See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 142.
ST. TIMOTHY, the beloved disciple of St. Paul, was of Lycaonia, and
probably of the city Lystra. His father was a Gentile, but his mother
Eunice a Jewess. She, with Lois his grandmother, embraced the Christian
religion, and St. Paul commends their faith. Timothy had made the holy
scriptures his study from his infancy.[1] When St. Paul preached in
Lycaonia, in the year 51, the brethren of Iconium and Lystra gave him so
advantageous a character of the young man, that the apostle, being
deprived of St. Barnaby, took him for the companion of his labors, but
first circumcised him at Lystra. For though the Jewish ceremonies ceased
to be obligatory from the death of Christ, it was still lawful to use
them (but not as of precept and obligation) till about the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem with the temple, that the synagogue might be
buried with honor. Therefore St. Paul refused to circumcise Titus, born
of Gentile parents, to assert the liberty of the gospel, and to condemn
those who erroneously affirmed circumcision to be still of precept in
the New Law. On the other side, he circumcised Timothy, born of a
Jewess, by that condescension to render him the more acceptable to the
Jews, and to make it appear that himself was no enemy to their law. St.
Chrysostom[2] here admires the prudence, steadiness, {209} and charity
of St. Paul; and we may add, the voluntary obedience of the disciple.
St. Austin[3] extols his zeal and disinterestedness in immediately
forsaking his country, his house, and his parents, to follow this
apostle, to share in his poverty and sufferings. After he was
circumcised, St. Paul, by the imposition of hands, committed to him the
ministry of preaching, his rare virtue making ample amends for his want
of age. From that time the apostle regarded him not only as his disciple
and most dear son, but as his brother, and the companion of his
labors.[4] He calls him a man of God,[5] and tells the Philippians, that
he found no one so truly united to him in heart and sentiments, as
Timothy.[6] This esteem of the apostle is a sufficient testimony of the
extraordinary merit of the disciple, whose vocation and entrance into
the ministry was accompanied with prophecies in his behalf.[7]
St. Paul travelled from Lystra over the rest of Asia, sailed into
Macedon, and preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ber[oe]a, in the year
52. Being compelled to quit this last city by the fury of the Jews, he
left Timothy behind him, to confirm the new converts there. On St.
Paul's arrival at Athens he sent for him, but being informed that the
Christians of Thessalonica lay under a very heavy persecution for the
faith, he soon after deputed him to go thither, to comfort and encourage
them under it; and he returned to St. Paul, then at Corinth, to give him
an account of his success in that commission.[8] Upon this the apostle
wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians. From Corinth St. Paul went
to Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus, where he spent two years. Here he
formed a resolution of returning into Greece, and sent Timothy and
Erastus before him through Macedon, to apprize the faithful in those
parts of his intention, and to prepare the alms intended to be sent the
Christians of Jerusalem.
Timothy had a particular order to go afterwards to Corinth, to correct
certain abuses, and to revive in the minds of the faithful there the
doctrine which the apostle had taught them; who, writing soon after to
the Corinthians, earnestly recommended this disciple to them.[9] St.
Paul waited in Asia for his return, and then went with him into Macedon
and Achaia. St. Timothy left him at Philippi, but rejoined him at Troas.
The apostle on his return to Palestine was imprisoned, and after two
years custody at Caesarea, was sent to Rome. Timothy seems to have been
with him all or most of this time, and is named by him in the titles of
his epistles to Philemon, and to the Philippians and Thessalonians, in
the years 61 and 62. St. Timothy himself suffered imprisonment for
Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many
witnesses; but was set at liberty.[10] He was ordained bishop by a
prophecy, and a particular order of the Holy Ghost.[11] He received by
this imposition of hands, not only the grace of the sacrament, and the
authority to govern the church, but also the power of miracles, and the
other exterior gifts of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul being returned from
Rome into the East, in the year 64, left St. Timothy at Ephesus, to
govern that church, to oppose false teachers, and to ordain priests,
deacons, and even bishops.[12] For St. Chrysostom[13] and other fathers
observe, that he committed to him the care of all the churches of Asia:
and St. Timothy is always named the first bishop of Ephesus.[14]
St. Paul wrote his first epistle to Timothy from Macedon, 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. It is an effusion of
his heart, full of tenderness towards this his dearest son. In it he
encourages {210} him, endeavors to renew and stir up in his soul that
spirit of intrepidity, and that fire of the Holy Ghost, with which he
was filled at his ordination; gives him instructions concerning the
heretics of that time, and adds a lively description of such as would
afterwards arise.[15]
We learn[16] that St. Timothy drank only water: but his austerities
having prejudiced his health, on account of his weak stomach and
frequent infirmities, St. Paul ordered him to use a little wine. The
fathers observe that he only says a little, even in that necessity,
because the flesh is to be kept weak, that the spirit may be vigorous
and strong. St. Timothy was then young: perhaps about forty. It is not
improbable that he went to Rome to confer with his master. In the year
64 he was made by St. Paul bishop of Ephesus, before St. John arrived
there, who resided also in that city as an apostle, and exercising a
general inspection over all the churches of Asia.[17] St. Timothy is
styled a martyr in the ancient martyrologies.
His acts, in some copies ascribed to the famous Polycrates, bishop of
Ephesus, but which seem to have been written at Ephesus, in the fifth or
sixth age, and abridged by Photius, relate, that under the emperor
Nerva, in the year 97, St. John being still in the isle of Patmos, St.
Timothy was slain with stones and clubs by the heathens, while he was
endeavoring to oppose their idolatrous ceremonies on one of their
festivals called Catagogia, kept on the 22d of January, on which the
idolaters walked in troops, every one carrying in one hand an idol, and
in the other a club. St. Paulinus,[18] Theodorus Lector, and
Philostorgius,[19] inform us, that his relics were with great pomp
translated to Constantinople in the year 356, in the reign of
Constantius. St. Paulinus witnesses, that the least portion of them
wrought many miracles wherever they were distributed. These precious
remains, with those of St. Andrew. and St. Luke, were deposited under
the altar, in the church of the apostles in that city, where the devils,
by their howlings, testified how much they felt their presence, says St.
Jerom;[20] which St. Chrysostom also confirms.[21]
* * * * *
Pious reading was the means by which St. Timothy, encouraged by the
example and exhortations of his virtuous grandmother and mother, imbibed
in his tender years, and nourished during the whole course of his life,
the most fervent spirit of religion and all virtues; and his ardor for
holy reading and meditation is commended by St. Paul, as the proof of
his devotion and earliest desire of advancing in divine charity. When
this saint was wholly taken up in the most laborious and holy functions
of the apostolic ministry, that great apostle strongly recommends to him
always to be assiduous in the same practice,[22] and in all exercises of
devotion. A minister of the gospel who neglects regular exercises of
retirement, especially self-examination, reading, meditation, and
private devotion, forgets his first and most essential duty, the care he
owes to his own soul. Neither can he hope to kindle the fire of charity
in others, if he suffer it to be extinguished {211} in his own breast.
These exercises are also indispensably necessary in a certain degree, in
all states and circumstances of life; nor is it possible for a Christian
otherwise to maintain a spirit of true piety, which ought to animate the
whole body of all his actions, and without which even spiritual
functions want as it were their soul.
Footnotes:
1. 2 Tim. iii. 15.
2. Praef. in 1 Tim.
3. Serm. 177, n. 7.
4. 1 Thess. iii. 2. 1 Cor. iv. 17.
5. 1 Tim. vi. 11.
6. Phil. ii. 20.
7. 1 Tim. i. 18.
8. Acts xviii.
9. 1 Cor. xvi. 10.
10. Heb. xiii. 23.
11. 1 Tim. iv. 14.
12. 1 Tim. {}.
13. Hom. 15, in 1 Tim.
14. Eus. l. 3, c. {} Conc. t. 4, p. 699.
15. 2 Tim. iii. 1, 2.
16. 1 Tim. v. 23.
17. In the Apocalypse, which was written in the year 95, Christ
threatens the bishop of Ephesus, because he was fallen from his
first charity, and exhorts him to do penance and return to his first
works. (Apoc. xi. 4.) Calmet says, that this bishop could be no
other than St. Timothy; Pererius, Cornelieus a Lapide, Grotius,
Alcazar, Bossuet, and other learned men, agree in this point; also
Tillemont, t. 2, p. 147, and Bollandus ad 21 Jan. pp. 563 & 564.
Nicholas a Lyra and Ribera cannot be persuaded that St. Timothy ever
deserved such a censure, unless we understand it only of his flock.
The others say, he might have fallen into some venial remissness in
not reprehending the vices of others with sufficient vigor; which
fault he repaired, upon this admonition, with such earnestness, as
to have given occasion to his martyrdom, in 97. He was succeeded in
the see of Ephesus by John I., who was consecrated by St. John
Evangelist. (See Consitut. Apostol. l. 8, c. 46.) Onesiumus was
third bishop of Ephesus. See Le Quien Oriens. Chris. t. 1, p. 672.
18. Carm. 26.
19. L. 3, c. 2.
20. In Vigilant. c. 2.
21. Hom. 1, ad Pop. Antioch.
22. 1 Tim. iv. 7 and 13.