsewhere only in Paul, and that five times.

But if we dispute the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, such points of contact are easily to be explained by the intimate acquaintance with genuine Pauline Epistles which we must of course suppose the Pseudo-Paul to have possessed. He wished to pass for Paul, or at least to address his contemporaries in the person of Paul, and it is therefore natural enough that he should have imitated the real Paul. He had studied the Apostle and sat in spirit at his feet—and not without effect—for many years before he ever conceived the plan of writing epistles himself under the name of Paul. Once resolved on this, prudence counselled him at least not to be intentionally sparing of reminiscences from these epistles. Parallels like those afforded by 1. Timothy i. 8, ʽwe know that the law is good,ʼ and Romans vii. 16, or by 1. Timothy i. 5, ʽthe end of the charge is love,ʼ and Romans xiii. 9, or more especially by 1. Timothy ii. 7, ʽI speak the truth, I lie not,ʼ and Romans ix. 1, decidedly give us the impression that 1. Timothy is dependent upon Romans, since what is admirably to the point in Romans either disturbs the context here or does not appear to have sufficient motive. A number of verses of the Pastoral Epistles sound as though they were put together from genuine Pauline fragments⁴⁵; and if 1. Timothy i. 12-16 and ii. 7 were not written by Paul himself, the writer has consciously imitated him, and has caught his very tone even in externals, as in the ὑπερ επλεόνασεν ἡ χάρις..

The points of contact between the Pastoral Epistles and the other books of the New Testament are not so numerous as to warrant us in maintaining that the relation between them is that of dependence; they are related to 1. Peter, as they are to 1. Clement, in their tone and phraseology, but a literary obligation need not necessarily have existed. We are often reminded in them of the Synoptic Gospels: compare, for instance, 1. Timothy ii. 6^a (ὀ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντιλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων) with Mark x. 45 (δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν) and 1. Timothy v. 18 with Luke x. 7; here the logion ʽThe labourer is worthy of his hire > is quoted just as it stands in Luke as ʽScripture,ʼ immediately after the words of Deuteronomy xxv. 4. But this must be due to a lapse of memory; at the time of the Pastoral Epistles no one would have treated Luke as γραφή in the same way as Deuteronomy. The author of 1. Timothy believed that this was a saying from the Old Testament such as that taken from Deuteronomy xxv., | and indeed it has quite the Old Testament ring. We are not sufficiently familiar with the early history of the Synoptics to venture to assert that the author of the Pastoral Epistles had read our Gospels.

(b) The external evidence is not favourable to the authenticity of the Epistles. The earliest certain use of them is by Polycarp of Smyrna, and by the end of the second century we find them everywhere firmly established in the Corpus Paulinarum; but no more is proved by this than that the Pastoral Epistles existed in the first half of the second century and were warmly welcomed by the Church. It might be mere chance that neither the Epistle of Barnabas nor Justin contains the slightest reference to them; certainly they share this fate with other Epistles of Paul of undoubted authenticity. But of very real importance is the fact that Marcion the Gnostic (about 140 A.D.) did not include them in his Canon of Pauline Epistles, although he certainly admitted into it all writings which he had heard of in the Church under Paulʼs name; if, then, the Pastoral Epistles belonged to these, why should he have utterly ignored them, since he might easily have omitted what was inconvenient to him in their case as well as in that of the other Epistles? The reasons by which he is said to have justified their exclusion from his Canon, to which he even admitted the short Epistle to Philemon, are purely fanciful. But if Marcion was not acquainted with the Pastoral Epistles at that time, we should conclude that they did not make their appearance until a period when the other ten were already enjoying a widespread circulation: in all probability after 100. This of course is not a sufficient proof of their spuriousness, but it makes us suspicious of the tradition.

(c) The first of the main arguments against their authenticity is afforded by their language. The number of ἅπαξ λεγόμενα is not so much the question, for that words like πολυτελής⁴⁶ or οἰκουργός⁴⁷ are not to be found in Paulʼs writings proves no more than does the fact that ὁλόκληρος and ὁλοτελής are only used by Paul in 1. Thessalonians.⁴⁸ It is more worthy of notice that in the Pastoral Epistles such everyday words as προσέχειν τινί, ἀρνεῖσθαι and ὠφέλιμος are met with five, six and four times respectively, but never in Paulʼs Epistles nor in the rest of the New Testament; or that instead of the thoroughly Pauline ἐπιθυμία we here find ἡδονή,⁴⁹ sometimes compounded with φίλος, φιλήδονοι,⁵⁰ to form a word very characteristic of these Epistles. But the fact that brings conviction is that many words which were indispensable to Paul are absent from the Pastoral Epistles: e.g. particles like ἄρα, διό, διότι; whole families of words like περισσός with all its compounds (elsewhere only absent in Philemon and 2. Thessalonians); likewise καυχᾶσθαι (elsewhere occurring everywhere but in Colossians and Philemon), and, still more, ἐνεργεῖν. The word σῶμα, which Paul uses so extremely abundantly, only appears here once in the form σωματική.⁵¹ On the other hand, the Pastoral Epistles make the most liberal use of the words σώφρων, σωφρόνως, σωφρονεῖν, σωφρονίζειν, σωφρονισμός and σωφροσύη, whereas with Paul σωφρονεῖν alone occurs but twice. Still more striking is the preference for the stem διδάσκειν in all sorts of combinations and derivatives—even διδακτικός, Which occurs only in 1. and 2. Timothy⁵² in the whole of the New Testament—while the words εὐσεβῶς, εὐσέβεια, εὐσεβεῖν may be found thirteen times here and not once in Paulʼs Epistles. Nor can it be accidental that καλός may be met with twenty-four times in the Pastoral Epistles alone and only sixteen times in the ten Pauline Epistles; and while Paul uses it almost exclusively as a substantive—τὸ καλόν, καλά, καλόν ἐστιν—it occurs twenty times as an adjective in the Pastoral Epistles, especially with ἔργα.⁵³

But neither does the style in general remind us in the least of Paul, whether we compare it with Ephesians, or 1. Thessalonians, or Romans. The constructions are simple, the ideas expressed without ornament (for wordplays like φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἦ φιλόθεοι⁵⁴ can scarcely be classed as ornaments); nowhere is there a trace of the Pauline swing and energy, and we hardly ever come across an anacoluthon, a break in the construction, or an ambiguity caused by the rush of hurrying ideas: all is regular and smooth in the Pastoral Epistles, but all is also without force or colour. Their words are many and their ideas few; of Paul one might say exactly the opposite.

Attempts have been made to weaken this argument by reminding us that what we have here are private letters, in which the writer would naturally express himself with less restraint than he would in what might be called an official epistle—a letter addressed toa community. I doubt, however, whether this differentiation would apply in Paulʼs case; he did not consider himself to be more ʽofficialʼ in his Epistle to the Philippians than he did when he was writing to Philemon or to his friend Timothy; but even if it were so, nothing would be gained for the Pastoral Epistles, for such a difference could only apply to the tone and the manner, not to the very materials of the language. Blass, the ʽphilologist,ʼ does not consider it astonishing ʽthat Paul should write to his disciples and assistants in a different manner—i.e. in a more lofty style—than to the churches.ʼ Are we to suppose, then, that Blass himself writes letters to his friends and pupils in a more lofty style than he bestows on the grammars, prefaces and historical sketches which he produces for the common herd? And in what sense of the word can the style of 1. Timothy be considered more lofty than, for instance, that of 2. Corinthians 8-5? It may be neater, but is a neater style the same thing as a more lofty one? Still more unfortunate, perhaps, is the suggestion that Paulʼs style might have undergone a change, that as he grew old he might have lost some of the animation once peculiarly his own, might have been influenced by many things, even the vocabulary of his opponents. Surely it is more than improbable that this influence should only have begun to exert itself so late, and should have extended to the use of particles and whole groups of related words which have nothing whatever to do with theology. Moreover, Paul was an old man when he wrote Philemon and Philippians, yet why should these traces of senility be absent from them? And who can believe that Paul, whom we have studied as a letter-writer throughout a whole decade and have always found substantially the same, should suddenly after another two or three years have undergone so complete a change? The style of Ephesians might perhaps be described as tinged with traces of senility; but to credit Paul with a change of style from that of Galatians and Corinthians through the more wordy obscurity of Colossians and Ephesians to the smooth commonplace of the Pastoral Epistles, is surely a little too much. Let writers with such theories of style-development examine the earliest and latest works of Tertullian or Athanasius from that point of view—of men who were exposed to outside influences from reading and controversy at least as much as Paul—and then see whether they discover such differences there as exist between Romans and 1. Timothy!

(d) As to an intentional appropriation of phrases from the enemyʼs camp, this would be least incredible in the case of formule bearing on a different world of thought: as when the Pastorals so frequently speak of the good or the clean conscience (expressions which do not occur in Paulʼs Epistles), or when stress is laid upon the sound word of doctrine (ὑγιής or ὑγιαίνων), again without parallel in Paul. Expressions like λογομαχεῖν⁵⁵ or λογομαχίαι⁵⁶ might, of course, have been coined by Paul at any moment for use against a particular form of theological propaganda. But what could have induced the Apostle absolutely to discard the words most characteristic of his thought, i.e. his favourite ideas, like that of ʽputting onʼ (Christ, or the ʽnew man,ʼ etc.) or of ʽrevelationʼ (ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτειν)? And are we to suppose that Paul further owed to his adversaries his unusual use of πίστις (faith)? For the words ἐν πίστει are met with here nine times in the most varied connections,⁵⁷ while in the other ten Epistles they occur but thrice, and even then only coupled with the verbs ζῆν, εἶναι and στήκειν. These things alone could only be explained on the assumption that the writer was a man whose ways of thought were other than Paulʼs; but the fundamental conceptions and the whole attitude of the Pastoral Epistles are different from those of Paul. I do not mean that importance should be attached to small contradictions, such as that a mediator should be spoken of in Galatians⁵⁸ as something of a relatively low order, while in 1. Timothy⁵⁹ Christ is solemnly extolled as ʽmediator between God and men,ʼ nor can there be any question here of a peculiar non-Pauline theology like that of Hebrews. The author of the Pastoral Epistles was certainly not conscious of deviating in the smallest particular from his revered Apostle, and innovations in doctrine, as we know, he hated with all his soul.

But in this dread of theological contention, and even of speculation of any kind,⁶⁰ in this accentuation of a simple holding fast and propagation of the tradition,⁶¹ in the striking emphasis laid upon the practical duties of Christians and in the moralising character of our Epistles, a different spirit is shown from that of Paul—the spirit of the Afterborn. Faith, of which he cannot speak often enough, has changed to orthodoxy; it now means the recognition of and unswerving adherence to fundamental religious facts, such as that of the unity of God,⁶² the universality of the divine decree of mercy,⁶³ the fulfilment of the same through Jesus Christ, whose mortal nature is just as strongly dwelt upon as his subsequent glorification,⁶⁴ and the equal balance of labour and reward.⁶⁵ It is true that we still hear of a calling,⁶⁶ of the elect,⁶⁷ of the Divine purpose and grace (πρόθεσις καὶ χάρις) which was given us from everlasting in Christ Jesus⁶⁸ as the only ground of our salvation (οὐ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα ἡμῶν); but who could extract from these bald formule anything of the dauntless force of the belief in Predestination which is to be found in Romans viii. 28 fol.? According to the Pastoral Epistles, salvation is fore-ordained to the believers, the righteous, the pure. According to Paul, the individual believers are foreordained to salvation. The Anti-Judaism of Paul, which was wholly a matter of principle, has here become one of persons. In Titus i. 10 οἱ ἐκ τῆς περιτομῆς,, ʽthey of the circumcision,ʼ are treated as contemptuously as are their prescriptions for purification—founded nevertheless on the law of Moses—which are called ʽJewish fables and commandments of men.ʼ This was the judgment of the early Catholic Church, but not of Paul. In the Pastoral Epistles we find a uniform reflection of the average Christianity of the second century, although one peculiarly rich in reminiscences of Pauline doctrine; even the Creed appears already fixed in definite formula,⁶⁹ and it is assumed as a matter of course that each baptised Christian has testified to his faith before the community, in the recognised form.

But most instructive of all will be a glance at the eschatology of the Epistles. The true Paul allowed his ideas about the Last Things to vary a good deal, but still a conviction of the near approach of the Last Day was always a mighty force within him, and the hope that he might himself live to see the return of the Lord never wholly left him. The thought that it might be necessary to make lasting provision for a continued existence of the Church on earth, would have been inconceivable to him. But in the Pastoral Epistles the situation is completely changed. The presentiment of death in 2. Tim. iv. 6 may here be left out of account. Men were waiting, it is true, for the appearance of Jesus and the Day of Judgment; when, indeed, did they cease to wait for them? But they were already consoling themselves with the thought that the Parusia of God would take place ʽin his own time,ʼ⁷⁰ and they were accordingly preparing to establish themselves upon earth. The principal object, as we know, of the Pastoral Epistles is to give advice on the practical organisation of the Church, and a second period in the history of the community—a period subsequent to the Apostolic—is brought clearly into view. The passages beginning ʽthe time will come when,ʼ⁷¹ ʽin the last days grievous times shall come,ʼ⁷² ʽin later times some shall fall away,ʼ⁷³ are instances of this, while 1. ii. 15 is also specially characteristic. The fact that this future tense alternates with the present of Titus i. 10, ʽthere are many unruly men,ʼ and the past of 1. Timothy i. 6, ʽfrom which things some have turned aside,ʼ⁷⁴ is only a proof that the writer found himself in an artificial position; the things which he makes the lips of Paul foretell as future were to him partly present and partly past, and it is clear throughout that he was not counting upon a speedy and sudden intervention of God. How much more primitive, more Pauline, is the tone of Hebrews, with its anxiety lest the short respite, ʽso long as it is called To-day,ʼ should be let slip!

(e) A further reason for disputing the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles lies in the fact that the manner in which Paul here speaks of himself to his trusted friends, and even the motives which led him to write to them, are psychologically inconceivable. In Galatians and 1. and 2. Corinthians we have sufficient evidence of how close were his relations with Titus and Timothy, what great things he expected of them and they did not fail to accomplish. Are we to believe, then, that in writing to these men he would style himself with full formality in the addresses as ʽan Apostle of Jesus Christ,ʼ etc. etc., exactly as he did towards the Romans whom he did not personally know, or the Galatians when they were leaning towards apostasy, while in the Epistle to Philemon he did not consider it necessary? Must he declare to them that he was appointed of God to be a preacher of the Gospel, that he spoke the truth and lied not? Must he discourse to them at considerable length upon his past career, with exaggerations towards both extremes, representing himself on the one hand as having been a man of shame, ʽthe chief of sinners,ʼ and on the other as having ʽserved God from his forefathers in a pure conscienceʼ? We need not emphasise the contradiction between this last sentence and the seventh chapter of Romans; but will the self-praise of the Apostle in Philippians iii. 6—which is yet intended merely as a foil to iii. 8, ʽI do count them but dungʼ⁷⁵—bear comparison with this unqualified λατρεύω? We are shown in Philippians iii. 12 what Paul thought of his perfection, of his so-called completeness: in 2. Timothy iv. 7 fol. we see an estimate of his merits such as could only have been pronounced by a disciple who deeply honoured him—not by himself. Nor does he seem to have had any very considerable confidence in his intimate friends, since he explains the most elementary things to them at such length, impresses upon them over and over again the most obvious duties, such as that of decent conduct,⁷⁶ and considers it natural that Timothy should be thought lightly of on account of his youth, whereas he was certainly older at the time than was Jesus at his death or Paul at the beginning of his missionary work. A sin the phrase μηδεὶς τῆς νεότητός συυ καταφρονείτω,, so throughout the Pastoral Epistles, we have the impression that the world at large is being addressed, not the addressees: this, however, does not appear to strike those critics who point to this passage with such enthusiasm as evidence of the private character of the Epistles.

Zahn, on the other hand, exaggerates the unpleasant features in the picture of Timothy, who, he declares, is already tempted to withdraw in a cowardly way from Paul, and therefore from his own calling; who ʽshelters himself behind his youthʼ to excuse his lack of energy in the fulfilment of his duties. He also urges upon us, and with justice, that ʽall the legendary invention of the Ancient Church was on the side of panegyric,ʼ and from this he deduces the folly of the hypothesis that a pseudo-Paul should in 1. and 2. Timothy have made this caricature of the Timothy whom the genuine Paul praised so highly in his Epistles. But the pseudo-Paulʼs need for panegyric is amply satisfied in the words of praise devoted to Paul himself,⁷⁷ and even in the case of Timothy it obtains its due in vv. i. 4 fol. and iii. 10 of the Second Epistle. The unpleasing traits in the picture of Timothy and Titus are demanded by the parts assigned to them, for the detailed instructions which the author pretends to possess from Apostolic lips would only have been needed by men who were not yet quite familiar with their task. Again, the number of his friends who have fallen away and turned traitors serves, on the one hand, to make the lonely greatness of the Apostle, still unforsaken by his God, shine forth with yet purer glory; and, on the other, it provides a motive for the lively anxiety with which he gives advice and warnings of so minute and pressing a nature. But, not least, we find in it a reflection of the experiences of the unknown author himself: the untrustworthiness, the weakmindedness, the lack of clearness of those who wished to be leaders and examples, appeared to him as the canker gnawing at the roots of the Christianity of his times. Hebrews fully prepares us for such judgments in a Christian writing twenty years later. But can we believe that the men who helped Paul and his Gospel to conquer the world, who restored his authority in communities of which he almost despaired, and who did not hesitate to risk their necks for his life—such men as Titus, Timothy, Aquila, or Demas—can we believe that these were such miserably timid, self-seeking and small-minded men as Zahn would have us to think, in order that he may save the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles? We must judge Paul by his disciples, for he had had ten years in which to train them; if they were so immature as would appear from the Pastoral Epistles, he certainly had not finished his course of instruction!

Moreover, if Paul had been with both Timothy and Titus shortly before writing 1. Timothy and Titus respectively⁷⁸ and had then appointed them their tasks, why should he do so again so soon, in spite of the fact that he was looking forward to a speedy re-union with them?⁷⁹ 1. Tim. iii. 15 shows that the writer himself felt how unnatural this was, though he was unable to avoid it. Why is there not in 1. Timothy a single word of advice specially intended for Ephesus, with which Paul was so intimately acquainted, and why does he give Titus so detailed a picture of the Cretan heretics, whom the latter must surely have known best himself, while at the same moment destroying the possible utility of the information by bidding him leave Crete? Contradictory things of this sort will never be explained on the supposition that the real Paul was writing to real fellow-labourers about the real circumstances of his time, but only by assuming that a later writer had created an artificial situation out of which he made the Apostle issue directions to certain famous community-leaders of former times. It is also significant to note that he can only picture the companions of Paul as chattels always at the disposal of the Apostolic Prince of the Church, a band from among whom the latter regularly appointed the leaders, the important personages, the Apostolic vicars, of the newly founded communities.

(f) Similar difficulties arise when we attempt to find a place for the Epistles during the life of Paul—especially since, considering their close connection, only one period of Paulʼs life is possible, and that after the composition of the other Epistles. Let us see what they themselves have to tell us as to the circumstances under which they were written.

According to 1. Timothy i. 3, Paul had recently been working together with Timothy at Ephesus, but had now, leaving the latter behind to contend against the false brethren, gone on to Macedonia, in the confident hope of a speedy return.⁸⁰� From this we conclude that the Apostle was a free man, and we might be inclined to think of the particular moment in the so-called Third Missionary Journey when after a three yearsʼ sojourn in Ephesus he was forced to leave the city and went up through Troas to Macedonia, were it not, unfortunately, that according to 2. Corinthians this was done in company with Timothy and certainly not in the hope of a speedy return. The Epistle to Titus Paul also wrote as a free man, surrounded by many companions⁸¹; he had recently been with Titus in Crete, and had left him behind to organise the new communities; but now he writes to him to come with all speed, as soon as Artemas or Tychicus should have arrived, to Nicopolis (probably in Epirus), where he was intending to pass the winter.⁸² The temper alone of 1. Timothy is sufficient to show that it could not have been composed immediately after the Ephesian catastrophe. It might rather be assigned to an excursion which—with as much probability as that second journey to Corinth⁸³ also not mentioned in the Acts—Paul might have made a year or two before from Ephesus to Macedonia. _But then the Epistle would have to be placed before 2. Cor. and Romans and to be divided by a long interval from 2. Timothy, and this is impossible. Paul might certainly have planned a winter in Nicopolis during his last journey through Macedonia —possibly before he had received tidings as to the effect of 2. Cor.—though, of course, the execution of the plan need not be taken for granted; but that does not help us with the Epistle to Titus, because Paul touched at Crete for the first time considerably later, during his journey to Rome. If this had ever been preceded by a fruitful activity upon the island, the eye-witness who wrote the report beginning at Acts xxvii. 7 would certainly have mentioned it. And moreover the bringing in of several otherwise unattested acts is in itself suspicious.

In 2. Timothy we find that Paul is a prisoner in Rome,⁸⁴ conscious, according to iv. 6-8, that he is nearing his end. In iv. 16 he says that ʽat his first defence all had forsaken himʼ; the impudent opposition of Alexander the coppersmith, too, had since then offended him deeply (iv. 14); all that were in Asia had turned away from him (i. 15). But he had in the mean time received much loving-kindness; the fugitives, with the exception of Demas,⁸⁵ seem to have returned to him for a time, but just now only Luke was with him,⁸⁶ while Titus was in Dalmatia and Crescens in Gaul. Paul wishes⁸⁷ to have Timothy, as well as Mark,⁸⁸ with him shortly,⁸⁹ before the winter had set in.⁹⁰ Where Timothy was staying at the time we are not definitely told, but it could not very well have been far from Troas, since he was to bring with him thence the famous cloak and books (and this to one who was daily expecting his end!)⁹¹; in fact, in spite of the words ʽTychicus I sent unto Ephesusʼ⁹² and of verse i. 15, our thoughts would, according to i. 18 and iv. 19, and as in 1. Timothy, turn to Ephesus. Zahn prefers Iconium or Lystra—a holiday resort of the evangelist, who had grown weary at home. The Epistle might quite well have been written during the Roman imprisonment, but in that case before Philemon, Colossians and Philippians, for when they were composed Timothy and Mark were both with Paul and had been sharing his sufferings for some time. Above all, it is evident that Timothy here receives accurate information for the first time concerning Paulʼs imprisonment. But here again it is strange that Paul should calmly have left the cloak in Troas for several years, especially if, with the Acts, we assign the duration of the Cesarean imprisonment to two years; while the remarks of iv. 20, that Erastus had remained at Corinth and Trophimus had been left behind at Miletus sick, sound more than ever as though this had taken place quite recently, in fact during the last Collection-journey, in which Trophimus, according to Acts xx. 4, had taken part. Timothy, however, had also taken part in it, so what would be the object of describing these proceedings to him over again?

The career of Tychicus, too, becomes an absolute riddle. Not only do we find that before Paulʼs arrest the latter had sent him to Crete—or intended to do so⁹³—and had then taken him with him to Jerusalem,⁹⁴ but that after his imprisonment he sent him according to 2. Timothy⁹⁵ to Ephesus, and according to Colossians⁹⁶ and Ephesians⁹⁷ to Colosse and other neighbouring communities. But these two, in spite of the proximity of their destinations, are incompatible as one and the same mission, since in the one case Paul was almost deserted and longed for the arrival of Timothy, and in the other both Timothy and several other companions were at his side. Even if we allow that Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians were written from Caesarea, this would mean that Tychicus had for years been travelling about unceasingly at Paulʼs behest!

In order to avoid these difficulties and to keep the Epistles close together, a convenient hypothesis has been put forward. It creates a period in the life of Paul of which we have no other knowledge whatever—none, therefore, which would interfere with the utterances of the Pastoral Epistles—a period which may equally well include free activity in Ephesus and Epirus, Macedonia and Crete, and close confinement with the prospect of death. For such a period the only place left in the life of Paul would be after those two years which he spent in Rome in a state of semi-confinement⁹⁸; he must then have been set free, but after a short time have been imprisoned in Rome once more, and then, but not till then, have been executed. Of the objections which the course herein assumed by the argument raises in the highest degree—of the importance of the fact that the Acts certainly knew of no liberation of the Apostle, and of the lack of trustworthy evidence for this so-called second Roman imprisonment—it is unnecessary to speak further.⁹⁹

But in no case can 2. Timothy iv. 16-18 serve as a foundation for this castle in the air. From the words of the text no one would guess that the ʽfirst defenceʼ signifies the same thing as the first imprisonment, or that the delivery out of the mouth of the lion was identical with an acquittal by the imperial tribunal. We are compelled to conceive this triumph of the Apostle as a moral and religious one, both from the statement of its end and aim in verse 17 and the parallel passage in verse 18, ʽThe Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom.ʼ Paul can assure his pupil that, when before the tribunal, he had defended the Gospel with power and had as yet checkmated the Devil, although relying only on himself and on his God. The second imprisonment theory owes its popularity solely to the unpopularity of any critical verdict against the authenticity of a New Testament Book.

Professor Weiss has formulated the state of the case in the following way: (a) that the hypothesis of a second imprisonment is confirmed only by the Pastoral Epistles, if they are genuine, and (b) that the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles can only be proved by adopting that hypothesis. Criticism, he declared, could never get out of this circle. In this statement he forgets, however, that this ʽin itself quite conceivable periodʼ in the life of Paul becomes very improbable in the light of our tradition—for that a thing is conceivable in itself is never of much use to us in history,—that such suppositions must simply be neglected when they are only made for the benefit of those who insist upon holding the untenable through thick and thin, and that even if the life of Paul had finally shaped itself in this way beyond question, as we should be obliged to assume if we adopted this hypothesis concerning our Epistles, their authenticity would not even then be demonstrated, since with the chronological difficulties the apologists would only have got rid of a quarter or an eighth part of the objections against their genuineness.

4. With regard to the determination of the date of the Epistles, it is enough to refer to a few points, though these are decisive. As we refrained, for reasons given above,¹⁰⁰ from drawing conclusions from 1. Timothy v. 18, where Luke is apparently considered as a canonical book, so we will also refrain here from making the words ʽantitheses of the knowledge which is falsely so calledʼ¹⁰¹ refer to Marcionʼs principal work, entitled ʽAntitheses,ʼ which can scarcely have been completed before the year 140. The readers of these words are not warned against any book. The Church appears to be going through a period of persecution¹⁰²; this would explain the numerous defections, but the very uncertain indications of the Epistles do not permit us to fix the date of this persecution more nearly than to say that it was perhaps that inaugurated by Trajan. Certainly the condition and organisation of the communities presupposed by the Epistles point to a time tolerably far removed from Paul. Unfeigned faith has already become a kind of family inheritance; Timothy had received¹⁰³ it from his mother and grandmother.¹⁰⁴ The duty of keeping the faith is much more strongly dwelt upon than that of spreading and deepening it. The Catholic stand-point is reached; the truth is there, and men are divided into those who hold fast to the truth and those who deny it; there is no longer any question of more or less in the recognition of it (Philip. iii. 15); there is hardly a sign left to show that the religious needs of the communities were supplied, as in 1. Corinthians xii—xiv., by their spiritually gifted members¹⁰⁵; definite persons in definite offices have taken the place of the inspired brethren, and the division into clergy and laity, even though the names have not yet appeared, is already accomplished.¹⁰⁶ Particular qualities are required for admission into the presbytery and for the offices of bishop and deacon, as well as for the rank of honourable widowhood. These qualities (e.g. that a man should rule well his own house, should not be a newly baptised convert) generally show that they were the outcome of long experience and observation, and that a higher standard of morality was already required from the clergy. It is just as certain that the demand of 1. Tim. iii. 2, that a bishop—and also a deacon (iii. 12)—should be the ʽhusband of one wife,ʼ means more than that he should be free from the reproach of adultery and fornication, as that the ʽwidow of sixty yearsʼ who must have been the wife of one man means, especially when taken in conjunction with vy. 11, a woman who has only been once married: the second marriage of a widow was already counted as a breach of the first troth. The primitive form of ordination as a means of special grace to those in office is already introduced¹⁰⁷—in fact great store is set upon the observance in the Church of definite forms.

The picture of the average moral condition of the communities is not very edifying,¹⁰⁸ and the frequent reference to the opinion of non-Christians¹⁰⁹ is also distinctive. The best spirits in the Christian world saw with sorrow that the vice and frivolity of their fellow-believers were doing most serious harm to the Gospel; the secularisation of Christianity was proceeding apace. ʽTrue, this did not begin everywhere at the same time, nor is the date at which a hierarchical organisation first came into being distinctly determinable, but in neither case can we take our stand too near the Apostolic Age.

The description of the false brethren combated in the Pastoral Epistles agrees with this assignment—namely, to the third or fourth generation A.D. Even if there were no direct mention in 1. Timothy vi. 20 of the ʽknowledge which is falsely so called,ʼ there could be no doubt that these heretics—who, in the authorʼs experience, had already caused much mischief in the Church, and from whom he feared still more—-were Gnostics. Everything in the writerʼs theology that is at all tangible is anti-Gnostic in tone; 1. Timothy ii. 4 and 6 sound like a protest against the Gnostic division of mankind into two or three classes, one of which, that of the slaves of Matter (Hylicists), was absolutely excluded from salvation; the extravagant respect for tradition, again, and the anti-Docetic utterances all point in the same direction. But the Gnostics may be recognised still more distinctly from the positive information supplied by the Pastoral Epistles as to the behaviour of the heretics. Whether they were Greeks or quondam Jews,¹¹⁰� they vaunted themselves upon their myths of subtle meaning and their endless genealogies,¹¹¹ and imposed upon men by their skill in reasoning and their capacity for continually setting up and solving fresh problems. These newfangled teachers of the Law used it for idle speculations, instead of for the confirmation of Christian knowledge,¹¹² or appealed to it without the least conception of its true interpretation, in order to enforce the commandments of men¹¹³—the prohibition of marriage, of the drinking of wine and the eating of meat¹¹⁴—and denied the idea of a future resurrection¹¹⁵ on the ground that the true resurrection had already taken place, at any rate among the ʽsons of knowledge.ʼ

Now, it is true that in the aggregate these features do not all apply to any single Gnostic system, such as that of Basilides or of Marcion, but we know numerous Gnostic systems only by name, and the writer has no desire to discuss the individual doctrines of any one system minutely. He confines himself in dealing with this poison mainly to an allusive treatment. Perhaps he knew that the false teaching was advancing to the assault from the most diverse quarters; but every variety was alike worthy of condemnation. We should be fundamentally mistaken as to the position of the Pastoral Epistles if we pressed these false teachers rigidly into three classes: the evil and hopeless men of the last times, against whom the author only wished to prepare his readers; the blasphemers of the present, who were already excommunicate; and the ἑτεροδιδασκαλοῦντες within the Church, recommended to the watchful discipline of the vicars—a comparatively harmless class, which had merely lost sight of the serious morality of Christianity in its fondness for rabbinical or ascetic fancies. Although these false teachers may be somewhat shadowy figures to us, they need not have been so to the authorʼs contemporaries. Nor must we forget that the writer was bound to maintain the rôle of Paul, and therefore can only utter his warnings in the form of prophecy. For this very reason he cannot be over-precise in his outlines. Now, it was only in the second century that this struggle for existence between subjectivism and the true and wholesome doctrine, the Apostolic tradition, became the chief concern of the Church, just as the rigid organisation of the Church became closely bound up with the same movement. Granted that the writer of the Pastoral Epistles was one who actively participated in such a struggle, one who, realising the danger, did not hesitate, in self-defence, to employ the doubtful weapon of supposititious Pauline Epistles, these Epistles could only have been written after the year 100. And taking the external evidence into account, we should fix upon the first quarter of the second century.

As to the writerʼs place of abode it is best to abstain from all conjecture. Many have suggested Rome, basing their Suggestion on occasional Latinisms in the language; but these have little significance, and there is no other local colouring. The author must. certainly have belonged to the ministry, and it is probable that he may even have been born of Christian parents,¹¹⁶ but there is no evidence whatsoever to show that he was of Jewish extraction.¹¹⁷

5. The idea of imparting advice and warning to Christendom in the name of Paul probably came to our unknown author from observation of the exasperating fact that the false teachers sometimes claimed the authority of Paul for their vain doctrine, and sometimes treated it with open contempt. This is the reason why he lays so much stress, now on the Apostolic rights of Paul, and now on the fact that his message contained nothing but the plain Gospel received direct from the Son of God appearing in flesh as the Saviour of sinners. His object was to make the true Paul give his opinion unmistakably on the false Paulinists as well as on the outspoken Anti-Paulinists. To the question why the author made Paul write to Timothy and Titus rather than to anyone else, we might answer: because his object was to furnish admonitions in the Apostleʼs name to the heads of the Church, and for such a part the best known of his trusted comrades were the most suitable; they were at once Paulʼs. disciples, whom he could teach and counsel in fatherly tones, and his trusted followers, whom he could endue with Apostolic authority to establish discipline and order in Gentile communities. It is far more difficult to answer the further question: why the anonymous author drew up three epistles when one would have sufficed, and in what order he composed the three. We may venture the conjecture that from the first he intended to produce more than one epistle, and perhaps chose the number three to begin with; if Paul communicated the same instructions from different situations, to different men, working in entirely different provinces, the

198 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT [cunap. I.

weight of his utterance would be effectively increased. Then no doubt would remain that Paul had laid down binding laws for the whole Church and for all times. With regard to the order in which they were written, we may reasonably assert that 1. Timothy and Titus display the closest connection; 2. Timothy might rather be called the authorʼs trump-card, by which he made the dying Apostle hand over his last will and testament to a successor in the ministry. This is a situation which would naturally call forth tenderer as well as harsher tones. Moreover, on this supposition we should behold the writerʼs powers increasing before our eyes, for in 2. Timothy he certainly approaches most nearly to the real Epistles of Paul in expression, thought and attitude.

This observation, again, leads up to another hypothesis, viz. that genuine Pauline material may have been incorporated in the Pastoral Epistles—notes or fragments of the Apostleʼs letters to those two friends. To a lively fancy, Hymenzus, Alexander and Philetus¹¹⁸ may appear as ʽfigures of flesh and bloodʼ; and indeed the personal references in 2. Timothy i. 15, 18 and iv. 9-18, 19-21, and in Titus ui. 12, 15, have little or no connection with the main tendencies of the Epistles. It is suggested that Paulʼs request in 2. Timothy iv. 13 sounds too simple to have been invented, and large portions of 2. Timothy¹¹⁹ or Titus¹²⁰ contain no teaching which, regarded by itself, would surprise us as coming from the mouth of Paul. The critics have therefore set to work with much zeal to extract the authentic parts, even down to individual words and syllables, from the existing Pastoral Epistles, and have then pieced these together with great skill to form two, three and even more genuine Epistles of Paul, perfect and unimpaired. On the other hand, Harnack, who also believes in some such genuine foundation underlying the Pastoral Epistles, has discovered yet a third hand in the present text. He thinks that about the year 150 some scribe interpolated the portions of 1. Timothy¹²¹ and Titus¹²² concerning the discipline of the Church, as well as the ending of 1. Timothy,¹²³ with the warning against Marcionʼs ʽAntitheses.ʼ

I cannot accept either of these hypotheses. We must of course take care not to assert that the employment of genuine fragments by the nameless author, or the interpolation of later additions into his own work, was impossible-in itself; but the impression of unity given by the whole, especially of the close connection originally existing between all the parts referring to the discipline of the Church, in my opinion outweighs the force of the arguments brought forward in favour of a division of the material among several authors, one writing about the year 60, one about 110, and one about 150. The author brought forward these numerous names and facts (which are to be found especially in 2. Timothy and Titus) of set purpose, in order to give his work the closest possible connection with the genuine Pauline Epistles; he obtained his materials in part from the collection of Epistles accessible to him as to us, and from the Acts; in part he added to them by free invention, in the manner to be exhibited soon afterwards in the ʽActs of Paul.ʼ Here he would, of course, make occasional allusions—which we are naturally unable to follow—to personal matters and occurrences of the moment. 2. Timothy iv. 9-18 is intended (and successfully) to awaken the sympathy of the reader with the disillusioned, lonely, poverty-stricken Apostle, deprived even of his books, to arouse admiration for his strength and thereby to increase the effect of his former warnings. The entreaty to Timothy to come quickly,¹²⁴ recurring in the middle of the messages of greeting, is well calculated to represent the pathetic longing of the man. The other passages which bear the mark of Paulʼs style are successful imitations; the skill with which, if genuine, the anonymous author must be credited for working them up into his own material is at least as remarkable as that which their simple invention would have entailed. However, even there he is not quite Paul; but no one can doubt his wish to be Paul, and Paul alone, in these Epistles. Those who consider it an axiom that Pseudepigrapha are only the work of fools who betray the forger with every word, have no resource but to cast off or to conceal all doubts as to the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles. But it does not surprise me, considering the extraordinarily fine perception sometimes displayed by the author of the Acts in the discourses he puts into the mouth of his hero, corresponding as they do to his individuality and to the given situation, that another Christian, whose work was made so much more easy by his long study of the ten Pauline Epistles, should not long afterwards¹²⁵ have undertaken to write epistles in Paulʼs name to secure the welfare of the distressed Church—epistles in which the public of that time found Paul again, complete as they pictured him, the Apostle of the true faith and the champion of morality and order in all the churches. The skill of the unknown writer—although, to my mind, somewhat premeditated—deserved its success, because it was not self-seeking. The Church accepted without question the ʽword of Paulʼ of which she stood in so much need, and she rewarded the Pseudo-Paul for his work by speedily including his productions in the collection of the Apostolic Epistles, although for force of intellect and wealth of ideas they can endure no comparison with the genuine Pauline Epistles or with the Epistle to the Hebrews.

1) i. 3-11.

2) Verse 11.

3) i. 12-17.

4) i. 18-20.

5) ii. 1-7:

6) ii. 8-15.

7) iii. 1-7.

8) iii. 8-13.

9) iii. 14 fol.

10) iv. 1-10.

11) iv, 11-16.

12) v, 3-16:

13) v. 17-22.

14) vi. 1 and 2.

15) v. 23-25.

16) vi. 3-16, for the doxology and Amen come at verse 16.

17) i. 3-14.

18) i, 15-18.

19) ii. 1-13.

20) ii. 14-26.

21) iv. 6-8.

22) iv. 9-21.

23) i. 1-4 (cf. Rom. i. 1-7).

24) i. 5-9.

25) i. 10-19.

26) ii, 11-14,

27) ii, 15-iii. 2.

28) iii, 3-8 (cf. ii. 11-14).

29) iii, 9-11.

30) In 1807.

31) 1. Tim. i. 15, iii. 1 and iv. 9; 2. Tim. ii. 11; Titus iii. 8, and cf. i. 9.

32) E.g., 1. Tim. vi. 11 and 2. Tim. ii, 22: Titus i. 6-9 and 1. Tim. iii. 2-4; Titus i. 16 and iii. 1 and 2. Tim. iii. 17 (πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθόν); and 1. Tim. iii. 9 and 2. Tim. i. 3 (ἐν καθαρᾷ σννειδήαει).

33) Philip. i. 1.

34) v.12.

35) E.g., the chain of clauses in 1. Tim. from i. 11^b� to 13.

36) 2. Tim. iii, 2 and Rom. i. 30.

37) 2. Tim. ii. 8 and Rom. ii. 16 and xvi. 25.

38) 1. Tim. i. 11 and 2. Cor. iv. 4.

39) i. 11.

40) i. 3.

41) i. 10.

42) iii. 16:

43) v. 14,

44) v. 12.

45) E.g., 2. Tim. ii. 20 from 1. Cor. iii. 12 and Rom. ix. 21; 2. Tim. iv. 6 from Philip. ii. 17, i. 28, and 2. Tim. iv. 7 fol. from 1. Cor. ix, 24, 25, Philip. ii. 16, iii. 12, 14.

46) 1. Tim. ii. 9.

47) Titus ii. 5.

48) v. 23.

49) Titus iii. 3.

50) 2. Tim. iii. 4.

51) 1, Tim. iv. 8.

52) 1, Tim. iii. 2; 2. Tim. ii. 24.

53) This occurs four times in Titus alone.

54) 2. Tim, iii. 4.

55) 2. Tim, ii. 14.

56) 1, Tim. vi. 4.

57) E.g., 1. Tim. i. 4, ʽthe dispensation of God which is in faith.ʼ

58) iii. 19 fol.

59) ii. 5

60) 2. Tim. ii, 23, and 1. Tim. vi. 4.

61) E.g., 2. Tim. i. 13 fol., and ii. 2.

62) 1, ii.

63) ii. 4, 6.

64) 1, iii. 16.

65) 2, ii. 5 fol.

66) 2. Tim. i.

67) 2, Tim. ii. 10.

68) 2. Tim. i. 9.

69) 1. Tim. ii. 5 fol., iii. 16, vi. 13; 2. Tim. ii. 8.

70) 1. Tim. vi. 15.

71) 2. Tim. iv. 3.

72) 2, Tim. iii. 1 fol.

73) 1. Tim. iv. 1.