The Interpretation of

To date the death of Paul at the close of his two years of imprisonment in Rome, Acts 28:30, implies casting doubt on the genuineness of these three letters. If their genuineness is admitted, it is a hopeless task to find a place for them somewhere in the life of Paul as this is depicted in Acts. Only a few would today attempt this task. They would also be obliged to ignore the volume of ancient tradition which establishes the fact that Paul carried out his long-cherished plan of doing work in Spain (Rom. 15:28).

Paul was acquitted and freed from his first imprisonment in Rome in the spring of the year 63; some think that this occurred during the summer of that year. It is well to remember that Paul was a prisoner of state, a Roman citizen who had appealed his case to the emperor, and that he was detained in Rome only until such a time that the imperial court could act on his appeal. No actual charge was filed against him; in fact, this circumstance made his case irregular as Acts 25:26, 27; 26:31, 32 indicate. Festus did not know what to write to the emperor, and Paul’s defense before Agrippa resulted in the admission of his innocence, which left only Paul’s own appeal to Caesar as the reason for sending him to Caesar’s court. Paul’s second arrest was an entirely different matter.

The burning of Rome (July 19–24, 64) which was followed by new fires several days later after a time was charged against the Christians, many of whom were killed in consequence. At first Nero tried every other means to avert from himself the suspicion of having fired the city, and not until these attempts failed did he charge the Christians with this crime, thus, as Zahn thinks, “not before October, 64.” This frightful persecution brought about the martyrdom of Peter who was crucified in the fall of 64.

Paul was at this time in far-off Spain and so was not involved. But the whole situation was now changed. Christianity had become a religio illicita, and especially its propagation became a crime against the state. Not long after Paul’s return from Spain he was arrested. Now he would be charged with a crime; Paul was, therefore, thrown into a dungeon as a felon. After some delay he was tried and executed. Tradition asserts that he perished under Nero who died June 9, 68. The details of his martyrdom are not known. He must have been condemned to death for spreading a religio illicita.

The problem that confronts the student is the task of arranging the data mentioned in these three letters within the interval between Paul’s release in the spring of 63 and his execution late in 65 or early in 66. We shall also have to note Phil. 1:24; Philemon 22; and Acts 20:25. These three letters resemble many old letters in which places and journeys are mentioned: the persons addressed fully understand while those who read them in afteryears have difficulty in piecing the items together, are often able only to guess, and sometimes are unable to do even that. One thing lies almost on the surface: no forger would be able to insert into his forgeries data such as the ones contained in these three letters, at least no known forger or romancer has ever done so. This is one of the hurdles which those critics must clear who deny that Paul wrote these letters.

The value of these letters to the church does not depend on the solution of the problem here indicated. The value lies in the substance—naturally so. Yet all inspired documents are so precious that earnest students are always willing to spend much time and much effort in ironing out every little historical wrinkle they may find. In the present instance we are not surprised to find divergent views among the best students. There is no way in which any man now living can determine with full certainty how to fit together all the data concerned and do this in such a way as fully to satisfy himself. We are really dealing with no more than probabilities, in part with even less.

We next have the fact that First Timothy and Titus were written first with at most but a brief interval between their composition, while Second Timothy was written soon after Paul’s arrest. We cannot determine the exact extent of the interval occurring between this last letter and the other two. The letters of Paul that have been preserved in our New Testament are not arranged in chronological order but according to length so that Philemon comes last (not after Colossians) and Second Timothy before Titus and not after.

In the first place, confidently expecting his release, Paul promises the Philippians that as soon as he sees how he will fare at his trial he will dispatch Timothy to them and even states why he selects Timothy; he also trusts that he himself will shortly be able to go to Philippi. Paul was acquitted and released and we have no doubt that he promptly sent Timothy to Philippi as he had promised. One reason for sending Timothy was that through him Paul might learn of the state of the Philippians. Did Paul wait in Rome until Timothy returned and then go on to Spain? We do not think so. When Phil. 2:19–24 was written, Paul and Timothy planned that upon Paul’s release Timothy should hurry to Philippi with this news while Paul went from Rome to Ephesus and Colosse. Timothy was to join him at Ephesus and deliver a report about the state of the Philippians. The probabilities lie in this direction.

Secondly, some time prior to the composition of Philippians Paul wrote Colossians and Philemon. Already at that time the prospect for his release was brightening. Thus he invites himself to the home of Philemon in advance (Philemon 22). Was also this visit postponed until after the journey to Spain? We do not think so. From Rome, Paul went to Ephesus, then the short distance to Colosse where he visited Philemon and the congregation and returned to Ephesus where Timothy, coming from Philippi, met him. In Ephesus, Paul attended to all important matters that needed attention. Timothy was to remain in Ephesus and after Paul’s departure was to have the general supervision of the churches in this province (1 Tim. 1:3). Immediately on his arrival and before Timothy came Paul most likely attended to the expulsion of Hymenæus and Alexander (1 Tim. 1:20). After Timothy arrived, Paul proceeds on to Macedonia to visit the Philippians as indicated in Phil. 1:24.

Does Acts 20:25 present a flaw in this sequence, namely the fact that Paul never expected to see the Ephesians again? If Acts 20:25 were a prophecy that was uttered by revelation, it would be a fatal flaw to any sketch of events that include a return of Paul to Ephesus. But Acts 20:25 is not a prophecy, it is only a statement of what Paul thought at the time, a sad conclusion he himself drew from the Spirit’s warnings, that imprisonment awaited him in Jerusalem. Imprisonment came as the Spirit said, but Paul returned to Ephesus, for the Spirit never said that he would not return.

Thirdly, if Paul went to Spain immediately after his release from prison in Rome, First Timothy and Titus were written after the return from Spain. Then, however, the four items we noted in First Timothy and Titus must be combined with the items found in Second Timothy in some consequence. No combination that is plausible has been made; we are free to say, none can be made, see these items in the consideration of Second Timothy below.

But what about Crete and about Paul’s leaving Titus on this island (Tit. 1:5)? When Paul went from Rome to Ephesus and then to Macedonia (thus redeeming the promises made in Philemon 22 and in Phil. 2:24) he stopped at Crete on the way from Rome to Ephesus or went from Ephesus to Macedonia by the way of Crete. The former is the more probable. Titus, it would seem, had worked in Crete before Paul arrived there, had founded congregations there, and in the letter to him Paul does just what he does also in First Timothy: he repeats to Titus how he is to organize the congregations thus gathered.

At the same time Paul summons Titus to meet him in Nicopolis where Paul intends to spend the winter (Tit. 3:12). We thus get this sequence from First Timothy and Titus: from Rome—via Crete—to Ephesus, to Colosse, and back to Ephesus—to Macedonia—to Nicopolis. This covers about one year, from the release in 63 to the end of the next winter early in 64. The fact that Paul visited also other congregations along the indicated route we need scarcely state. The character of the letters shows why no more places are named in them.

Our opinion is that Paul went to Spain in the spring of 64. What route he took from Nicopolis, perhaps through Dalmatia and Gaul (see 2 Tim. 4:10), who can say? Judging from the ancient tradition, he returned after more than a year; we have no details whatever.

Miletus—Troas—Corinth—Rome form a natural line of travel. Ending as this does with the fatal imprisonment, it belongs after the work done in Spain. Where Paul stopped first on leaving Spain no one knows, nor at what place he stopped last before reaching Miletus. Since Miletus was the harbor town of Ephesus, we conclude that Paul reached it by sea, and since he left Trophimus there when he went on, we take it that Paul again took ship in order to go on to Troas. The rest is conjecture. We think that he again visited Ephesus, for why would he land at Miletus and again leave from this port? Did he visit any other cities in the neighborhood such as Laodicea and Colosse? We do not know.

We do not know how he came to leave some of his belongings at Troas. He did; that is all we know. In 2 Tim. 4:13 he asks Timothy to bring them along and jn 4:21 to come before winter. It is unwarranted to assume that Paul’s cloak, etc., had been left in Troas during the entire time since he had visited Macedonia (1 Tim. 1:3); they were left in Troas when Paul came up from Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20) and then passed on to Corinth and Rome; no other supposition seems tenable.

Now as to the probable dates. If Paul went from Nicopolis to Spain in the spring of 64, how long did he remain in Spain? It is assumed that he did not remain there a long time and that he left in the fall. If this is true, then it would seem that he reached Miletus, Troas, Corinth, and Rome before the winter of 64 set in, and that he was executed during that winter, late in 64 or early in 65. Peter was executed in 64. The tradition that Peter and Paul were executed at the same time is due to a late error as Zahn has shown rather conclusively.

We submit that Paul’s long-cherished desire to work in Spain (Rom. 15:24) could scarcely be served by a summer’s work in this large territory, which also required so long a journey to reach it and a still longer journey to return to Miletus, Troas, and then Rome before winter. Compare the previous year (63), all of it was consumed by visiting Crete, Asia Minor, etc., and spending the winter at Nicopolis. We submit that Paul remained in Spain from the time he reached it in 64 until some time in 65, that he then returned to the places named in Second Timothy. He was arrested in Rome in 65 and wrote to Timothy to come before winter; his execution followed before the year was over, or when 66 began. We confess that we cannot find a probability for the supposition that he returned from Spain in 64 and then spent over a year in the Orient (Zahn would extend this another year).

Do these three letters show that Paul is aging? Do they lack the virility of the other letters or the perfection of Philemon in particular? Are they less well arranged? To give an affirmative answer to these questions is in our judgment going too far. The purpose and the subjects treated are different; the mastery with which they are handled is the same as we find in the other letters. Paul’s mental powers are undiminished. His last letter (Second Timothy) has been well called his “swan song.”

The term “Pastoral Epistles” dates from the year 1753 and has become current; yet it is not exact, for it leaves the impression that Paul is coaching Timothy and Titus as “pastors” of a congregation. This is not the case. Timothy and Titus were not “pastors,” either in the present sense of the word (one pastor to a congregation) or in the older sense of elders (each congregation having a number of them). Nor were Timothy and Titus “head pastors,” each being a chief of the group of elders in the congregation as James was among the elders in the church at Jerusalem. They were also not bishops with episcopal jurisdiction over a diocese, this was a far later office. Timothy and Titus were representatives of Paul for the guidance of the churches, the one being Paul’s agent in Asia Minor, the other Paul’s agent in Crete. Through them Paul exercised his apostolic care and oversight; his directions are according: to do what Paul would do if he were present and could do the work himself.

The idea that these letters reflect a far later time, namely the second century when a later type of church organization and government were current, cannot be maintained. The church in Jerusalem already had deacons and already had a widow problem (Acts 6:1, etc.). The congregation at Cenchreæ near Corinth had a deaconess (Rom. 16:1). These three letters cannot be regarded as second-century forgeries on the basis of the type of church organization which they reflect.

Second Timothy differs from the other two epistles. These deal with the work that was to be done at that particular time in Ephesus by Timothy and in Crete by Titus. Moreover, Titus will soon have completed this work in Crete and is to join Paul at Nicopolis and in the spring is to go with him from Nicopolis, as we may conclude, to Spain. Second Timothy is not a sort of continuation or amplification of First Timothy. It has been well called Paul’s “last will and testament to Timothy.” Written in the certain expectation of death when Paul will have no further personal representatives to place over groups of his churches, this letter treats of Timothy’s ministry and work in general and points out to him that he is to carry it on in the spirit of his spiritual father, whose son as well as whose assistant he had been for so long a time.

This last letter is full of restrained emotion and is the nobler because of the restraint. This should be felt by the present readers, otherwise the letter will not be properly appreciated. We have so much cold and matter-of-fact comment on the New Testament on passages where deep emotion throbs. The longing expressed in 2 Tim. 4:21 is that of a dying father for his son, compare Phil. 2:20–23. Almost the whole of chapter 4 throbs with most powerful feeling. Did Timothy read it without a sob in his throat? When he wrote, Paul was not sure that Timothy would be able to arrive before the end came to Paul. Remember that if he did arrive in time he saw the execution of his beloved master with his own eyes.

Although they were addressed to Timothy and Titus, these letters were of utmost value also to the churches, both because they came from the apostle’s own hand and because they dealt with the work to be done for them at that time and in later years. No wonder they were placed into the canon without question. That place was never questioned until the last century. These recurrent attacks upon the genuineness of these letters, whether of one or of all three, whether leaving some residuum from lost letters of Paul or not are unwarranted and have been of no service to the church which has these letters in her canon. Forgery is posited because First Timothy and Titus are said to present a development of church organization and a view of the ecclesiastical office which are far beyond those of Paul’s time and of the New Testament generally; secondly, because all three letters are said to combat later errors, namely Gnosticism. The forger’s motive, we are told, is to secure the authority of the great apostle for the later episcopal form of church government and against the late type of errors. It is tacitly taken for granted that the church was easily deceived and universally accepted these forgeries as genuine letters of Paul.

The fact that these claims are indefensible has been proved at length so often that we need not again go over this ground. Those interested may consult Zahn, Introduction II, 85, etc., the extensive chapter on the genuineness, in fact, the whole of II, 1–133. Add the fact that Timothy and also Titus lived for many years after Paul wrote these letters to them and thus for years attested their genuineness with the result that they were placed into the canon.

The linguistic character of the letters has been emphasized in order to prove their later origin. These linguistics have aptly been called “the last refuge of so-called criticism.” No forger would write greetings like those that are found in these letters; he would copy those of Paul’s other letters. Let this serve as a sample. Word lists have been compiled to show the number of words and expressions that are not found in other letters of Paul. But this can be and has been done by comparing also the other Pauline letters with each other; and every letter has peculiar words, etc., of its own.

The contents of each letter call for the words that it contains. Now the contents of these three letters are quite distinctive. Even Second Timothy differs from First Timothy and Titus and thus has words and turns of phrase of its own. One claim only may be supported by the appeal to their linguistic character, namely the fact that these three letters were, indeed, written late in Paul’s life and with no long intervals between their composition.

It is worth noting that the Vaticanus is incomplete and breaks off in the middle of a word in Heb. 9:14; it does not contain these three letters nor Philemon nor the Apocalypse. Some of the other uncials are fragmentary as regards these three letters. Wohlenberg, Pastoralbriefe 75, etc., presents the textual data in detail together with a paragraph on textual values.