5. In I Tim. i, 20 mention is made of Hymenffius as a heretic whom the writer makes Paul say he had ex- communicated; but this is a mistake, for in 2 Tim. ii, 17 we tind Hymenreus still a member of the Church at Ephesus, and such a mistake could not have been made bv Paul. Here, however, it is assumed without proof (I) that the Hymena!us of the one epistle is the same as the Hymena?us of the other; (2) that, being the same, he was still a member of the same Church ; and (3) that it was imiwssible for him, though excommu- nicated, to have returned as a penitent to the Church and again to have become a plague to it. Here are three hypotheses on which we may account for the fact referred to, and, until they be all excluded, it will not follow that any blunder is chargeable upon the writer of this epistle.
6. In I Tim. vi. 13 the writer refers to our Lord's good confession before Pontius Pilate. Now of this we have a record in .John's Gospel; l)ut, as this was not written ill Paul's time, it is urged that this epistle must be as- cribed to a later writer. It is easy to obviate any force that may appear to be in this remark by the consider- ation that all the prominent facts of our Lord's life, and esiK'cially the circumstances of his death, were familiar- ly known by oral communication to ail the Christians before the gospels were written. Though, then, John's gospel was not extant in Paul's time, the facts recorded by .John were well known, and might therefore be verv naturally referred to in an epistle from one Christian to another. Of our Lord's confession before Pilate we may readily suppose that Paul, the great advocate of the spirituality of the Messiah's kingdom, was especial- ly fond of making use.
7. The writer of this epistle, it is affirmed, utters sen- timents in favor of the law which are not Pauline, and teaches the efHcacy of good works in such a way as to 1)6 incompatil)lc with Paul's doctrine of salvation by grace. This assertion we may safely meet with a point- ed denial. The doctrine of this epistle concerning the law is that it is good if it be used vo/ti'juwc, as a law, for the purposes which a moral law is designed to serve; and what is this but the doctrine of the epistles to the Womans and (ialatians, where the apostle maintains that in itself aiul for its own ends tlie divine law is Jioly, just, and good, and becomes evil only when put out of its proper place and used for purposes it was nev- er designed to serve (Kom. vii, 7-12; (.al. iii, 21, etc.). What the writer here teaches concerning good works
is also in full harmony with the apostle Paul's teaching in his acknowledged epistles (comp. Hom. xii; Eph. v and vi, etc.); and if in tliis epistle there is no formal exposition of the (iospel scheme, but rather a dwelling upon practical duties, the reason may easily be found in the peculiar character of this as a pastoral epistle — an epistle of otKcial councils and exhortations to a minister of Christianity.
8. De Wette asserts that 1 Tim. iii. 1() bears marks of being a quotation from a confession or symbol of the Church, of wliicli there were none in Paul's day. But what marks of this does the passage present? The an- swer is, the use of the word iti^oXoyovfJtvwc, a technical word, and the word used by the ecclesiastical writers to designate something in accordance with orthodox doctrine. This is true; but, as technical words are lirst used in their |)roper sense, and as the proper sense of 6fio\oyovfiet'o)Q perfectly suits the passage in question, there is no reason for supposing any such later usage as De Wette suggests. Besides, his argument tells both ways, for one may as well assert that the ecclesiastical usage arose from the terms of this passage as affirm that the terms of this passage were borrowed from ec- clesiastical usage.
9. The writer of this epistle quotes os n part of Scripture a passage which occurs only in Luke x, 7; but as Luke had not written his gospel at the time Paul is supjiosed to have written this ei)istle, and as it is not the habit of the New-Test, writers to quote from each other in the way they quote from the Old Test,, we are bound to suppose that this epistle is the produc- tion of a later writer. But does this writer ((uote Luke x, 7 in the manner alleged? The passage referred to is in V, 18, where we have first a citation from Deut. XXV, 4, introduced by the usual formula, "The Script- ure saith ;" and then the writer adds, as further coii- firmatorj' of his position, the saying of our Lord which is supposed to be quoted from Luke's gospel. Now we are not bound to conclude that this latter was adduced by the writer as a part of Scripture. It may be re- garded as a remark of his own, or as some proverbial expression, or as a well-known saying of Christ's, by which he confirms the doctrine he is establishing. We are under no necessity to extend the formula with which the verse is commenced so as to include in it <ill that the verse contains. The Kai by itself will not jus- tify this; indeed, we may go further, and affirm that the use of Kai alone rather leads to an opposite conclu- sion, for had the writer intended the latter clause to be regarded as a quotation from Scripture as well as the former, he would probably have used some such formula as Kai TvciKiv (comp. Heb. ii, 13).