SCRIPTURE
6As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:6-8, NRSV)
WHAT
In Background Commentary #1, I review the probable historical situation that lie behind the Pastoral letters, including 2 Timothy and Titus. In Background Commentary #2, I review the reasons most scholars believe that Paul is not the author of one or more of these letters and why I do not think their case is rock solid. In this Background Commentary #3, I want to outline a possible alternate timeline, that while not the majority scholarly position today, has some significant support in the historical tradition.
To review, most scholars today do not see the Pastorals as written by Paul. They see them as the production of a “Pauline school,” i.e., a group of Paul’s followers, writing long after his death, perhaps as late as the mid-second century. Rather than being three individual letters, by this theory, they are a single literary composition in the form of fictitious correspondence in which biographical elements serve only to provide an air of plausibility. The purpose of this composition would not be nefarious; it would be to bring the authority of Paul to a situation or situations faced by the author’s church.
What are the primary reasons for this view? As we saw in Background Commentary #2, one issue is that the church organization of the Pastorals is more elaborate than in any other Pauline letter. There are episkopē, (bishops/overseers), presbyteros (elders), and diakonos (deacons). There is at least the beginnings of an Order of Widows, which became a distinct organizational feature of 2nd century Christianity and beyond. The stress on orthodoxy sounds like second- or third-generation Christianity when the Church was dealing with various heresies and as William Barclay points out, “the thrill of the new discovery is wearing off and the Church is on the way to becoming an institution.” There are differences in style and vocabulary when compared to Paul’s undisputed letters. And finally, there is the problem that we cannot fit the situation described in the Pastorals into the mission or missions of Paul as we know them from Acts and his undisputed letters, such as Galatians and Romans.
So in this view, the three letters of the Pastorals together represent the beginning of a type of document known as “church orders.” This type of document regulated church worship and ministry. Examples that emerged in the 2ndand 3rd centuries are the Didache, the Didascalia Apostolorum, and the Apostolic Constitutions.
This theory has significant deficiencies, however. Professor Luke Timothy Johnson points out that even if the writing of letters in Paul’s name soon after his death is accepted, the Pastorals were accepted as genuine by the ancient Church. This stands in sharp contrast to clearly Pauline counterfeits such as 3 Corinthians, the Letter to Laodiceans, the Letters of Paul and Seneca, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla which were almost all rejected as fakes in the writings of early Church Fathers. So this shows that the early Church Fathers could detect fakes. If the Pastorals were fakes, why did the early Church Fathers consider them authentic?
Let’s turn now to a possible alternate timeline. The book of Acts ends with Paul in prison in Rome. It leaves us hanging about what happened to him. It ends by simply telling us that Paul lived for two whole years in a kind of house arrest:
He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. (Acts 28:30-31, NRSV)
Acts does not tell us how that captivity ended, whether Paul was released or executed. The majority opinion of scholars today is that this captivity ended with Paul’s death around 65 A.D. But as Professor Barclay points out, there is a “by no means negligible” stream of tradition which tells that Paul’s Acts captivity in Rome ended in his release. Under this tradition, Paul was released from the imprisonment described in Acts and enjoyed his freedom for two or three more years. In fact, he conducted further ministry, perhaps even going to Spain before his second imprisonment and finally his execution around the year 67 A.D.
Where this fits with the Pastorals is in trying to figure out when 2 Timothy was written in relation to Paul’s imprisonments if it is genuinely a Pauline letter. He is clearly convinced that his death is approaching:
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:6-8, NRSV)
If this tradition is correct, Paul would have written 2 Timothy during that second imprisonment which did result in his death by beheading (the “merciful” execution method reserved for Roman citizens).
Here is the evidence FOR this tradition, as outlined by Professor Barclay:
First, it is clear that, when Paul was in prison in Rome, he seemed to expect that he would be released. When he wrote to the Philippians, he said that he was sending Timothy to them, and goes on to say:
I hope therefore to send (Timothy) as soon as I see how things go with me; and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon. (Philippians 2:23-24, NRSV)
As further evidence of his expectation to be released, in his letter to Philemon upon sending back the runaway slave Onesimus, Paul wrote:
One thing more -- prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you. (Philemon 1:22, NRSV)
So clearly Paul was expecting to be released, whether or not it ever came. One problem here is that while Paul clearly wrote these letters from prison, it was probably an earlier imprisonment from which he was released.
Second, when Paul wrote Romans (written from Corinth on his way to Jerusalem, where he was arrested and eventually sent to Rome in chains), he wrote:
But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you when I go to Spain. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints… So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. (Romans 15:23-25, 28-29, NRSV)
Did Paul ever make that journey to Rome, or was his only visit when he arrived in chains? Did he ever get to Spain? That’s the million dollar question.
There is a letter known as 1 Clement, which was sent from the church in Rome to the Christians at Corinth around 90 A.D. This letter says that Paul preached the gospel in the east and in the west, that he instructed the whole world (i.e., the Roman Empire) in righteousness, and that he went to “the extremity of the west” before his martyrdom. What did Clement mean by “the extremity of the west?” Many scholars argue that he meant nothing more than Rome. As Professor Barclay says:
“Now it is true that someone writing some distance away in the east in Asia Minor would probably think of Rome as the extremity of the west. But Clement was writing from Rome, and it is difficult to see that for anyone in Rome the extremity of the west could be anything other than Spain. It certainly seems that Clement believed that Paul reached Spain.” (Emphasis mine)
The greatest of all the early Church historians was Eusebius, who as a contemporary of Emperor Constantine, wrote early in the fourth century. In his account of Paul’s life, he writes:
“Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, brought his history to a close at this point, after stating that Paul had spent two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and preached the word of God without constraint. Thus, after he had made his defense, it is said that the Apostle was sent again on the ministry of preaching, and that on coming to the same city a second time he suffered martyrdom.” (Ecclesiastical History, 2:22:2; emphasis mine).
Eusebius did not mention Spain specifically, but he did report the tradition that Paul had been released from his first Roman imprisonment to continue his ministry.
The Muratorian Canon is a late second century document, most famous for being the first list that we have of New Testament books. It describes Luke’s purpose in writing Acts:
“Luke related to Theophilus events of which he was an eyewitness, as also, in a separate place, he evidently declares the martyrdom of Peter [he probably refers to Luke 22:31-32]; but omits the journey of Paul from Rome to Spain.” (Emphasis mine)
In the fifth century A.D., two of the great Church Fathers are definite about this journey to Spain. John Chrysostom, one of the greatest Christian preachers of that era, in his sermon on 2 Timothy 4:20 says: “Saint Paul after his residence in Rome departed to Spain.” Jerome in his Catalogue of Writers says that Paul “was dismissed by Nero that he might preach Christ’s gospel in the west”.
So taken together, this evidence suggests beyond all doubt, that there was a stream of tradition which held that Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment and continued his ministry, including a journey to Spain.
But there is one major problem with this tradition, as Professor Barclay points out: in Spain itself there is not, and never has been, any tradition that Paul had worked and preached there. The famous pilgrimage road, the El Camino de Santiago, or The Way of Saint James, is tied to a tradition that the Apostle James visited Spain. But there is no such tradition about Paul visiting Spain, which would be very odd if he did, in fact, visit there especially since there is a memory of James’ visit.
It could well be that the whole story of Paul’s release and journey to the west arose simply as a deduction from the intention to visit Spain that Paul expressed in Romans 15. As I mentioned earlier, most New Testament scholars today do not believe that Paul was released from his Roman imprisonment. The general consensus of opinion is that his only release was by death. Therefore, he never visited Spain.
If we do accept the tradition of his release from his first Roman imprisonment, and of his return to preaching and teaching, which would make his death as late as 67 A.D., then we are better able to fit 2 Timothy into a timeline that makes sense and therefore we can say this letter came from Paul’s hand. If we do not accept that ancient tradition, then either Paul did not write it himself, or we have to find another timeline in which Luke is not much help.
With that additional background, let’s now dig into 2 Timothy and Titus themselves.
APPLY
Yes, the gospel contains a simple message. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” But it also is deeply complex, with a lot of history lying behind it; history that is worth digging into to help me to more fully understand the gospel.
PRAYER
O Lord, whether Paul wrote this letter to 2 Timothy or not, help me to hear the Voice of the Spirit through it to more fully understand, and live, the gospel. In Christ. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What evidence do modern Bible scholars give for believing that Paul is not the author of one or more of the Pastorals?
2. There is a strong historical tradition that Paul was released from the imprisonment described at the end of Acts. What is the evidence for this theory? What is the strongest piece of evidence against it?
3. Having weighed the pros and cons for the theory that Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment and continued his ministry, even fulfilling his intention to journey to Spain, after which he was arrested again and wrote 2 Timothy from that second imprisonment, what do you now think happened?
4. If Paul did not write 2 Timothy, who most likely did, and why?
How can you apply these insights in your life?