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TIMOTHY, SECOND EPISTLE TO

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 993 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TIMOTHY, SECOND See also:EPISTLE TO . In this See also:book of the New Testament, after a brief thanksgiving for the faith of Timothy (i. 1–5), See also:Paul is represented as warning him against false shame (6 seq.), adducing his own example and that of Onesiphorus. The need and the See also:reward of endurance are then urged (ii. 1–13), and Timothy is bidden to adhere in his See also:work to the Pauline See also:gospel against the seductions of controversial and immoral heretics (ii. 14 seq.).' The practices of the latter are pungently depicted2 (iii. 1–9); Paul reiterates his opening counsels (lo seq.) and then closes with a See also:solemn See also:charge to See also:personal faithfulness. A See also:note of personal matters concludes the epistle '(iv. 6–22). The last See also:verse, with its two-See also:fold greeting (6 KiJpLOS See also:Meta TOO trve6par6s emu, it xapis µE8' bpLv), shows unconsciously but plainly that, while the epistle professes to be a private See also:letter to Timothy, it is in reality addressed to a wider circle, like r Tim. and See also:Titus. But its composite origin is also clear.3 Thus iv. 6–22a, which is certainly See also:authentic, is not homogeneous in itself, the situation of verses 6–8 hardly agreeing with that of q seq., while verse r i (" See also:Luke alone is with me ") cannot have been written at the same See also:time as verse 21.

Various schemes of See also:

analysis have been proposed to See also:account for this and other passages of the same nature in the epistle, e.g. i. 15–18, iii. io seq. But the See also:general result of such reconstructions is tentative. All that See also:criticism has succeeded in establishing is the fact that the author had some reliquiae Paulinae at his disposal, notes written either before or during his last imprisonment in See also:Rome,4 and that these have been worked up into the See also:present letter by one who rightly believed that his See also:master would stoutly oppose the current errors of the See also:age. 2 Timothy, like r Timothy, reveals with See also:fair precision the See also:period and aim of the writer of the pastorals. Evidently (cf. Acts xx. -29–30) the Pauline See also:Christianity of See also:Ephesus was imperilled seriously during the last See also:quarter of the 1st See also:century. Its very growth invited attempts to weave ascetic, theosophic, semi-Jewish fancies See also:round the faith, not unlike the attempts often made in See also:modern See also:India to assimilate See also:Christian and See also:local philosophies of See also:religion. Against such the writer argues in Paul's name, as Luke had already done. From the compositionof a speech in Paul's name (for, though the farewell in Acts goes back to first-See also:hand tradition, it represents the author's standpoint as well as Paul's), it was but a step to compose letters in his name, especially on the basis of some of his extant notes. A genuine concern for local Christianity is the writer's See also:justification for his work, and any See also:idea of fraudulent aims must be dismissed at once.6 " To a writer of this period, it would seem as legitimate an artifice to compose a letter as to compose a speech in the ' Bahnsen gives an ingenious analysis of this See also:section in the epistle.

In ii. 8–13, ii. 6 is See also:

developed; in ii. 14–26, ii. 4; and in iii. 1–4 (8), ii. 5. But this is as artificial as See also:Otto's See also:attempt to classify the See also:con-tents of the epistle under the three notes of the rvevµa in i. 7. 2 On iii. 6 see the fragment from See also:Philo quoted in Euseb. Praep.

Evang. viii. II. " If the epistle was an integral as we have it, its genuineness could scarcely be maintained " (Laughlin, p. 26). ' See also:

Bacon (See also:Story of St Paul, p. 198) and Clemen both assign See also:part of the epistle to the Caesarean imprisonment, the former disentangling iv. 9, I1-18, 20-21a, 22b, the latter iv. 9–18. See also:Hitzig had already found a Caesarean letter In t. 15, iv. 13–16, 20-22a. One See also:great point in favour of such theories is that they give a natural sense to iv.

16, Paul's first See also:

defence being that before the See also:Jews or before See also:Felix. 6 Cf. the present writer's See also:Historical New Testament (2nd ed., 1901, pp. 619 seq.), where the relevant literature is cited. An adequate monograph on See also:ancient pseudonymous literature remains to be written; meantime, further reference may be made to the older essays of See also:Mosheim (Dissertatio de caussis suppositoh'um librorum inter Christianos saeculi primi et secundi, 1733) ; See also:Bentley's Dissertation on See also:Phalaris, pp. 8o seq. ; K. R. Kistlin's See also:article in Theol. Jahrbucher (1851), pp. 149–221, on " Der pseud. Litteratur der altesten Kirche "; and A. Gudemann, in Classical Studies in See also:Honour of H.

Drissler, pp. 52–74 (New See also:

York, 1894).

End of Article: TIMOTHY, SECOND EPISTLE TO

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