CHAPTER I. VERSE 18 - CIIAPTER II. VERSE 8.

It is scarcely necessary to discuss the question whether the authoritative command which Paul now gives to his "child Timothy" could be any other than that which immediately follows. The use of the middle voice demands some recognition in our translation of verse 18. This is my command to thee, child Timothy, one in. harmony with (κατὰ) the prophecies which, when uttered over thee, went on before thee.

This is one of the numerous hints furnished by the New Testament that the Lord appointed "prophets" as well as " teachers," "apostles," and " evangelists," in his Church. Some of the Christians at Corinth had received the "gift (charism) of prophecy." Prophets at Antioch were the mouthpieces of the Holy Ghost, and directed the missionary energies of the Church (Acts xiii. 1, 2). Agabus and the daughters of Philip prophesied, and thus a living voice uttered the mind of the Spirit (Acts xxi. 8-11). This method of Divine direction was probably referred to on other occasions, when the will of the Spirit was indicated as to the personal activities of the Apostle (Acts xvi. 6, 7).

The various references to this prophetic energy are as a matter of fact apparently limited to expectations and fears which governed the special duties of individuals. The prophecies were far-seeing penetrative glances into the life-work, responsibility, and destiny of certain men. The holy expectations formed by prophetic men about young Timothy when he was admitted into the Jewish Christian community, when he was ordained to be the companion and messenger of Paul, went on before him as "avant-couriers, or heralds," of his useful and self-sacrificing life. We need not suppose that such prophecies have ceased. Ecclesiastical history is full of the records of similar predictions, whether or not they were feigned after the events which they were supposed to have anticipated. The story of every Church is enriched with these blessed hopes, these solemn warnings, these voices of the Spirit. More than this, there must ever be in the heart of the Christian Church a holy prophetic fervour, an outlook into the world, a forecasting of the future, a penetration into the mystery of godliness, which are not due to conclusions of mere sense or of unaided reason, which are nothing less than the free and gracious help given by the Holy Ghost. Now the prophecy which had been uttered over Timothy took the form of an injunction, and set before him an ideal. It was as follows, "That in them, i.e., armed, decked, clothed in these prophetic hopes, these prayers of faith concerning thee, thou mightest war the good warfare, discharge the entire duties of the military chieftain. The emphasis, as Huther admits, is on the words "in them." We may understand this emphasis by remembering that no man ever does a great work for the world without a deep inward consciousness of his being predestined to do it. Cornelius a Lapide says, grandly, "The angels, the heavens, the stars,. and all the creatures of his hands, are called his soldiers. He, their great Captain, is the Lord of hosts." The life of Christian ministers must be a warfare with sin and the devil, and they are God's warriors, and fight out his battle. Again and again Paul returns to the use of this imagery. The "good soldier," and not the Levitical priest, military, and not sacerdotal, functions, supplied him with his most vivid illustrations of and truest parallels to the career of a minister of Christ. St. Basil said,—"A soldier does not build houses, nor purchase lands, nor study reward. He has his rations from the king, he pitches his tent in the open field,. . . . he can meet death if honoured by the royal smile. Come then, Christian soldier, let the thought of thy reward command thee."

We probably are not justified in giving to the next word (ἔχων) the strong meaning of "holding" forth at: a shield, or "grasping" as a sword, or "mooring on" to as an anchor,—but we press forward to "the faith and the good conscience" which Timothy is to "have" as the very condition of all success in his Christian warfare.

Without faith—faith in God, faith in the truth he proclaimed, faith in the cause he defended, faith in the Captain whose behests he executed—he must fail. "Conscience," too must be "good," because active, accurate, and ready in the discharge of its functions; and "good" because the testimony it bears is healthy and hopeful, because it is not defiled, nor offended, nor seared, because its voice is the witness of the Spirit and the promise of the Father, God's own vicegerent, ministering reconciliation. " Which," viz., this "good conscience," "certain persons," reputed to be soldiers of Christ, "have repudiated," have deliberately rejected in their own case,¹ "and made shipwreck concerning the faith." There is no spiritual life without moral purity. If a man trifles with conscience he must not presume on faith saving him. His vessel is stranded. Now in verse 20, certain personal illustrations of this spiritual shipwreck are mentioned by name, viz., Hymenceus and Alexander. In the Second Epistle to Timothy (chap. ii. ver. 17), a man bearing the same name with the former of these two, and coupled with Philetus, is charged with disseminating the idea that the resurrection is already passed, and thus, by denying one of the great Christian anticipations of the future, with overthrowing the faith of some. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the same person is referred to in this verse. The strong measures taken by St. Paul may have been resented by Hymenceus and by Alexander, and they may both have gone to greater lengths in their antagonism to the discipline and doctrine of the Apostle. Thus, though the name "Alexander" was a common one, and the (χαλκεύς) "coppersmith" may have been another person altogether from the backslider here denounced, it is fair to conjecture that the Alexander who, with "Hymen<eus," w~s excommunicated by St. Paul, had endeavoured in after years to do him much evil, and was one of the Asiatics who were turned away from him.

This phrase, "I delivered to Satan," may be a mere formula for a solemn expulsion from the Church, and be compared with a like use of the phrase (1 Cor. v. 5), with the additional words (εἰς ὄλεθρον τῆς σαρκὸς), "for the punishment of the flesh." But one peculiarity of the apostolic regimen of the Churches ought not to be kept out of sight The Apostles were gifted with terrible powers of destruction and chastisement as well as of healing. The cases of Ananias, Elymas, and the Corinthian adulterer are recorded, apparently with the purpose of revealing the awful fact, that while it was their privilege to heal disease, to cast out "devils," and to be the medium of conveying the miraculous and extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit,. they were also endowed with the faculty of administering signal chastisement and bodily suffering.

This delivery to Satan, whatever were its outward manifestations, was not an inevitable doom. Its purpose was "that they might be instructed (or disciplined) not to blaspheme."

It is important to notice that this terrible power was an apostolic function as incommunicable as the power to impart the Holy Ghost, or to bear autoptic testimony to the resurrection of Christ.

The Greek particle (οὖν) that introduces the detailed injunctions with which Chapter ii. opens has been charged with the fault of implying a logical connection when none can be found. I can hardly go so far as to say, with Bishop Ellicott, that the οὖν could not have been replaced by any other particle, that it is here used in its true resumptive force and that the connection of this advice with the previous argument is perfectly easy. Yet I do not think it is impossible to discover the significance of this logical particle. Paul had called attention to " the faithful saying," that the Son of God had come in to the world to save sinners. Timothy has been summoned to co-;operate with him in this great work. Prayer for all men would lift the soul of Timothy into fellowship with the limitless love of God, who would have all men come to a knowledge of this truth. If Timothy should take the part of a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and should be armed with prophecy and shielded by faith for the great battle with sin, let him begin by praying for all men, because God loves all. If the verb ποιεῖσθάι be in the middle voice (Alford, Huther), the injunction is more personal, and links itself more obviously with the foregoing advice: "I exhort you, in the first place, on the behalf of all men, to make. petitions, prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings."

This fourfold exposition of the nature of intercessory prayer has induced commentators to aim at discriminating the terms, and very varied have been the results. A few of these efforts may help us to a fuller idea of the duty here enjoined on the Christian minister, as the front and beginning of his duty in the hour of his peril and anxiety. The old Greek commentators have restricted the first' word to the deprecation of wrath, the second to the desire for benefit, and the third to a prayer for judgment, to tall upon the, evil. Augustine (Ep. lix.) refers the four terms to the appropriate accompaniments. of "holy communion;" δεήσεις, prayers before "consecration;" προσευχὰς, those that accompany the breaking of bread; ἐντεύξεις, those in which the Church invokes a blessing On herself; and εὖχαριστιας, the gratiarum actio at the conclusion.' Calvin and Bengel say that προσευχή means pretatio generally, and δέησις, rogatio, for some special benefit. Fritzsche and Trench come. to, nearly the same conclusion, that the main distinction between them is that προσενχή is used always of prayer to God, while δέησις is used, also of prayer to man;² and ἔντευξις is for personal,, as well as relative, intercession. Though. the words partially overlap one another, they are not perfectly equivalent, and in their combination they fill up the whole idea of prayer. The first gives prominence to the sense o£ need, the second to that of communion with God, the third lays emphasis on supplication for others, on the importunity of pleading which is appropriate to the man of God, while the last suggests that even the Christian missionary in a heathen city might not only plead, but give thanks for all men. It is difficult for us always to love all men, to think of all men as equally dear-to God, or to regard all men as equally capable of being blessed. Timothy, after reading this letter, probably walked along the marble colonnade of the great temple ot Artemis, or heard the hum of some twenty thousand Asiatic Greeks crowded in the vast theatre to witness a gladiatorial fight, or encountered a procession of Bacchantes, or turned into the synagogue on the sides of Coressus, and saw the averted looks and felt the bitter hatred of some old friends. We, with some knowledge of the modern world, have to look into the "heils" upon earth, to survey the gold-fields and battle-fields, the African slave-hunts, the throngs and saloons of Pekin, Calcutta, and Paris, the dungeons of Naples, the monasteries of Tibet, and make prayers, petitions, intercessions, and thanksgivings, too, on behalf of all men. In the beginning of the gospel Timothy received this quiet injunction from the Apostle Paul. Now the once whispered word peals like the voice of many waters and mighty thunderings over the whole Church of God.

Verse 2.—Most unnecessary criticism has been hazarded upon the words, ὑπὲρ βασιλέων, "on behalf of kings." Baur has said this is dear proof that the writer belongs to the time of the Antonines, before which period the singular noun would have been used. Ellicott replies justly, if this is to be pressed, the phrase would have been ὑπὲρ τῶν βασιλέων. The words, as they stand, do not point necessarily to the Roman emperors, but to the supreme authorities in the states or provinces in which Timothy's lot might be cast. Christian catholicity is here contrasted with the narrowness of Jewish patriotism. Jews refused to pray for Roman governors³ an event which contributed to their final extinction as a nation.

The next clause is, and "for all who are in an exalted position." Polybius and Josephus use

the same expression to denote a similar idea. The advice thus given was followed by the early Church, and from many sources come confirmations of the practice. One passage from Tertullian's" Apology" (Chap. xxx.) is well known. The testimony is noble, and I am tempted to transcribe a translation of it:

"We Christians, looking up to heaven with outspread hands, because they are free from stain; with uncovered head, because there is nothing to make us. blush; without a prompter, because we pray from, our hearts; do intercede for all the emperors, that their lives may be prolonged, their government be secured to them that their families may be preserved in safety, their senates faithful to them, their armies brave, the people honest, and the whole empire at peace, and for whatever other things are desired by the people or the Caesar."⁴

1) Schleiermacher contends that while Paul elsewhere uses the word in its active sense, and quite correctly, here he uses it of an object within the soul, and wrongly. It is true that the middle form of this verb is used by Homer and the LXX. of persons and in an active sense; but if. Acts vii. 27-39; xiii. 46. The "conscience" is elsewhere spoken of as being offended, defiled₁ &c., and otherwise objectified.

2) Cf. German Gebet and Bitte. In Rom. x. 1 δέῃσις is equal to ἔντευξις. See also 2 Cor. i. 19. προσευχὴ is joined with δεόμενος in Rom: i. 10; and in 1 Tim. iv. 5 the word ἔντευξις is used very generally.

3) Josephus, "B. J.'' ii. 17. 2.

4) Cf. Justin, "Apol." ii. 64. Eusebius, "H. E." viii. 17, "Apos. Const.," contain remarkable specimens of similar prayers.

7) Cornelius, though he here takes occasion to argue in favour of the advocacy of the saints, gives (he says) the heretics the right-hand of fellowship in refusing the name of mediator to the saints.

8) There is difference of reading as to the text of this passage. A leaves out To τὸ μαρτύριον. D, F, G, add οὗ before τὸ Eleven MSS., according to Mack, read τὸ μυστὴριον, which are not, however, mentioned by Tischendorf or Tregelles. Cf., for the construction the apposition of a word with a sentence Rom. xii. 1.

9) Cf. 2 Tim. i. 11; 1 Cor. ix. 27; 2 Cor. iv. 5; and the frequent use of κηρύσσω.

10) Cf. Clem. Rom,: Ep. Cor. c. xxix; 1 Kings viii. 22: Psa. cxl. 2; Lam ii. 19; iii. 41.