φύλαξον διὰ Πνεύματος “Αγίου: φυλάσ- σειν is more than ἔχειν: it implies here final perseverance; and that can only be attained through the Holy Spirit. God must co-operate with man, if man’s efforts are to be successful. Cf. ‘‘ Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God which worketh in you ” (Phil. ii. 12, 13).
Πνεύματος ᾿Αγίου : This verse and Tit. iii. 5 are the only places in the Pastorals in which the Holy Spirit is mentioned.
Ver. 15. οἶδας τοῦτο: There is a per- sonal appeal for loyalty in this reminder. The whole paragraph, with its examples cited of disloyalty and loyalty, was in- tended as an object lesson to Timothy.
13—18.
* ἔλεος ὁ Κύριος τῷ ᾿Ονησιφόρου οἴκῳ - καὶ τὴν ᾿ἅλυσίν µου οὐκ "ἐπαισχύνθη,ὶ 17. ἀλλὰ γενόμενος ἐν Ρώμῃ ᾿σπουδαίως” ἐζήτησέν µε καὶ εὗρεν "---τ8. δῴη αὐτῷ ὁ
h Here only, N.T. i Eph. vi. 20.
Vii. 20. | ἐπῃσχύνθη ΝΑ ζ.
ἀπεστράφησάν pe: The reff., with the exception of chap. iv. 4, are parallel to this use of the verb.
πάντες must not be pressed: it is the sweeping assertion of depression. If it had been even approximately true, Timo- thy would have had no church to admini- ster. On the other hand, something less serious than apostasy from the faith may be alluded to, such as personal neglect of the apostle (cf. iv. 16, πάντες pe ἐγκατέ- λειπον, and the contrast of Onesiphorus’ conduct with theirs in the next verse), a thing which to uswhosee St. Paul through the halo of centuries of veneration seems painfully hard to understand. But it is abundantly plain that apostles did not during their lifetime receive that univer- sal and unquestioning reverence from their fellow-Christians which we would have antecedently supposed could not have been withheld from them. Cf. 3 John 9.
οἱ ἐν τῇ ᾿Ασίᾳ: Asia means the Roman province, which included Mysia, Lydia, Caria, great part of Phrygia, the Troad, and the islands off the coast.
This statement is most naturally ex- plained of a defection in Asia of natives of Asia. Plummer conjectures that St. Paul had applied by letter from Rome for help to some leading Asiatic Christians, and had been refused. Of course it is possible that St. Paul refers to something that had taken place in Rome (so Bengel, who compares chap. iv. 16). But all who are in Asia would be a strange way of referring to some Asiastics who had been in Rome and had returned to Asia; and though οἶδας τοῦτο is naturally under- stood as mentioning something of which Timothy had knowledge only by report, we cannot be sure that St. Paul intended here to distinguish οἶδας from γινώσκεις. Perhaps the defection had taken place during an absence of Timothy from Asia. Nothing else is known certainly of Phy- gelus and Hermogenes.
Ver. 16. δῴη ἔλεος, κ.τ.λ.: δίδωμι ἔλεος, like εὑρίσκω ἔλεος, is a Hebraism. Seereff. The correlative, λαμβάνω ἔλεος