The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles Part 1

The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles.

by Alfred Plummer.

CHAPTER I.

_THE CHARACTER AND THE GENUINENESS OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES._

"Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus."--1 TIM. i; 2 TIM. i. 1.

"Paul, a servant of G.o.d, and an Apostle of Jesus Christ."--t.i.tUS i.

1.

The first question which confronts us on entering upon the study of the Pastoral Epistles is that of their authenticity, which of late has been confidently denied. In reading them are we reading the farewell words of the great Apostle to the ministers of Christ? Or are we reading only the well-meant but far less weighty counsels of one who in a later age a.s.sumed the name and imitated the style of St. Paul? It seems necessary to devote the first of these expositions to a discussion of this question.

The t.i.tle "Pastoral Epistles" could hardly be improved, but it might easily be misunderstood as implying more than is actually the case. It calls attention to what is the most conspicuous, but by no means the only characteristic in these Epistles. Although the words which most directly signify the pastor's office, such as "shepherd," "feed,"

"tend," and "flock," do not occur in these letters and do occur elsewhere in Scripture, yet in no other books in the Bible do we find so many directions respecting the pastoral care of Churches. The t.i.tle is much less appropriate to 2 Timothy than to the other two Epistles. All three are both pastoral and personal; but while 1 Timothy and t.i.tus are mainly the former, 2 Timothy is mainly the latter. The three taken together stand between the other Epistles of St. Paul and the one to Philemon. Like the latter, they are personal; like the rest, they treat of large questions of Church doctrine, practice, and government, rather than of private and personal matters. Like that to Philemon, they are addressed, not to Churches, but to individuals; yet they are written to them, not as private friends, but as delegates, though not mere delegates, of the Apostle, and as officers of the Church. Moreover the important Church matters of which they treat are regarded, not, as in the other Epistles, from the point of view of the congregation or of the Church at large, but rather from that of the overseer or minister. And, as being official rather than private letters, they are evidently intended to be read by other persons besides Timothy and t.i.tus.

Among the Epistles which bear the name of St. Paul none have excited so much controversy as these, especially as regards their genuineness. But the controversy is entirely a modern one. It is little or no exaggeration to say that from the first century to the nineteenth no one ever denied or doubted that they were written by St. Paul. It is true that certain heretics of the second century rejected some or all of them. Marcion, and perhaps Basilides, rejected all three. Tatian, while maintaining the Apostolicity of the Epistle to t.i.tus, repudiated those to Timothy. And Origen tells us that some people doubted about 2 Timothy because it contained the names of Jannes and Jambres, which do not occur in the Old Testament. But it is well known that Marcion in framing his mutilated and meagre canon of the Scriptures, did not profess to do so on critical grounds. He rejected everything excepting an expurgated edition of St. Luke and certain Epistles of St. Paul,--not because he doubted their authenticity, but because he disliked their contents. They did not fit into his system. And the few others who rejected one or more of these Epistles did so in a similar spirit. They did not profess to find that these doc.u.ments were not properly authenticated, but they were displeased with pa.s.sages in them. The evidence, therefore, justifies us in a.s.serting that, with some very slight exception in the second century, these three Epistles were, until quite recent times, universally accepted as written by St. Paul.

This large fact is greatly emphasized by two considerations. (1) The repudiation of them by Marcion and others directed attention to them.

They were evidently not accepted by an oversight, because no one thought anything about them. (2) The evidence respecting the general acceptance of them as St. Paul's is full and positive, and reaches back to the earliest times. It does not consist merely or mainly in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Tertullian[1] wonders what can have induced Marcion, while accepting the Epistle to Philemon, to reject those to Timothy and t.i.tus: and of course those who repudiated them would have pointed out weak places in their claim to be canonical, if such had existed. And even if we do not insist upon the pa.s.sages in which these Epistles are almost certainly quoted by Clement[2] of Rome (c. A.D. 95), Ignatius of Antioch (c. A.D. 112), Polycarp of Smyrna (c. A.D. 112), and Theophilus of Antioch (c. A.D. 180), we have direct evidence of a very convincing kind. They are found in the Pes.h.i.+tto, or early Syriac Version, which was made in the second century. They are contained in the Muratorian canon, the date of which may still be placed as not later than A.D. 170. Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, states that "Paul mentions Linus in the Epistle to Timothy," and he quotes t.i.tus iii. 10 with the introduction "as Paul also says." Eusebius renders it probable that both Justin Martyr and Hegesippus quoted from 1 Timothy; and he himself places all three Epistles among the universally accepted books and not among the disputable writings: _i.e._, he places them with the Gospels, Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, and the other Epistles of St. Paul, and not with James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. In this arrangement he is preceded by Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, both of whom quote frequently from all three Epistles, sometimes as the words of Scripture, sometimes as of "the Apostle," sometimes as of Paul, sometimes as of the Spirit. Occasionally it is expressly stated that the words quoted are addressed to Timothy or to t.i.tus.

It would take us too far afield to examine in detail the various considerations which have induced some eminent critics to set aside this strong array of external evidence and reject one or more of these Epistles. They fall in the main under four heads. (1) The difficulty of finding a place for these letters in the life of St. Paul as given us in the Acts and in his own writings. (2) The large amount of peculiar phraseology not found in any other Pauline Epistles. (3) The Church organization indicated in these letters which is alleged to be of a later date than St. Paul's time. (4) The erroneous doctrines and practices attacked, which are also said to be those of a later age. To most of these points we shall have to return on some future occasion: but for the present this much may be a.s.serted with confidence. (1) In the Acts and in the other Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle's life is left incomplete. There is nothing to forbid us from supposing that the remaining portion amounted to several years, during which these three letters were written. The Second Epistle to Timothy in any case has the unique interest of being the last extant utterance of the Apostle St.

Paul. (2) The phraseology which is peculiar to each of these Epistles is not greater in amount than the phraseology which is peculiar to the Epistle to the Galatians, which even Baur admits to be of unquestionable genuineness. The peculiar diction which is common to all three Epistles is well accounted for by the peculiarity of the common subject, and by the fact that these letters are separated by several years from even the latest among the other writings of St. Paul.[3] (3, 4) There is good reason for believing that during the lifetime of St. Paul the organization of the Church corresponded to that which is sketched in these letters, and that errors were already in existence such as these letters denounce.

Although the controversy is by no means over, two results of it are very generally accepted as practically certain. (1) The three Epistles must stand or fall together. It is impossible to accept two, or one, or any portion of one of them, and reject the rest. (2) They stand or fall with the hypothesis of St. Paul's second imprisonment. If the Apostle was imprisoned at Rome only once, and was put to death at the end of that imprisonment, then these three letters were not written by him.

(1) The Epistles stand or fall together: they are all three genuine, or all three spurious. We must either with the scholars of the Early Church, of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance, whether Roman or Protestant, and with a clear majority of modern critics,[4] accept all three letters; or else with Marcion, Basilides, Eichhorn, Bauer, and their followers,[5] reject all three. As Credner himself had to acknowledge, after having at first advocated the theory, it is impossible to follow Tatian in retaining t.i.tus as apostolic, while repudiating the other two as forgeries. Nor have the two scholars[6] who originated the modern controversy found more than one critic of eminence to accept their conclusion that both t.i.tus and 2 Timothy are genuine, but 1 Timothy not. Yet another suggestion is made by Reuss, that 2 Timothy is unquestionably genuine, while the other two are doubtful. And lastly we have Pfleiderer admitting that 2 Timothy contains at least two sections which have with good reason been recognized as genuine (i.

15-18 and iv. 9-21), and Renan asking whether the forger of these three Epistles did not possess some authentic letters of St. Paul which he has enshrined in his composition.[7]

It will be seen, therefore, that those who impugn the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles are by no means agreed among themselves. The evidence in some places is so strong, that many of the objectors are compelled to admit that the Epistles are at least in part the work of St. Paul. That is, certain portions, which admit of being severely tested, are found to stand the test, and are pa.s.sed as genuine, in spite of surrounding difficulties. The rest, which does not admit of such testing, is repudiated on account of the difficulties. No one can reasonably object to the application of whatever tests are available, nor to the demand for explanations of difficulties. But we must not treat what cannot be satisfactorily tested as if it had been tested and found wanting; nor must we refuse to take account of the support which those parts which can be thoroughly sifted lend to those for which no decisive criterion can be found. Still less must we proceed on the a.s.sumption that to reject these Epistles or any portion of them is a proceeding which gets rid of difficulties. It is merely an exchange of one set of difficulties for another. To unbia.s.sed minds it will perhaps appear that the difficulties involved in the a.s.sumption that the Pastoral Epistles are wholly or partly a forgery, are not less serious than those which have been urged against the well-established tradition of their genuineness. The very strong external evidence in their favour has to be accounted for. It is already full, clear, and decided, as soon as we could at all expect to find it, viz., in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. And it must be noticed that these witnesses give us the traditional beliefs of several chief centres in Christendom.

Irenaeus speaks with full knowledge of what was accepted in Asia Minor, Rome, and Gaul; Clement witnesses for Egypt, and Tertullian for North Africa. And although the absence of such support would not have caused serious perplexity, their direct evidence is very materially supported by pa.s.sages closely parallel to the words of the Pastoral Epistles found in writers still earlier than Irenaeus. Renan admits the relations.h.i.+p between 2 Timothy and the Epistle of Clement of Rome, and suggests that each writer has borrowed from a common source. Pfleiderer admits that the Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp "displays striking points of contact with 2 Timothy." Bauer's theory, that all three letters are as late as A.D. 150, and are an attack on Marcion, finds little support now. But we are still asked to believe that 2 Timothy was forged in the reign of Trajan (98-117) and the other two Epistles in the reign of Hadrian (117-138). Is it credible that a forgery perpetrated A.D. 120-135 would in less than fifty years be accepted in Asia Minor, Rome, Gaul, Egypt, and North Africa, as a genuine letter of the Apostle St. Paul? And yet this is what must have happened in the case of 1 Timothy, if the hypothesis just stated is correct. Nor is this all, Marcion, as we know, rejected all three of the Pastoral Epistles; and Tertullian cannot think why Marcion should do so. But, when Marcion was framing his canon, about the reign of Hadrian, 2 Timothy according to these dates, would be scarcely twenty years old, and 1 Timothy would be brand-new. If this had been so, would Marcion, with his intimate knowledge of St. Paul's writings, have been in ignorance of the fact; and if he had known it, would he have failed to denounce the forgery? Or again, if we a.s.sume that he merely treated this group of Epistles with silent contempt, would not his rejection of them, which was well-known, have directed attention to them, and caused their recent origin to be quickly discovered? From all which it is manifest that the theory of forgery by no means frees us from grave obstacles.

It will be observed that the external evidence is large in amount and overwhelmingly in favour of the Apostolic authors.h.i.+p. The objections are based on internal evidence. But some of the leading opponents admit that even the internal evidence is in favour of certain portions of the Epistles. Let us, then, with Renan, Pfleiderer, and others admit that parts of 2 Timothy were written by St. Paul; then there is strong presumption that the whole letter is by him; for even the suspected portions have the external evidence in their favour, together with the support lent to them by those parts for which the internal evidence is also satisfactory. Add to which the improbability that any one would store up genuine letters of St. Paul for fifty years and then use parts of them to give substance to a fabrication. Or let us with Reuss contend that in 2 Timothy "the whole Epistle is so completely the natural expression of the actual situation of the author, and contains, unsought and for the most part in the form of mere allusions, such a ma.s.s of minute[8] and unessential particulars, that even did the name of the writer not chance to be mentioned at the beginning it would be easy to discover it." Then there is strong presumption that the other two letters are genuine also; for they have the external evidence on their side, together with the good character reflected upon them by their brother Epistle. This result is of course greatly strengthened, if, quite independently of 2 Timothy, the claims of t.i.tus to be Apostolic are considered to be adequate. With two of the three letters admitted to be genuine, the case for the remaining letter becomes a strong one. It has the powerful external evidence on its side, backed up by the support lent to it by its two more manifestly authentic companions. Thus far, therefore, we may agree with Baur: "The three Epistles are so much alike that none of them can be separated from the others; and from this circ.u.mstance the ident.i.ty of their authors.h.i.+p may be confidently inferred."[9] But when he a.s.serts that whichever of this family of letters be examined will appear as the betrayer of his brethren, he just reverses the truth. Each letter, upon examination, lends support to the other two; "and a threefold cord is not easily broken." The strongest member of the family is 2 Timothy: the external evidence in its favour is ample, and no Epistle in the New Testament is more characteristic of St. Paul. It would be scarcely less reasonable to dispute 2 Corinthians.

And if 2 Timothy be admitted, there is no tenable ground for excluding the other two.

II. But not only do the three Epistles stand or fall together, they stand or fall with the hypothesis of the release and second imprisonment of the Apostle. The contention that no place can be found for the Pastoral Epistles in the narrative of the Acts is valid; but it is no objection to the authenticity of the Epistles. The conclusion of the Acts implies that the end of St. Paul's life is not reached in the narrative. "He abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling," implies that after that time a change took place. If that change was his death, how unnatural not to mention it! The conclusion is closely parallel to that of St Luke's Gospel; and we might almost as reasonably contend that "they were continually in the temple," proves that they were never "clothed with power from on high," because they were told to "tarry in the city" until they were so clothed, as contend that "abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling," proves that at the end of the two years came the end of St. Paul's life. Let us grant that the conclusion of the Acts is unexpectedly abrupt, and that this abruptness const.i.tutes a difficulty. Then we have our choice of two alternatives. Either the two years of imprisonment were followed by a period of renewed labour, or they were cut short by the Apostle's martyrdom. Is it not more easy to believe that the writer did not consider that this new period of work, which would have filled many chapters, fell within the scope of his narrative, than that he omitted so obvious a conclusion as St.

Paul's death, for which a single verse would have sufficed? But let us admit that to a.s.sert that St. Paul was released at the end of two years is to maintain a mere hypothesis: yet to a.s.sert that he was _not_ released is equally to maintain a mere hypothesis. If we exclude the Pastoral Epistles, Scripture gives no means of deciding the question, and whichever alternative we adopt we are making a conjecture. But which hypothesis has most evidence on its side? Certainly the hypothesis of the release. (1) The Pastoral Epistles, even if not by St. Paul, are by some one who believed that the Apostle did a good deal after the close of the Acts. (2) The famous pa.s.sage in Clement of Rome (_Cor._ v.) tells that St. Paul "won the n.o.ble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world, and _having reached the furthest bound of the West_ (t? t??a t?? d?se??)." This probably means Spain;[10] and if St. Paul ever went to Spain as he hoped to do (Rom. xv. 24, 28), it was after the imprisonment narrated in the Acts. Clement gives us the tradition in Rome (c. A.D. 95). (3) The Muratorian fragment (c. A.D. 170) mentions the "departure of Paul from the city to Spain." (4) Eusebius (_H.E._, II. xxii. 2) says that at the end of the two years of imprisonment, according to tradition, the Apostle went forth again upon the ministry of preaching, and on a second visit to the city ended his career by martyrdom under Nero; and that during this imprisonment he composed the Second Epistle to Timothy. All this does not amount to proof; but it raises the hypothesis of the release to a high degree of probability. Nothing of this kind can be urged in favour of the counter hypothesis. To urge the improbability that the labours of these last few years of St. Paul's life would be left unrecorded is no argument. (1) They are partly recorded in the Pastoral Epistles. (2) The entire labours of most of the Twelve are left unrecorded. Even of St. Paul's life, whole years are left a blank. How fragmentary the narrative in the Acts must be is proved by the autobiography in 2 Corinthians. That we have very scanty notice of St.

Paul's doings between the two imprisonments does not render the existence of such an interval at all doubtful.

The result of this preliminary discussion seems to show that the objections which have been urged against these Epistles are not such as to compel us to doubt that in studying them we are studying the last writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles. If any doubts still survive, a closer examination of the details will, it is hoped, tend to remove rather than to strengthen them. When we have completed our survey, we may be able to add our testimony to those who through many centuries have found these writings a source of Divine guidance, warning, and encouragement, especially in ministerial work. The experience of countless numbers of pastors attests the wisdom of the Church, or in other words the good Providence of G.o.d, in causing these Epistles to be included among the sacred Scriptures.

"It is an established fact," as Bernhard Weiss rightly points out (_Introduction to the New Testament_, vol. i., p. 410), "that the essential, fundamental features of the Pauline doctrine of salvation are even in their specific expression reproduced in our Epistles with a clearness such as we do not find in any Pauline disciple, excepting perhaps Luke or the Roman Clement." Whoever composed them had at his command, not only St. Paul's forms of doctrine and expression, but large funds of Apostolic zeal and discretion, such as have proved capable of warming the hearts and guiding the judgments of a long line of successors. Those who are conscious of these effects upon themselves will probably find it easier to believe that they have derived these benefits from the great Apostle himself, rather than from one who, with however good intentions, a.s.sumed his name and disguised himself in his mantle. Henceforward, until we find serious reason for doubt, it will be a.s.sumed that in these Epistles we have the farewell counsels of none other than St Paul.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Adv. Marc._, V. xxi.

[2] _Clem. Rom._ I. ii., xxix., lxi.; Ign. _Magn._ viii., _Pol. pa.s.sim_; Polycarp, iv; Theoph. _Autol._, III., xiv,; Iren., _Haer._, III. iii. 3, 4; Euseb. _H. E._, III. xxv., 2., xxvi. 4., x.x.xii. 8.

[3] "The wealth and mobility of the Pauline intellect ... must not be fettered in mode of teaching or expression by a rule taken from a number of older epistles arbitrarily selected."--BERNHARD WEISS, _Introduction to the N. T._, i. p. 410 (Hodder: 1887).

[4] Among them Alford, Baumgarten, Beck, Dollinger, Fairbairn, Farrar, Guericke, Herzog, Hofmann, Huther, Kolling, Lange, Lightfoot, Neander, Oosterzee, Otto, Plumptre, Salmon, Schaff, Thiersch, Wace, Wieseler, Wiesinger, Wordsworth.

[5] Among them Credner, S. Davidson, Ewald, Hausrath, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Mangold, Schenkel, and on the whole De Wette.

[6] Schmidt and Schleiermacher followed by Bleek.

[7] Similar admissions, which are quite fatal to the view that the three Epistles are not genuine, are made by Hausrath, Immer and Lemme; while Ewald, Hitzig, Krenkel, and Weisse think that t.i.tus contains authentic fragments. See the exposition of 2 Tim. iv. 9-21.

[8] What forger would have thought of the cloak (or book-case) left at Troas with Carpus, or would have been careful to speak only of "the _house_ of Onesiphorus," and not of himself, in two places?

[9] _Paul, his Life and Works_, Pt. II., ch. viii. Eng. Trans., p. 105.

[10] It cannot possibly mean Rome; least of all in a doc.u.ment written in Rome. Rome was a centre, not a frontier.

_THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY._

CHAPTER II.

_TIMOTHY THE BELOVED DISCIPLE OF ST. PAUL. HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER._

"Timothy, my true child in faith."--1 TIM. i. 2.

"Timothy, my beloved child."--2 TIM. i. 2.

In the relation of St. Paul to Timothy we have one of those beautiful friends.h.i.+ps between an older and a younger man which are commonly so helpful to both. It is in such cases, rather than where the friends are equals in age, that each can be the real complement of the other. Each by his abundance can supply the other's want, whereas men of equal age would have common wants and common supplies. In this respect the friends.h.i.+p between St. Paul and Timothy reminds us of that between St.

Peter and St. John. In each case the friend who took the lead was much older than the other; and (what is less in harmony with ordinary experience) in each case it was the older friend who had the impulse and the enthusiasm, the younger who had the reflectiveness and the reserve.

These latter qualities are perhaps less marked in St. Timothy than in St. John, but nevertheless they are there, and they are among the leading traits of his character. St. Paul leans on him while he guides him, and relies upon his thoughtfulness and circ.u.mspection in cases requiring firmness, delicacy, and tact. Of the affection with which he regarded Timothy we have evidence in the whole tone of the two letters to him. In the sphere of faith Timothy is his "_own true_ child" (not merely adopted, still less supposit.i.tious), and his "beloved child." St.

Paul tells the Corinthians that as the best means of making them imitators of himself he has sent unto them "Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every Church" (1 Cor. iv. 17). And a few years later he tells the Philippians that he hopes to send Timothy shortly unto them, that he may know how they fare.

For he has no one like him, who will have a genuine anxiety about their welfare. The rest care only for their own interests. "But the proof of him ye know, that, as a child a father, so he slaved with me for the Gospel" (ii. 22). Of all whom he ever converted to the faith Timothy seems to have been to St. Paul the disciple who was most beloved and most trusted. Following the example of the fourth Evangelist, Timothy might have called himself "The disciple whom Paul loved." He shared his spiritual father's outward labours and most intimate thoughts. He was with him when the Apostle could not or would not have the companions.h.i.+p of others. He was sent on the most delicate and confidential missions.

He had charge of the most important congregations. When the Apostle was in his last and almost lonely imprisonment it was Timothy whom he summoned to console him and receive his last injunctions.

There is another point in which the beloved disciple of the Pastoral Epistles resembles the beloved disciple of the Fourth Gospel. We are apt to think of both of them as always young. Christian art nearly invariably represents St. John as a man of youthful and almost feminine appearance. And, although in Timothy's case, painters and sculptors have not done much to influence our imagination, yet the picture which we form for ourselves of him is very similar to that which we commonly receive of St. John. With strange logic this has actually been made an argument against the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles. Myth, we are told, has given to this Christian Achilles the attributes of eternal youth. Timothy was a lad of about fifteen when St. Paul converted him at Lystra, in or near A.D. 45; and he was probably not yet thirty-five when St. Paul wrote the First Epistle to him. Even if he had been much older there would be nothing surprising in the tone of St. Paul's letters to him. It is one of the commonest experiences to find elderly parents speaking of their middle-aged children as if they were still boys and girls. This trait, as being so entirely natural, ought to count as a touch beyond the reach of a forger rather than as a circ.u.mstance that ought to rouse our suspicions, in the letters of "Paul the aged"[11] to a friend who was thirty years younger than himself.

Once more, the notices of Timothy which have come down to us, like those which we have respecting the beloved disciple, are very fragmentary; but they form a beautiful and consistent sketch of one whose full portrait we long to possess.

Timothy was a native, possibly of Derbe, but more probably of the neighbouring town of Lystra, where he was piously brought up in a knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures by his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. It was probably during St Paul's first visit to Lystra, on his first missionary journey, that he became the boy's spiritual father, by converting him to the Christian faith. It was at Lystra that the Apostle was stoned by the mob and dragged outside the city as dead: and there is no improbability in the suggestion that, when he recovered consciousness and re-entered the town, it was in the home of Timothy that he found shelter. In any case Lystra was to the Apostle a place of strangely mixed a.s.sociations; the brutality of the pagan mult.i.tude side by side with the tender friends.h.i.+p of the young Timothy. When St. Paul on his next missionary journey again visited Lystra he found Timothy already enjoying a good report among the Christians of that place and of Iconium for his zeal and devotion during the six or seven years which had elapsed since his first visit. Perhaps he had been engaged in missionary work in both places. The voices of the prophets had singled him out as one worthy of bearing office in the Church; and the Apostle, still grieving over the departure of Barnabas with John Mark, recognized in him one who with Silas could fill the double vacancy. The conduct of the Apostle of the Gentiles on this occasion has sometimes excited surprise. Previously to the ordination, Paul, the great proclaimer of the abrogation of the Law by the Gospel, circ.u.mcised the young evangelist. The inconsistency is more apparent than real. It was an instance of his becoming "all things to all men" for the salvation of souls, and of his sacrificing his own convictions in matters that were not essential, rather than cause others to offend. Timothy's father had been a Gentile, and the son, though brought up in his mother's faith, had never been circ.u.mcised. To St. Paul circ.u.mcision was a worthless rite. The question was, whether it was a harmless one. This depended upon circ.u.mstances. If, as among the Galatians, it caused people to rely upon the Law and neglect the Gospel, it was a superst.i.tious obstacle with which no compromise could be made. But if it was a pa.s.sport whereby preachers, who would otherwise be excluded, might gain access to Jewish congregations, then it was not only a harmless but a useful ceremony. In the synagogue Timothy as an uncirc.u.mcised Jew would have been an intolerable abomination, and would never have obtained a hearing. To free him from this crippling disadvantage, St. Paul subjected him to a rite which he himself knew to be obsolete. Then followed the ordination, performed with great solemnity by the laying on of the hands of all the elders of the congregation: and the newly ordained Evangelist forthwith set out to accompany Paul and Silas in their labours for the Gospel.

Wherever they went they distributed copies of the decrees of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem, which declared circ.u.mcision to be unnecessary for Gentiles. Their true position with regard to circ.u.mcision was thus made abundantly evident. For the sake of others they had abstained from availing themselves of the very liberty which they proclaimed.