(A.D. 97.)
[By almost all the ancient Latin Martyrologies, S. Timothy is
commemorated on this day, but by the Greeks on Jan. 22. The
Martyrology called by the name of S. Jerome on Sept. 27. That of
Wandelbert on May 16, possibly because of some translation of
relics. Authorities: the Epistles of S. Paul, and the Acts of S.
Timothy, by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (210), which, however, we
have not in their original form, but in a recension of the 5th or
6th century; other Acts of S. Timothy, also in Greek, and a life in
Metaphrastes.]
Saint Timothy, the beloved disciple of S. Paul, was born at Lystra in
Lycaonia. His father was a Gentile, but his mother, Eunice, was a
Jewess. She, with Lois, his grandmother, embraced Christianity, and S.
Paul commends their faith. S. Timothy had made the writings of the Old
Testament his study from infancy.[117] S. Paul took the young man as the
companion of his labours,[118] but first he had him circumcised at
Lystra, as a condescension to the prejudices of the Jews. He would not
suffer S. Titus, born of Gentile parents, to be brought under the law,
but Timothy, on account of his Jewish mother, to avoid scandal to the
Jews, he submitted to circumcision.
When S. Paul was compelled to quit Beraea, he left Timothy behind him to
confirm the new converts. But on his arrival at Athens S. Paul sent for
him, and sent him to Thessalonica where the Christians were suffering
persecution. Thence he returned to S. Paul, who was then at Corinth, to
give an account of his mission.[119] From Corinth S. Paul went to
Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus. Here he formed the resolution of
returning into Greece, and he sent Timothy and Erastus before him
through Macedonia, to apprize the faithful in those parts of his
intention of visiting them. Timothy had a special charge to go
afterwards to Corinth, to correct certain abuses there. S. Paul awaited
his return, in Asia, and then went with him into Macedonia and Achaia.
During the subsequent imprisonment of S. Paul, Timothy appears to have
been with him. He was ordained Bishop of Ephesus, probably in the year
64. S. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy from Macedonia, in 64;
and his second in 65, from Rome, while there in chains, to press him to
come to Rome, that he might see him again before he died.
S. Timothy was afterwards associated with S. John; and in the Apocalypse
he is the Angel, or Bishop, of the Church of Ephesus, to whom Christ
sends His message by S. John.[120] During the great annual feast of the
Catagogii, which consisted of processions bearing idols, with women
lewdly dancing before them, and ending in bloodshed, S. Timothy moved by
righteous zeal, rushed into the portico of the temple, and exhorted the
frenzied revellers to decency; but this so enraged them, that they fell
upon him with sticks and stones, and killed him.
[Illustration: S. TIMOTHY.
From a Window of the Eleventh Century at Neuweiler.
Jan. 24.]