_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
friendships 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
friendship 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 circumspection 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 supposititious), 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 companionship
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 circumstance 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 associations; the brutality of the pagan multitude side
by side with the tender friendship 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, circumcised 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 circumcised. To St. Paul circumcision was a worthless
rite. The question was, whether it was a harmless one. This depended
upon circumstances. If, as among the Galatians, it caused people to rely
upon the Law and neglect the Gospel, it was a superstitious obstacle
with which no compromise could be made. But if it was a passport 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 uncircumcised 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 circumcision to be
unnecessary for Gentiles. Their true position with regard to
circumcision was thus made abundantly evident. For the sake of others
they had abstained from availing themselves of the very liberty which
they proclaimed.
In the Troad they met Luke the beloved physician (as indicated by the
sudden use of the first person plural in the Acts), and took him on with
them to Philippi. Here probably, as certainly afterwards at Beroea,
Timothy was left behind by Paul and Silas to consolidate their work. He
rejoined the Apostle at Athens, but was thence sent back on a mission to
Thessalonica, and on his return found St. Paul at Corinth. The two
Epistles written from Corinth to the Thessalonians are in the joint
names of Paul and Timothy. At Corinth, as at Lystra, Iconium, and
Philippi, Timothy became prominent for his zeal as an evangelist; and
then for about five years we lose sight of him. We may think of him as
generally at the side of St. Paul, and as always working with him; but
of the details of the work we are ignorant. About A.D. 57 he was sent by
St. Paul on a delicate mission to Corinth. This was before 1 Corinthians
was written; for in that letter St. Paul states that he has sent Timothy
to Corinth, but writes as if he expected that the letter would reach
Corinth before him. He charges the Corinthians not to aggravate the
young evangelist's natural timidity, and not to let his youth prejudice
them against him. When St. Paul wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia later
in the year, Timothy was again with him, for his name is coupled with
Paul's: and he is still with him when the Apostle wrote to the Romans
from Corinth, for he joins in sending salutations to the Roman
Christians. We find him still at St. Paul's side on his way back to
Jerusalem through Philippi, the Troad, Tyre, and Caesarea. And here we
once more lose trace of him for some years. We do not know what he was
doing during St. Paul's two years' imprisonment at Caesarea; but he
joined him during the first imprisonment at Rome, for the Epistles to
the Philippians, the Colossians, and Philemon are written in the names
of Paul and Timothy. From the passage already quoted from Philippians we
may conjecture that Timothy went to Philippi and returned again before
the Apostle was released. At the close of the Epistle to the Hebrews we
read, "Know ye that our brother Timothy hath been set at liberty." It is
possible that the imprisonment to which this notice refers was
contemporaneous with the first imprisonment of St. Paul, and that it is
again referred to in 1 Timothy (vi. 12) as "the good confession" which
he "confessed in the sight of many witnesses."
The few additional facts respecting Timothy are given us in the two
letters to him. Some time after St. Paul's release the two were together
in Ephesus; and when the Apostle went on into Macedonia he left his
companion behind him to warn and exhort certain holders of erroneous
doctrine to desist from teaching it. There were tears, on the younger
friend's side at any rate, to which St. Paul alludes at the opening of
the Second Epistle; and they were natural enough. The task imposed upon
Timothy was no easy one; and after the dangers and sufferings to which
the Apostle had been exposed, and which his increasing infirmities
continually augmented, it was only too possible that the friends would
never meet again. So far as we know, these gloomy apprehensions may have
been realized. In his first letter, written from Macedonia, St. Paul
expresses a hope of returning very soon to Timothy; but, like some other
hopes expressed in St. Paul's Epistles, it was perhaps never fulfilled.
The second letter, written from Rome, contains no allusion to any
intermediate meeting. In this second letter he twice implores Timothy to
do all he can to come to him without delay, for he is left almost alone
in his imprisonment. But whether Timothy was able to comply with this
wish we have no means of knowing. We like to think of the beloved
disciple as comforting the last hours of his master; but, although the
conjecture may be a right one, we must remember that it is conjecture
and no more. With the Second Epistle to him ends all that we really know
of Timothy. Tradition and ingenious guesswork add a little more which
can be neither proved nor disproved. More than two hundred years after
his death, Eusebius tells us that he is related to have held the office
of overseer of the diocese of Ephesus; and five centuries later
Nicephorus tells us, that he was beaten to death by the Ephesian mob for
protesting against the licentiousness of their worship of Artemis. It
has been conjectured that Timothy may be the "Angel" of the Church of
Ephesus, who is partly praised and partly blamed in the Apocalypse, and
parallels have been drawn between the words of blame in Rev. ii. 4, 5,
and the uneasiness which seems to underlie one or two passages in the
Second Epistle to Timothy. But the resemblances are too slight to be
relied upon. All we can say is, that even if the later date be taken for
the Apocalypse, Timothy may have been overseer of the Church of Ephesus
at the time when the book was written.
But of all the scattered memorials that have come down to us respecting
this beautiful friendship between the great Apostle and his chief
disciple, the two letters of the older friend to the younger are by far
the chief. And there is so much in them that fits with exquisite nicety
into the known conditions of the case, that it is hard to imagine how
any forger of the second century could so have thrown himself into the
situation. Where else in that age have we evidence of any such literary
and historical skill? The tenderness and affection, the anxiety and
sadness, the tact and discretion, the strength and large-mindedness of
St. Paul are all there; and his relation to his younger but much-trusted
disciple is quite naturally sustained throughout. Against this it is not
much to urge that there are some forty words and phrases in these
Epistles which do not occur in the other Epistles of St. Paul. The
explanation of that fact is easy. Partly they are words which in his
other Epistles he had no need to use; partly they are words which the
circumstances of these later letters suggested to him, and which those
of the earlier letters did not. The vocabulary of every man of active
mind who reads and mixes with other men, especially if he travels much,
is perpetually changing. He comes across new metaphors, new figures of
speech, remembers them, and uses them. The reading of such a work as
Darwin's _Origin of Species_ gives a man command of a new sphere of
thought and expression. The conversation of such a man as "Luke the
beloved physician" would have a similar effect on St. Paul. We shall
never know the minds or the circumstances which suggested to him the
language which has now become our own possession; and it is unreasonable
to suppose that the process of assimilation came to a dead stop in the
Apostle's mind when he finished the Epistles of the first imprisonment.
The result, therefore, of this brief survey of the life of Timothy is to
confirm rather than to shake our belief that the letters which are
addressed to him were really written by his friend St. Paul.
The friendship between these two men of different gifts and very
different ages is full of interest. It is difficult to estimate which of
the two friends gained most from the affection and devotion of the
other. No doubt Timothy's debt to St. Paul was immense: and which of us
would not think himself amply paid for any amount of service and
sacrifice, in having the privilege of being the chosen friend of such a
man as St. Paul? But on the other hand, few men could have supplied the
Apostle's peculiar needs as Timothy did. That intense craving for
sympathy which breathes so strongly throughout the writings of St. Paul,
found its chief human satisfaction in Timothy. To be alone in a crowd
is a trial to most men; and few men have felt the oppressiveness of it
more keenly than St. Paul. To have some one, therefore, who loved and
reverenced him, who knew his "ways" and could impress them on others,
who cared for those for whom Paul cared and was ever willing to minister
to them as his friend's missioner and delegate--all this and much more
was inexpressibly comforting to St. Paul. It gave him strength in his
weaknesses, hope in his many disappointments, and solid help in his
daily burden of "anxiety for all the Churches." Specially consoling was
the clinging affection of his young friend at those times when the
Apostle was suffering from the coldness and neglect of others. At the
time of his first imprisonment the respect or curiosity of the Roman
Christians had moved many of them to come out thirty miles to meet him
on his journey from Caesarea to Rome; yet as soon as he was safely lodged
in the house of his gaoler they almost ceased to minister to him. But
the faithful disciple seems to have been ever at his side. And when the
Romans treated Paul with similar indifference during his second
imprisonment, it was this same disciple that he earnestly besought to
come with all speed to comfort him. It was not merely that he loved and
trusted Timothy as one upon whose devotion and discretion he could
always rely: but Timothy was the one among his many disciples who had
sacrificed everything for St. Paul and his Master. He had left a loving
mother and a pleasant home in order to share with the Apostle a task
which involved ceaseless labour, untold anxiety, not a little shame and
obloquy, and at times even danger to life and limb. When he might have
continued to live on as the favourite of his family, enjoying the
respect of the presbyters and prophets of Lycaonia, he chose to wander
abroad with the man to whom, humanly speaking, he owed his salvation,
"in journeyings often," in perils of every kind from the powers of
nature, and from the violence or treachery of man, and in all those
countless afflictions and necessities, of which St. Paul gives us such a
touching summary in the second letter to the Corinthians. All this St.
Paul knew, and he knew the value of it to himself and the Church; and
hence the warm affection with which the Apostle always speaks of him and
to him.
But what did not Timothy owe to his friend, his father in the faith, old
enough to be his father in the flesh? Not merely his conversion and his
building up in Christian doctrine, though that was much, and the chief
item of his debt. But St. Paul had tenderly watched over him among the
difficulties to which a person of his temperament would be specially
exposed. Timothy was young, enthusiastic, sensitive, and at times showed
signs of timidity. If his enthusiasm were not met with a generous
sympathy, there was danger lest the sensitive nature would shrivel up on
contact with an unfeeling world, and the enthusiasm driven in upon
itself would be soured into a resentful cynicism. St. Paul not only
himself gave to his young disciple the sympathy that he needed; he
encouraged others also to do the same. "Now if Timothy come," he writes
to the Corinthians, "see that he be with you without fear; for he
worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do: let no man therefore despise
him." He warned these factious and fastidious Greeks against chilling
the generous impulses of a youthful evangelist by their sarcastic
criticisms. Timothy might be wanting in the brilliant gifts which
Corinthians adored: in knowledge of the world, in address, in oratory.
But he was real. He was working God's work with a single heart and with
genuine fervour. It would be a cruel thing to mar that simplicity or
quench that fervour, and thus turn a genuine enthusiast into a
cold-blooded man of the world. On their treatment of him might depend
whether he raised them to his own zeal for Christ, or they dragged him
down to the level of their own paralysing superciliousness.
The dangers from which St. Paul thus generously endeavoured to shield
Timothy, are those which beset many an ardent spirit, especially in
England at the present day. Everywhere there is a cynical disbelief in
human nature and a cold contempt for all noble impulses, which throw a
damp and chilling atmosphere over society. At school and at the
university, in family life and in domestic service, young men and young
women are encouraged to believe that there is no such thing as
unselfishness or holiness, and that enthusiasm is always either silly or
hypocritical. By sarcastic jests and contemptuous smiles they are taught
the fatal lesson of speaking slightingly, and at last of thinking
slightingly, of their own best feelings. To be dutiful and affectionate
is supposed to be childish, while reverence and trust are regarded as
mere ignorance of the world. The mischief is a grave one, for it poisons
life at its very springs. Every young man and woman at times has
aspirations which at first are only romantic and sentimental, and as
such are neither right nor wrong. But they are nature's material for
higher and better things. They are capable of being developed into a
zeal for God and for man, such as will ennoble the characters of all who
come under its influence. The sentimentalist may become an enthusiast,
and the enthusiast a hero or a saint. Woe to him who gives to such
precious material a wrong turn, and by offering cynicism instead of
sympathy turns all its freshness sour. The loss does not end with the
blight of an exuberant and earnest character. There are huge masses of
evil in the world, which seem to defy the good influences that from time
to time are brought to bear upon them. Humanly speaking, there seems to
be only one hope of overcoming these strongholds of Satan,--and that is
by the combined efforts of many enthusiasts. "This is the victory which
overcometh the world, even our faith." It will be a grievous prospect
for mankind, if faith in God, in ourselves, and in our fellow-men
becomes so unfashionable as to be impossible. And this is the faith
which makes enthusiasts. If we have not this faith ourselves, we can at
least respect it in others. If we cannot play the part of Timothy, and
go forth with glowing hearts to whatever difficult and distasteful work
may be placed before us, we can at least avoid chilling and
disheartening others; and sometimes at least we may so far follow in the
footsteps of St. Paul as to protect from the world's cynicism those who,
with hearts more warm perhaps than wise, are labouring manfully to leave
the world purer and happier than they found it.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] "Paul an ambassador, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ" is
probably right in Philemon; but even there "Paul the aged" would be
true.