sending him a letter of encouragement and specific instructions,
to open with a sentence (characteristically wanting a grammatical
conclusion) in which he recalls a parallel case, where
he had exhorted Timothy to "stay on" in Ephesus' {i.e. in
A.D. 56). Nor was the need less urgent now, owing to Judaic
" fables " touching the primitive period of biblical history
( genealogies ), meant to bear on certain parts of the Law
(i. 4-7) as of universal religious validity. At Ephesus (as also
in Crete) much the same type of Judaism as was re-emerging
at Colossae was reacting on local Christianity; while here and
there were traces of dualistic antinomian theory (see i. 19 seq.;
cf. 2 Tim. ii. 17 seq.). The general need of the hour was wholesome
Christian ethics applied all round, supported by firmer
organization in church life, especially with a view to check
irresponsible teaching (i Tim. v. 17, vi. 3; Tit. i. 9-11; 2 Tim.
ii. 2, iv. 3). To the special local problems Paul addresses
himself in this letter, but above all to the bracing of Timothy's
somewhat sensitive nature to face the opposition which he
must encounter as a Christian leader at such a time (note the
similes of the soldier and athlete, both of whom face hardship
readily, as part of their profession, i. 18, v. 8 sqq., vi. 12 seq., 20;
2 Tim. ii. 3 sqq., iv. 5). In this connexion occur also certain
autobiographic passages, as well as solemn affirmations of his
own divine commission {e.g. i. i, 11 sqq., ii. 7), the aim of which
is to reassure his disciple that his gospel will bear all the strain
that is being put upon it, or can be in the future (cf. Eph. vi.
19 seq. for all this). Here Paul is answering challenges which
he knows are being made in Timothy's hearing on every side,
especially now that the apostle seemed less likely to return to
Asia. He himself does not flinch, because he knows he had
not run save "at the command of God" (i. i), after being
wondrously changed from his former self (i. 12 sqq.). Thus
as to the authority of the Gospel " committed to his charge, "
however much it may be called in question (i. 10 seq., ii. 7),
he has no shadow of doubt.
When the curtain rises for the last time, it is on the morrow of the long-expected hearing of Paul's appeal. The case stands 2 Timoth adjourned, but he is no longer under any illusion as to its final issue. His one comfort is that by the Lord's support he had been delivered from the greatest danger, " the mouth of the lion " ready to " swallow up " (cf. I Pet. v. 8) his soul through craven fear, as he stood solitary before Caesar. From that the Lord had rescued him, and would yet rescue him from every " work of ill " (2 Tim. iv. 16-18). Yet his earthly work is done (iv. 6 seq.). So he writes to Timothy, his " beloved child, " whom now he longs to see once more. But lest this should not be granted him, he prefixes to the summons a last will and testament, which may help Timothy to rise above the dismay which his death at the hands of Roman law is bound to cause. Let Timothy take up the Gospel torch as it falls from his own dying hand, and " do the work of an Evangelist, " heeding not the hardship. Then after providing for the Gospel, he turns to more personal interests. " Hasten to me with all speed, " he says in effect, " for I am all alone, save for Luke. My other trusty friends are away on various missions, and Demas has deserted the sinking ship. Tychicus I had already sent to Ephesus; he will replace you. Pick up Mark and bring him with you — he is so helpful. Bring my cloak, papers and books [copies of the Scriptures], lying in Carpus's hands at Troas "^ — perhaps since Acts xx. 6 sqq. " Alexander the bronze-worker [an old Jewish foe at Ephesus, Acts xix. 33] did me many a bad turn in my case {his case is in the Lord's hands); be on thy guard against him." Then follow allusions to Paul's " first defence, " unsupported by such as might
It is quite likely that Timothy left Ephesus for Rome before receiving i Tim., since he was with Paul when Colossians and Philippians were written, the former at least in the summer of 60 (see Philem. 22).
^ It seems best to take iv. 13-15 as all part of this letter, rather than as part of the note from which iv. 20, 2i» probably comes (see above). The homely details follow naturally enough on the reference to Mark; while the reference to Alexander is so far borne out by Heb. xiii. 23, which suggests that Timothy was accused on his arrival in Rome.
have appeared on his behalf (especially from Asia; cf. i. 15); and next salutations to Prisca and Aquila, and to the house of Onesiphorus — an Ephesian who had sought Paul out in Rome (i. i6-i8).
So the curtain falls for the last time. But Paul's fate is hardly obscure. He himself saw that the charge against him, unrebutted by independent evidence, must bring him to the executioner's sword, the last penalty for a Roman citizen. With this late 2nd-century tradition agrees (TertuUian, De praescr. haer. 36), naming the very spot on the Ostian Way, marked by a martyr-memorial {tropaion, Caius ap. Euseb. ii. 25), probably at the modern Tre Fontane, some three miles from Rome. But the traditional date (June 29) reaches us only on far later authority. Acts simply suggests the first half of A.D. 62; and we may imagine Timothy reaching Rome in time to share Paul's last days (cf. Heb. xiii. 23).
Early Tradition has little to say about Paul. Possibly the earliest reference outside the New Testament is a Christian addition to the Testament of Benjamin, xi., which describes a Benjamite as " enlightening with new knowledge the Gentiles." The notice in Clement's epistle (ch. v.) to Paul's having borne bonds " seven times " may be mere rhetoric (perhaps based on 2 Cor. xi. 23). Ignatius refers with reference (cf. Rom. iv. 3) to Paul as his example in martyrdom {Ad Eph. xii. 2); similarly Polycarp {Ad Phil. iii. 2) deprecates the notion that he, or any other like him, could rival " the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, " and refers to his letter(s) to the Philippians. The Acts of Paul, composed not long after A.D. 150 by an Asian presbyter, in order to glorify Paul by supplementing Luke's story, is striking evidence of the regard felt for him in certain circles; but it contains (so far as extant in the Coptic, which also enables us to identify other documents as once parts of these Acts) no fresh data, unless the episode dealing with Paul and Thekla echoes an original tradition belonging to Iconium and Pisidian Antioch. Its description of Paul as " a man small in size, bald, bow-legged, sturdy, with eyebrows meeting and a slightly prominent nose, full of grace " in expression, may or may not be based on local memories (see 2 Cor. x. 10; cf. Diet. Christ. Antiq. ii., 162 1, for early representations of him). The hostile conception of him lying behind the Simon of our Clementine literature {q.v.) has no historic value; and the same may be said of all traditions not to be traced earlier than the 3rd century (cf. R. A. Lipsius, Die apokr. Apostelgesch. u.s.w., and C. Clemen, Paulus, i. 331 sqq.).
Paul's personality is one of the most striking in history. No character of the distant past is known to us more fully, both from within and from without, thanks largely to the self-revealing quality of his letters. His was a deep, complex, many-sided nature, varying widely in mood, yet all so concentrated by moral unity of purpose that the variety of gift and sensibility is apt to escape notice. During his career every faculty comes into play, and we realize how largely human he was. " Even though Paul was an apostle, " says Chrysostom, " still he was a man." A true picture of him must preserve the vital unity in which these two aspects appear in our sources. To judge him save through that vocation which he himself felt to determine all his being, is to fall into unreality. To view him as a mere individual is vain. He cannot be judged entirely by common standards, whether religious or ethical; for owing to his vocation his personality had an universal import which must needs put him out of ordinary human perspective at certain points. Further, we must allow for his limited temporal horizon, shut in for practical purposes by a near Parousia, conceived as bringing ordinary history to an abrupt close, and the hope of which foreshortened all issues. Bearing this in mind, we shall wonder, not so much at any otherworldly spirit or peremptoriness of tone, which were positive duties under such conditions, but rather at the sanity of temper and moral judgment which mark the apostle amid his consuming zeal " by all means to save some " from " the wrath " soon to be revealed against sin and unrighteousness (l Thess. i. 10; Rom. i. 18). We must remember too that he lived in an atmosphere of intense " enthusiasm, " in the most Hteral sense, among those who felt that " the powers of the coming age " (Heb. vi. A seq.) were already at work in " the saints, " men possessed by the divine afflatus and made as it were but organs of the Spirit of God. Viewed in such an environment, Paul is seen to have been a great steadying influence, insisting on character as the normal fruit of the Spirit and the real ground of human worth (i Cor. xiii. 1-3); insisting also that possession by the Spirit did not supersede responsibility for self-control (xiy. 32 seq.), and that the element of conscious reason was superior to blind ecstasy (xiv. I sqq.). He spoke from full personal experience; for he exercised every gift on the list in i Cor. xii. 8. Yet with clear and ever-growing emphasis he defined spirituality in moral terms, those of the will informed by love like that of Christ. How great this service was, none can say. It was his balanced attitude to the operations of the Spirit — outwardly the most di.stinctive thing in Christianity, as compared with Judaism — an attitude at once reverent and reasonable, that saved the Church from fanaticism on the one hand or
