TIMOTHY, EPISTLES TO. The common au thorship of these two epistles has seldom been denied ; nor, if denied, could the denial be success fully maintained, so marked and so numerous are the points of resemblance between the two, except upon the assumption that the one kas been made up from the other. When, however, we proceed to inquire, By whom were they written ? the ques tion is one which has occasioned in more recent times no small controversy.
If we defer to the testimony of the early eccle siastical writers, no doubt will remain upon the point For the high antiquity of these epistles the allusions to passages in them by Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius, sufficiently vouch (Lardner, ii. 2o, 38, 79, 96). That they are also to be regarded as genuine productions of the apostle whose name they bear, is attested by Tremens (Adz,.
Hal'. lib. i. sub iii. 3. 3) ; by Theophilus of Antioch, who quotes Tim. ii. I, 2, along with Rom. xiii. 7, 8, as part of the divine word' (Ad Autol. i4) ; by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. ii. 383 ; ibid. p. 448) ; by Tertullian (De Pretser. Haret. c. 25); by Caius (ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 20) ; by Origen, etc. (comp. Lardner, vol. ii.) To this weighty mass of external evidence there is nothing to oppose of the same kind, for the omis sion of these epistles by Marcion from his Aposto (icon, is a fact, to which, from the well-known zaprice and prejudice of ihat heretic, no weight can be attached. Unless, therefore, difficulties of an insurmountable nature are presented by the epistles themselves to our regarding them as the produc tions of Paul, we must hold their claim to rank as his to be unimpeachable.
That such difficulties are presented by these epistles has been confidently maintained by EiCh horn (Einleit. iii. 317, ff.), De \Vette (Einleit. s.1 283, ff.), and other scholars of note. The learned and acute Schleiermacher assailed the genuineness of the first epistle in his Kritisches Sendschreiben an c. Gass (Berlin 18o7) ; but that of the second he admitted, and not only so, but was wont to censure the attempts of those who rejected it and that to Titus, as removing the occasion and the means for the criticism of the first' (Dicke, Theol. Stud. und Krit. 1S34, s. 766). To examine all the cavils which these eminent men, in the exercise of that micrologistic criticism in which it seems characteristic of their nation to delight, would be a task altogether incompatible with the limits within which we are confined. A succinct survey of the more weighty of their objections we shall, however, attempt to supply ; beginning with those which are common to both epistles, and proceeding to such as are peculiar to each.
1. It is objected that the general style of these epistles is not Pauline. Has Paul's language in general,' asks Eichhorn, the clearness and ease of expression which we find in these pastoral epistles ? Is it not much more unpolished, careless, and allied to a prose which has been thrown together, rather than carefully elaborated ?' etc. ` The force of such an objection,' Eichhorn adds, it is very diffi cult to make apparent to those who have not the natural gift of discerning modes of writing.' A
most convenient difficulty ! enabling the critic to retort the charge of incapacity upon all who do not see the characteristics of Paul's style in exactly the same light as they are viewed by him. We shelter , ourselves behind the ample authority of Hug, who says of the latter part of the objection, that it is absolutely false,' and who replies to the former by asserting for a letter, written by the apostle to a. friend so intimate as Timothy, the right to exhibit a more free and flowing style than would be proper in a letter addressed to a church (Introcl. Fosdick's transl. p. 569).
2. Much stress is laid by all who have impugned the Pauline origin of these epistles on the occur rence in them of airaE X€76,acva, and forms of ex pression not elsewhere -usual with St. Paul. But to this it may be replied that the same objection might be offered against many of the unquestioned writings of the apostle, such, ex. gr., as the Epistle to the Galatians, in which 57 ibra.,; Xe-y6geva occur, and the Epistle to the Philippians, in which we find 54, etc. ; front which it appears but fair to infer that the occurrence of such is, so far as it can prove anything, an evidence for rather than against the Pauline origin of these epistles. All such reason ings, however, appear to rest upon too precarious a basis to be allowed much weight. When it is re membered how much the style of a writer is affected by his subject, by his design, by the state of his mind at the time of writing, by the circumstances of the parties for whom his composition is intended, as well as how much in the course of a few years the style of even a very careful writer alters, we shall cease to be much moved by the occurrence in the epistles of such a writer as St. Paul, of unexpected varieties and peculiarities of expression. The only valid argument that can be urged against the genu ineness of a writing from such facts is, when it can be shown that the writer has used phrases or words, which it is historically impossible that the party to whom the writing is ascribed could have employed ; as has been done so successfully in several instances by Bentley, in his work on the Epistles ascribed to Phalaris. No attempt of this sort, however, is made by those who have impugned the authenticity of the Epistles to Timothy ; not one word has been adduced which can be shown to be foreign to the age of Paul ; not a single phrase has been pointed out, of which either the outward form, or the conception on which it is based, belongs to a later age' (Planck, Beznerkwen, ze. s. w. s. 17). So far from this, Eichhorn himself admits that they have in their language much that is Pauline,' and that the allusion to the apostle's persecuting zeal before his conversion (r Tim. i. 13), the prin ciples asserted respecting both the substance and the form of Christianity, and the proofs adduced, are highly Pauline (p. 318). (See for details Davidson's I/drat/zee. ioo, ff., and Alford's Gr.