onishing
variation in the Greek. Beneath this diversity there exists a unity.
The Pastoral Epistles have many Pauline phrases,[2] many graphic
touches, many forcible and original statements, and glow with that
personal devotion to Christ combined with a practical capacity for
guiding Christians which St. Paul possessed in so singular a degree.
If the Pastoral Epistles are spurious, or if they are composite
productions written by a forger who inserted some notes of St. Paul in
his own effusions, it becomes almost impossible to account for the fact
that 2 Tim. differs delicately both in language and subject from 1 Tim.
and Titus. In view of this fact we can admire the sagacity of a recent
opponent of their authenticity who deprecates "the possibility of
extricating the Pauline from the traditional and editorial material"!
[3]

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO TIMOTHY

[Sidenote: The Author.]

Reasons have already been given for rejecting the arguments which have
been alleged against the Pauline authorship of this Epistle. We may
add that it is unlikely that a forger would have inserted the word
"mercy" (i. 2) in the usual Pauline greeting "grace and peace." The
reference to Timothy's "youth" (iv. 12; cf. 2 Tim. ii. 22) has seemed
strange to many. But although {201} St. Paul had been acquainted with
Timothy for about twelve years, Timothy must have been greatly the
junior of St. Paul. Even if Timothy was as old as thirty-five, the
word "youth" would be quite natural from the pen of an old man writing
to a pupil, whom he had known as a very young man, and whom he was now
putting in authority over men old enough to be his own father. We can
attribute this Epistle to St. Paul without hesitation.

[Sidenote: To whom written.]

Timothy was one of the apostle's own converts, his "child in faith."
We learn from Acts xvi. 1 that he was the son of a Greek-speaking
Gentile father and a Jewish mother. He had received a strictly
religious Jewish training from his mother Eunice and his grandmother
Lois (2 Tim. i. 1-5; iii. 14, 15). He was converted by St. Paul on his
first missionary journey, at Lystra or Derbe. On St. Paul's second
visit to that district, Timothy was so well reported of that he was
thought worthy of being associated with the apostle in his work.
Before employing him as a colleague, St. Paul had him circumcised, that
he might be able to work among Jews as well as Gentiles (Acts xvi. 3).
Some