The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Timothy — Section 10

cogent reaeoningR and exhortations, and by the strongest Cl, ristian mutivee, St. Paul etrive11 to comfort and suotain Timothy under the trying and perilous circumstances in which he was placed, and adds sorue pro- phetic warnings concerning coming heresies, and directiuns as to h11w Timothy ie to meet them. A brief statement of the present condition of hie affairs at Rome, with a pressing entreaty to Timothy, twice repeated, to hasten to him, and the usual salutations, complete the Epistle. Some remarkable features of the style of the pastoral Epistles have been pointed out in the preceding sections. They cannot be too carefully weighed by those who would form a sound judgment on the difficuit questions connected with them. The fact of there being a hundred and sixty-five words, nearly all good classical Greek, which occur in the pastoral Epistles, but nowhere else in the New Testament, and few of them in the LXX. (see Appendix); about thirty common to the pastoral Epistles and the Epistles of St. Paul, not found elsewhere in the New Testament (with only three or four exceptions); and twenty-two found else- where in the New Testament only in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of St. Peter and St. James, in St. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles (p. 9), -are significant facts, which, if rightly used, mu:st throw light upon the situation. The natural inferences from them, and from the heretical opinions referred to, and the exact phase of Church government and Church institutions disclosed, undoubtedly is that these Epistles belong to a somewhat later period than the othtr Epistles of St. Paul; that in the interval St. Paul had read a good deal of classical Greek; that the Epistle to the Hebrews was either 8t. Paul's composition, or, at least, that he had a good deal to do with it; that St. Peter had seen St. Paul's Epistles, or some of them; and that both writers were acquainted with the Acts of the Apostles. • With regard to the general scheme of St. Paul's last journey to Rome, proposed in the preceding pages, it may be well to call attention to the faot that it springs directly from the pastoral Epistles themselves. Assuming, as a starting-point, the expedition to Spain, indicated by Clement of Rome as having immediately preceded Paul's martyrdom, we come in regular order to Crete, Miletus, possibly Ephesus, Troas, Mace- donia, Corinth, Nicopolis, Rome. There are no imaginary journeys, or trials at Ephesus, or vacant years to be filled up with supposed events, as in other schemes. But we have one consistent j"urney, every stage of which is indicated in the Epistles themselves, and the period of one year from spring to winter also indicated, within which the events natumlly fall. And it is further satisfactory to find that these indications, together with others above referred to, fall in with the best authenticated ecclesiai;- tical traditions, which bring St. Petor and ::,t. Paul together to Rome in Lhe time of the Noro11i1m persecution, to i;eal with their blood their united tust1mony to the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  D INTRODUCTION TO