A comparison with other documents connected with Ejiliesus, e.g. Ac 20"''', esp. *', the Prologue of St. John (with the stress on God's creation of all things (cf. 4-'), of the manifestation of Christ in flesh (cf. 3"), of the contrast between the Law and grace and truth and glory (cf. l*"")), and with the Lp. to Eph. (with its stress on the Ascended Lord as the source of spiritual strength, on the importance of the ministry, of the Ch\irch, of familj' life, its wit- ness to the growth of Christian p.salms and hymns), shows that the writer knows the conditions of Ejihesns in the Ist century.
(5) The teaching of the false teachers has been shown to be compatible with the Pauline author- ship, and it may ue added that the very vagueness of it suits an earlier rather than a later date, while the absence of any certain or probable allusion to Docetism, which was the prevalent dan^'er in Ephesus and ita neighbourhood at the tune of
1 John and of the Ignatian letters, is in favour of placing this Epistle hefore those.
(U) Some critics feel an artificiality in the situa- tion implied. Paul is about to return shortly, yet troubles to write on points like those of 2'-3", which could afl'ord to wait ; yet the circumstances of the writing of 1 Cor. and 1 Thcss. (1 Co 4'», 1 Th 3") are exactly analogous. Again, Timothy is placed in a position of very great importance, yet is distrusted as young, liable to be weak, and to be misled ; but thi^ corresponds to the little we know of Timothy's character elsewhere, and it is probable that he had failed to deal with a crisis at Corinth (cf. Timothy) : and both these are objec- tions to any unity of authorship ; indeed, if any- thing, it is more probable that St. Paul should have spoken thus in a private letter to Timothy, than tliat a later writer, who was ex hypothesi using Timothy as a type of an important official, treated as being the recipient of important instruc- tions, sliould have thus weakened his character.
The conclusion is diftieult. The Epistle marks at all points an advance on the earlier Epp. of St. Paul. In style, in organization, in stereotyped fixity of teaching, in the character of the teachers opposed, there are marked dill'erences. On the other liand, in all these points it also otters marked differences from any writings of the 2nd cent. It falls within a period in which we have little to guide us. ' The secularization of Christianity is in full swing' (Jiilicher), but there were the begin- nings of this in I Cor. and Ephesians, 'I'he writer is a type of a time when the ethical voice of a noble Hellenism and the Roman instinct for organization are uniting themselves with the Chris- tianity which had sprung as religion out of Judaism, in order to build up the old-catholic Church ' (von Soden); but such incorporation of Greek and Ruiiian thought had taken place in Pauls time, and was mainly due to his genius. It is Pauline in claim ; admittedly Pauline in central doctrine ; ' their author was an adherent of the apostle's who reproduced his master's ideas' (Moll'att, I.e. p. 561). Ue has an intimate acquaintance with the Pauline letters: the letter was accepted as Pauline by those who most represented Paul's teaching. Whether we can take the further step and assert that it is Paul's own work, depends upon the question whether the stress on organization, authority, teaching, loyalty, can fall within his lifetime ; and whether he was one who could forget the controversies of the past and devote himself in the face of a new danger to lay stress on the foundation already laid, and to try to secure a high moral and spiritual tone within the Churches under his control by enforcing more strictness in worship and in the qualifications for the ministry. The points of comi)arison with the earlier Epistles can scarcely be urged in favour of the authorship ; indeed in one or two places, 1" 2^ (esp. the parenthesis, i\i)l3tia.v \iyw, oi) ^eiiJo^i), the language seems scarcely explained by the cir- cumstances of the time, but to be due to a mere extract from earlier letters, and if so, would be an argument aqairutt genuineness ; but these phnvses may be reminiscences in St. Paul's own mind of a past controversy (cf. Ejih 2°) rather than extracts from his letters ; while the dillerenccs, e.g. in the salutation (1'), in the deeper description of his own sinfulness (I"""), side by side with the stronger assurance of the truth of his message, the bold- ness of the criticism on Timothy, the persona] reference to his illnesses and his water-drinking, the allcctionateness of the last ai>peal (6-"), — elU these are subtle points, which are more natural at first than at second hand, and which seem tu bring us face to face witli Paul hiinsili.
vi. INTEOKITY. — There is no MS ground foi
„4 xmOTHY, Fl"i;^^^i^^;i;^r2j™0X^^
doubtin" the integrity of the Epistle ; nor is there
lnyiUr^sLinconsistW°^l^'=''°^7^^^^^^^^ given the ordinary discursiveness of a etter-->vh.ch
would su-^est interpolation, tor the a^^l^"'^;^
^nacolut" on I', cf. Eph 3' ; 3" comes m awk-ard^y
between '» and >;, and "«? "f^d transpo. t on but