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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 994 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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XXVI . 32name of a See also:

great See also:man whose sentiments it was desired to reproduce and See also:record; the question which seems so important to us, whether the words and even the sentiments are the great man's own or only his historian's, seems then hardly to have occurred either to writer or readers " (W. H. Simcox, Writers of the New Testament, p, 38). The address at See also:Miletus is See also:Paul's last word to the See also:Christian elders of See also:Ephesus, warning them against heresies (Acts xx. 29 seq.) and solemnly bidding them exercise their disciplinary -duties. The Second See also:Epistle to See also:Timothy carries on this See also:line of See also:advice. Here Paul, being dead, yet speaks through Timothy to the See also:local Christians who are exposed to such mischievous tendencies in their environment. Where the writer has hardly succeeded in representing Paul is in his relations to Timothy. One may admit that, strictly speaking, the latter at the See also:age of about See also:thirty-fve or See also:forty could still be called vies, and that Paul might conceivably have termed him still his TEKVOV. But the counsels addressed to him seem rather out of See also:place when one recollects the position which he occupied. To a writer who desired a situation for such advice on See also:church See also:life and See also:doctrine from the lips of Paul to his See also:lieutenant, it was natural to think of a temporary absences But many of the directions are much too serious and fundamental to have been given in this See also:form; one can hardly imagine that Paul considered Timothy (or See also:Titus) still in need of elementary advice and warning upon such matters, and especially on See also:personal purity.

When they are regarded as typical figures of the later episcopi of the Church. the point of this emphasis upon elementary principles and duties is at once clear; they outline graphically the qualifications for the church offices in question. The pressing need of the Church, as the writer conceives it, is to maintain the true Pauline tradition (2 Tim. i. 13, &c.) against certain moral and speculative ideas. This See also:

maintenance takes the twofold See also:practical form of (a) adherence to formulated statements of the " See also:sound teaching " and (b) insistence on a See also:succession of church officials (2 Tim. ii. 1–2) who are not merely to preside but to See also:teach. The last point is significant in view of See also:Didache xv. I. The standpoint of the author is practically that of Clemens See also:Romanus (xlii. seq.), who asserts that the apostles preached " every-where in See also:country and See also:town, appointing their first-fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons." The interests of discipline and doctrine were thus to be conserved. Paul's lieutenants possess - the central See also:deposit of the apostolic faith, and have the See also:duty as well as the right of exercising the authority with which that position invests them. The occasional coincidences between the pastorals and Barns- to See also:Polycarp, who alludes to i Tim. ii. i, vi. 7, Io, and 2 Tim. ii. it, 25, iv. io (for this and the other passages from Polycarp, see The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, 1905, pp. 95 seq.).

This indubitable use of the pastorals in Polycarp8 throws the See also:

terminus ad quem of their See also:composition back into the first See also:decade of the 2nd See also:century, and additional See also:confirmation of this would be forthcoming were the See also:evidence for their use in- See also:Ignatius more 6 The See also:drawback was that, if Paul was soon to see his colleagues again (Titus i. 5; t Tim. i. 3), such detailed advice was hardly necessary; but this imperfection was inevitable. ' The See also:post-Pauline See also:atmosphere of the ecclesiastical regulations is See also:felt most plainly in the references to such sub-apostolic features as the organized See also:register of " widows." The ErieKOlros, the 3utKOYOc and the xipa are also forbidden to See also:contract a second See also:marriage. Such, at any See also:rate, seems the fairest See also:interpretation of I Tim. iii. 2 (E.ricsoros) in the See also:light of See also:early Christian tradition, for although the phrase " See also:husband of one wife " might conceivably be intended as a See also:prohibition of See also:polygamy or See also:vice (=faithful husband, or sober, married man), the antipathy to second marriages (cf. Jacoby, Neatest. Ethik, pp. 378 seq.) is quite in See also:accord with sub-apostolic practice. It is almost as un-Pauline as the See also:assumption that. every irtrKOiros must be married. Cf. on this whole subject See also:Hilgenfeld (Zeitschrift' fiir wiss. Theologie, 1886, pp.

456 seq.) and Schmiedel (Encyd. Biblica, 3113 seq.) ; the opposite position is stated excellently by See also:

Hort (Christian See also:Ecclesia, 1898, 189 seq.) and Dr T. M. See also:Lindsay (Hibbert See also:Journal, i. 166 seq., and in The Church and the See also:Ministry in the, early Centuries, 1903, pp. 139 seq.). 3 The pastorals soon passed into great favour in the early Church. Their method and aim were entirely congenial to the rising See also:Catholic Church, and one is' not surprised to find from writers in the See also:East (See also:Theophilus of See also:Antioch, See also:Justin See also:Martyr) and See also:West (See also:Irenaeus, Ter1 tullian and the author. of 2 See also:Clement) that they were widely read and valued. Absent from See also:Marcion's See also:canon, they were included in the Muratorian, where they appear as private letters (" Fro affectu et dilectione "). See, on the See also:external evidence in See also:general, Zahn's Geschichte der neutest. Kanons, i. 634 seq.

II bas or Clemens Romanus do not prove anything more than a See also:

common milieu of thought, but the epistles were plainly See also:familiar secure. The occasional similarities of thought and expression between them and the See also:Lucan writings suggest that the See also:period of their origin lies within a See also:quarter of a century after Paul's See also:death, and, when one or two later accretions are admitted, the See also:internal evidence, either upon the organization of the church' or upon the errors controverted, tallies with this See also:hypothesis.

End of Article: XXVI

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