Tini'othy (Tt/noSrEoc, i. e. Timotheus [q. v.], as the name is given in the A. V. Acts xvi, 1; xvii, 14, 15; xviii, 5; xix, 22; xx, 4; Rom. xvi, 21 ; 1 Cor. iv, 17; xvi, 10; 2 Cor. i, 19; Phil, i, 1 ; ii, 19; Col. i, 1 ; 1 Thess. i, 1 ; iii, 2, 6 ; 2 Thess. i, 1), one of the most interesting of Paul's converts of whom we have an account in the New Test. (In the following treatment of him person- ally, as well as in that of the epistles addressed to him, we make free use of the articles in the Dictionaries of Kitto and Smith.)
1. His Earlij Life. — The disciple thus named was the son of one of those mixed marriages which, though con- demned by stricter Jewish opinion, and placing their offspring on all luit the lowest step in the Jewish scale of precedence, were yet not uncommon in the later pe- riods of Jewish history. The children of these mar- riages were known as mamzerhn (" bastards"), and stood just above the Netliinira. This was, however, ccetei-is paribus. A bastard who was a wise student of the law was, in theory, above an ignorant high -priest ((Tcm. Hieros. Ilorayoth, fol. 84, in Lightfoot, IIoi-. Ileh. in Matt, xxiii, 14); and the education of Timothy (2 Tim. iii, 15) may therefore have helped to overcome the prejudice which the Jews would naturally have against him on this ground. The mother was a Jewess, but the father's name is unknown ; he was a Greek, i. e. a Gentile, by descent (Acts xvi, 1, 3). If in any sense a proselyte, the fact that the issue of the marriage did not receive the sign of the covenant woidd render it probable that he belonged to the class of half-converts, the so-called Proselytes of the Ciate, not those of Itighi- eousness, if such a class as the former existed. See Proselyte. The absence of any personal allusion to the father in the Acts or Epistles suggests the inference that he must have died or disaiipeared during his son's infancy. The care of the boy thus devolved upon his mother, Eunice, and her mother, Lois, who are botli mentioned as sincere believers (2 Tim, i, 6). Under their training his education was emphatically Jewish. "From a child" he learned (probably in the Sept. ver- sion) to "know the Holy Scriptures" daily. The lan- guage of the Acts leaves it uncertain whether Lystra or I)erl)e was the residence of the devout family. The latter has been inferred, but without much likelihood, from a possible construction of Acts xx, 4, the former from xvi, 1, 2 (see Neander, Pflanz. raid Leit. i, 288 ; Al- ford and Huther, ad loc.). In either case the absence of any indication of the existence of a synagogue makes this devout consistencv more noticeable. We may
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think here, as at Philippi, of the few devout women going forth to ttieir daily worsliip at some river-side oratory (Conybeare and Howson, i,"211). The reading ■Kopa Tivwi' in '2 Tim. iii, 14, adopted by Laclimann and Tischendorf, indicates that it was from tliem as well as from the apostle that the young disciple received his first impression of Christian truth. It would be nat- ural that a character thus fasliioned should retain throughout something of a feminine piety. A consti- tution far from robust (1 Tim. v, 23), a morbid shrink- ing from opposition and responsibility ( iv, 12-10; v, 20, 21; vi, 11-14; 2 Tim. ii, 1-7), a sensitiveness even to tears (i, 4), a tendency to an ascetic rigor which he had not strength to bear (1 Tim. v, 23), united, as it often is, with a temperament exposed to some risk (see the elabo- rate dissertation I)e 'SeiiJTepiKa7i;'EniSrvfiini(:,hy Bosius, in Ilase, T/iesaufiis, vol. ii) from "youthful lusts" (2 Tim. ii, 22) and the softer emotions (I Tim. v, 2) — these we may well think of as characterizing the_ youth as they afterwards characterized the man.
2. His Conveision and Ordination. — The arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Lycaonia (Acts xiv, 6) brought the message of glad tidings to Timothy and his moth- er, and they received it with "unfeigneil faith" (2 Tim. i, 5). A.U. 44. If at Lystra, as seems probable from 2 Tim. iii, 11, he may have witnessed the half-com- |)leted sacrifice, the half-finished martyrdom of Paul (Acts xiv, 19). The preaching of the apostle on his return frotn his short circuit prepared him for a life of sufl'ering (ver. 22). From that time his life and edu- cation must have been under the direct superintend- ence of the body of elders (ver. 23). During the inter- val of three j'ears between the apostle's first and second journeys, the youth had greatly matured. His zeal, probably his asceticism, became known both at Lystra and Iconium. The mention of the two churclies as iniircd in testifying to his character (xvi, 2) leads us to believe that the early work was prophetic of the later, that he had already been employed in what was after- wards to be the great labor of his life, as " the messen- ger of the churches," and that it was his tried fitness for that otHce which determined Paul's choice. Those who had the deepest insight into character and spoke with a prophetic utterance pointed to him (1 Tim. i, 18; iv, 14), as others liad pointed before to Paul and Bar- nabas (Acts xiii, 2), as specially fit for the missionary work in which the apostle was engaged. Personal feel- ing led Paul to the same conclusion (xvi, 3), and he was solemnly set apart (the whole assembly of the eld- ers laying their hands on him, as did the apostle him- self) to do the work, and possibly to bear the title, of evangelist (1 Tim. iv, 14; 2 Tim. i, 6; iv, 5). Iconium has been suggested by Conybeare and Howson (i, 289) as the probable scene of the ordination.