The Interest of this Picture is greatly enhanced by the circumstance that the state of things thus exhibited belongs to a specific and very brief stadium in the life of the Churches. Paul’s government was an eminently personal one, and passed away with himself. The conditions here revealed to us—the precise positions occupied by Timothy and Titus, for example, as missionaries, in the name and by the appointment of the Apostle, exercising plenary authority in the localities in which they might chance to be labouring from time to time—are wholly without parallel in the later Church. We need to come down only a few years to find even the memory of such a state of things faded out of the minds of men. In these epistles we catch thus a glimpse into the first stage of Church life just at the moment before it passes for ever away. The actual conditions exhibited are precisely those that obtained throughout the whole period of Paul’s missionary labours, but they are coloured here with suggestions of an approaching change. An unwonted stress is laid, for example, on the proper organisation of the Churches; not, indeed, in the sense that new offices are erected or new provisions made for the self-government of the Churches, but in the sense that a new emphasis is cast on the importance of organisation after the model which had been adopted from the beginning, and a new zeal is exhibited for filling the old offices— and filling them worthily, with men able to accomplish their trust with credit and to commit it to faithful successors after them. Possibly Paul’s imprisonment had been a warning to him of the shortness and insecurity of life; possibly it was the unsheathing of the sword of persecution by the Roman State that was driving the Churches to seek fuller and more careful organisation that they might weather the storm.

In any event, there are not lacking obvious indications of changing conditions that so far differentiate these epistles from those of earlier days. We are brought in them in contact with Churches not so much in their first infancy as in their callow youth. A history clearly lies behind them, and this is unhappily in part a history of decadence. There had been some falling away from the first love and some loss of spiritual power; the first enthusiasm of faith had perceptibly cooled. The earnest quest of truth, that had marked the first days when the Gospel was a novelty, was here and there giving way to a restless absorption in bizarre and vexing questions of unedifying character. The beginnings of the strange speculations which afterwards waxed into the so-called Gnostic theories, with their degrading conceptions of the relation of God to the world and of humanity to sin, were already showing themselves and betraying the Churches into unprofitable disputes. The changed attitudes of the Roman State, hitherto contemptuously friendly, but after the outburst of the Neronian persecution ominously threatening, was sorely trying the constancy of many who could not but tremble before the menace of Rome. The Apostle’s insistence to his associates, in the face of all these disintegrating influences, on the importance of preserving a vital piety, a sound teaching, and an effective organisation in the Churches, becomes iterant and gives these epistles a tone and manner all their own.

Letters of Instruction. The circumstance that these epistles are not addressed to the Churches themselves but to the Apostle’s coadjutors in governing the Churches, certainly increases the peculiarity thus impressed on them. It is therefore that there appears in them no formal refutation of the erroneous teaching adverted to in them, such as fills a large part of his former letters; no elaborated defence of the elements of the sound doctrine which he demands shall be inculcated, such as forms the very staple of the great doctrinal epistles; no development of the principles that underlie the organisation of the Churches that he insists on, such as would be expected from a philosophical thinker like Paul. Instead of the rich expositions and demonstrations of the truth we have become familiar with in the Apostle’s earlier letters, we have here mere dogmatic enunciations of it, often in a form which suggests that it had already become crystallised in set formulas current in the Churches. Instead of thorough refutations of errors, we have here mere denunciations of them and demands that those that teach them shall be sharply contradicted and authoritatively silenced. Instead of vital developments of the functions of the Church as performed through its differentiated organs, we have here the bare assumption of the necessity of varying Church offices and cold prescriptions for the proper filling of them. The contrast thus induced between these letters and the great doctrinal epistles that preceded them seems surprisingly great—until we remember that it is the inevitable result of their different destinations. These epistles do not recur to the erroneous teachings pressing into the Church for the purpose of refuting them, but only for the purpose of identifying them and prescribing the right attitude of the organisers of the Churches to them. They do not adduce the great principles of the Gospel to men in whole or in part ignorant of them or antagonistic to them, but to those actively engaged in preaching them, and only in order to encourage them in their work and to keep fixed in their minds the right point of view in dealing with the Churches. They do not advert to Church offices to make known for the first time that or how the Church should be organised, but to urge and guide those engaged in organising it, after a perfectly well-understood model, to prosecute their work wisely and well. In a word, just because these letters are addressed not to the people, but to Paul’s own helpers in the Gospel, they deal in instructions, not in arguments or expositions or defences, and do not so much teach new as remind of fundamental things.

Their Language and Diction. The perfect, because natural and unstudied, congruence of these letters with the conditions in which Paul found himself at the end of his life extends to the minutest details of time, place and circumstance. Even in the matter of their diction and linguistic phenomena, which has been a stumbling-block to some, they evince themselves just such letters as we should expect to emanate from such a writer as Paul at the close of his career. This would not be the case, to be sure, if we thought of Paul as painfully composing his letters in a half-known idiom, stretching a fixed meagre vocabulary to its utmost limits of expression in the effort to give his great thoughts some kind of utterance. But this is no true conception of Paul. So far from being confined to a narrow and unchanging vocabulary, acquired perhaps late in life for the purposes of his missionary propaganda, Paul obviously writes as to the manner born, and his flexible and ever-changing style exhibits almost a genius for incorporating new words and turns of speech. It would be impossible for such a writer not to adapt his speech, more or less consciously, to every audience he had in view and to every topic he took in hand; it would be impossible for such a writer to write in absolutely the same manner, or to use precisely the same vocabulary, at intervals divided from one another by only a few years. As a matter of fact, his letters, though bound indissolubly together by fundamental samenesses, yet differ widely from each other in colouring of diction and varying vocabulary.

The observable breadth of this difference is doubtless considerably increased by a circumstance to which too little attention seems to be ordinarily paid. This is the rather odd distribution of Paul’s letters in time. They do not form a single series disposed somewhat regularly through the years. They fall rather into a succession of groups, the members of each of which were written almost simultaneously, while an interval of four or five years intervenes between each two groups. Thus, the two epistles to the Thessalonians were written close together in A.D. 52-53; the great epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Romans again in the course of a single year some five years afterwards (A.D. 57-58). those to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, and to the Philippians, again in A.D. 62-63, after another interval of like duration; and the ‘Pastoral Epistles’ close together again in A.D. 67-68,after another similar interval. The effect of this peculiar arrangement of the letters in time is that they form well-marked groups, not only with respect to contents and tone, but also with respect to their linguistic peculiarities. We cannot feel surprise to find the ‘Pastoral Epistles’ therefore very much alike, and in the very points in which they resemble one another very much unlike the rest of Paul’s epistles.

When we add that the nature of the differences between the two sets of writings corresponds closely with what was to be expected from the experiences of the Apostle in the meantime, and with the character of the new topics with which he was called upon to deal, and the new circumstances in which he wrote, we shall doubtless find it not difficult to perceive the hand of Paul even in these differences. To name but a single example, one of the marked peculiarities of the diction of these letters is the intrusion here and there of a Latinising influence not to be discovered in the earlier Epistles. This certainly falls very well in with the circumstance that they were written not only after Paul’s two years’ sojourn in Rome—where he doubtless found Greek the best medium of communication—but also probably after a journey ‘to the extremities of the West,’ to Spain, and possibly also Gaul, where he might well come into closer contact with Latin-speaking peoples, and, after his wont, acquire something of their habits of speech.

The Familiarity of the Epistolary Style in which these letters are written doubtless accounts also to some extent for their linguistic peculiarities. Few letters have come down from antiquity which are more distinctly letters than these. Despite the elevation of their thought and the note of authority that pervades them, they are unmistakably letters of a friend to friends, written in all the freedom and unguardedness that belongs to intimate correspondence. In the Second Epistle to Timothy—that last tender appeal of Paul to his beloved ‘child’—this characteristic naturally reaches its culmination. Such an outpouring of heart bears its credentials on its face; if we have not here a real heart crying out to an actual friend, there is no such thing as a genuine heart-cry identifiable in all literature. But the same characteristic is present, equally truly and equally persuasively, if not equally poignantly, in the other two letters also. In them Paul has distinct ecclesiastical ends in addressing his friends, who are also his subordinates; and he applies himself to these ends with his customary directness and explicitness. But through all this runs a vein of confidential intercourse, which does not permit us to forget that these subordinates to whom he is issuing his instructions are his cherished friends. He obviously holds them in true affection, and has their personal welfare on his heart. We may read through 1 Timothy and Titus, and on into the melting paragraphs of 2 Timothy, throbbing as they do with the deepest love and aroused passion, without the slightest sense of discontinuity. 2 Timothy might as well as not be the closing section of a long epistle, of which the others formed the beginning. Everywhere, through commands, prescriptions, instructions, exhortations, we catch the heart-beats of the affectionate friend. The words may be those of the superior directing the work of his subordinates, the tone is ever that of the father encouraging his tenderly-loved children. In these epistles, if anywhere, Paul is caught off his guard; and it is not the least of the gains we may derive from them that in them as in a mirror we may catch a reflection of the great leader’s heart. This hero remains a hero even in the completest undress.

Self-Revelation of Paul. Perhaps we may even say that these epistles give us a peculiarly clear insight into Paul’s religion. Of course no sympathetic reader will rise from any one of Paul’s epistles without some apprehension of the depth of his religious feeling as well as of the height of his religious thought. But in these familiar letters to his friends we get the expression of Paul’s deepest conceptions not in a discursive but in a crystallised form—in the maxims which had come to be to him and to them the cherished formulas of their faith. We read but a little way into 1 Timothy, for example, before we fall upon this: ‘Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.’ In that pregnant sentence is summed up all Paul’s theology and all Paul’s religion. Let the other ‘faithful sayings’ embedded in these epistles be placed beside this one; and by the side of these let there be set those other passages, which, though not adduced by this formula, are yet obviously part of the common treasure of truth on which the Apostle, as well as his helpers, nourished their souls—such, for example, as that marvellous description of ‘the mystery of godliness’ that closes the third chapter of the same epistle. Add to these those few, no doubt, but remarkable declarations of the very essence of the Gospel into which the Apostle’s pen now and again slips, like the description of ‘the Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ’ that meets us near the end of the second chapter of Titus. Where shall we find summed up more poignantly the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which Paul felt was committed to his trust, and to the proclamation of which he gave his whole great passionate heart? Here certainly is ‘Paulinism’ in its highest expression and its most compressed enunciation. No one of Paul’s pupils known to us has shown himself capable of so perfectly grasping it, or of so richly declaring it. It is impossible to attribute epistles, in which the very essence of ‘Paulinism’ is thus distilled, to imitators—obscure imitators, without name or station in the Church, but with a miraculous genius for imitation that leads them unerringly into the very heart of their model as no one else has penetrated into it. It seems eminently natural, on the other hand, that Paul himself, as his life drew towards its end, should be found, in his efforts to establish the truths on which his own soul had fed, in the permanent possession of the Churches he had founded, falling back fervidly on the fundamental principles of the Gospel and striving to fix them in the hearts of his spiritual children. This is what is done in these epistles.

The Epistles in the Churches. Epistles such as these could not fail to be cherished by the Churches among their most precious possessions. They came to the Churches as the dying legacy of the founder of Gentile Christianity, and clothed with the pathetic interest that always attaches to the last utterances of the good and great. They lay bare the Apostle’s heart, moreover, with a fulness that is matched in few passages in his other writings, giving occasional, indeed, but repeated, expression to the deepest principles of the Gospel in forms of speech that veritably have hands and feet. In addition to all this, they so fully and clearly direct men how to behave in a church of a living God as to provide a complete practical programme for the organisation and ordering of the Churches, which he who ran might read. We accordingly find these epistles, from the very beginning, not only in the possession but in the fullest use and the highest reverence in the Churches. A heresiarch like Marcion, who amused himself with the use of the shears in adjusting to his own views the body of Scriptures that had been received by the Church from the Apostles, may have clipped them apart from the rest of Paul’s letters. But no one within the limits of the Church until our own day has found occasion to doubt either their Pauline origin or their Apostolical authority. This exceptionally strong external evidence of their genuineness and authenticity falls fully in with their own testimony whether of express claim or of complete appropriateness to the time and conditions of their origin during the last year of Paul’s labours.

Even the chief grounds of objection that have of late years been urged against them recoil when closely interrogated. The very fact that they do not fit into the framework of the Book of Acts, but presuppose the release of Paul and his subsequent activity, is fatal to the theory of their origin in an attempt of a later writer to imitate Paul. For what artist, as skilful as the fabricator of these epistles must needs have been, would discredit his work at the outset by placing it outside the known course of the Apostle’s life? The lack of detailed exposition and refutation of the erroneous teaching that is condemned is most congruous with the supposition that the writer is speaking of phenomena thoroughly understood by both himself and his readers, and needing therefore only to be indicated. The character too, of the Church life depicted, and especially of the Church organisation pictured, will suit no other time than the Apostolic age itself. The doctrinal teaching is emphatically Paul’s and such as none other known to us could have brought to the expression here given it. Even the peculiarities of the diction and language find a ready account in the character of Paul as a writer and the circumstances that attended the composition of these epistles. In a word, there is no valid reason for calling in question the account which the epistles give of themselves, which is also the account given of them by history and the account suggested for them by their character and contents.

Contents of 1 Timothy. The First Epistle to Timothy is, with the single exception of the Epistle to the Galatians, the most abrupt in its opening and closing of all Paul’s letters. After a brief address of only two verses, in which the Apostle so expresses himself as to show that he is writing an official letter in prosecution of his duty as an Apostle appointed by God, and with the concerns of salvation weighing on his heart, the letter proceeds first of all (i.) to remind Timothy of the exhortation that had been given him to put the false teachers at Ephesus to silence, and to justify the charge thus laid on him (i. 3-20). Coming now to the new matter for which the letter was composed, Timothy is exhorted (ii.) properly to order the Church affairs at Ephesus, and this especially with reference to both the public service of the Church (ii. 1-11) and the filling of its offices (iii. 1-13), the Apostle proceeding to point out the importance of these directions by a reference to the nature of the Church as God’s house, to its function as the stay and support of the truth, and to the dangers that impended (iii. 14-iv. 11). The paragraph closes with an exposition of Timothy’s personal duty in the circumstances (iv. 6-11), which forms a natural transition to the next section (iii.), which is occupied with earnest exhortations to him to make full proof of his ministry (iv. 12-vi. 2). After this the Apostle pauses only to add (iv.) some concluding warnings against the dangerous element in the Church (vi. 3-19) before he closes with a touching exhortation to Timothy to keep faith and avoid error (vi. 20-21) and an abrupt benediction (vi. 21b).

Contents of Titus. The address of the Epistle to Titus is relatively much longer and fuller than that of I Timothy, but runs on essentially the same lines. It is so phrased as to stamp the letter as an official letter written in prosecution of the Apostle’s duty as guardian of God’s holy truth. The Epistle then opens (i.) similarly to 1 Timothy, with a reminder to Titus of the duty he was left in Crete to perform—namely, the proper organisation of the Churches as a bulwark against the false teaching pressing into the Churches (i. 5-11). Certain directions are then communicated to Titus (ii.), by attending to which he will fulfil his ministry in Crete (ii. 1-iii. 11). The letter closes with personal notices and the benediction (iii. 12-15).

Contents of 2 Timothy. In the brief address of 2 Timothy the official character of this letter too is proclaimed by the emphasis laid on the Apostolical authority, though its tone already foreshadows the tender character of the letter (i. 1-2). This is followed by Paul’s customary opening thanksgiving (i. 3-7), its tenor being the Apostle’s longing to see Timothy and his entire confidence in him. This introduction runs imperceptibly into the first main section of the Epistle (i.), which is a sustained incitement of Timothy to courageous steadfastness in preaching the Gospel, despite all trials and dangers (i. 6-ii. 13). On this follows (ii.) the second main section of the Epistle, which is an equally sustained exhortation to consistent soundness in teaching and practice as over against the errors of the day (ii. 14-iii. 17). An earnest concluding charge (iii.) is then addressed to Timothy to make full proof of his ministry, based on the Apostle’s approaching removal (iv. 1-8). The Epistle closes with a series of personal notices and details (iv. 9-21) and the customary benediction (iv. 22).

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