and the other epistles of Paul in respect to tone and diction is very striking.  But it may be explained partly from the peculiar theme of the pastoral epistles, partly from the change which the lapse of time with its manifold experiences had brought to the apostle’s style and diction.

We assume, therefore, that the apostle was released from the Roman imprisonment recorded by Luke; and that, not very long before his second imprisonment which was terminated by his martyrdom at Rome, he wrote the three epistles now under consideration.  It is well known that this is in accordance with ancient tradition.  See the testimonies in Conybeare and Howson, chap. 27; in Alford, and in other commentators.

Against this view is urged the apostle’s declaration to the elders of Ephesus that they should see his face no more; whereas, according to the present supposition, he visited Ephesus again after his first imprisonment.  As a fair offset to this may be urged on the other side his equally strong declaration to the Philippians that his present imprisonment should have a favorable issue (Phil. 1:25); which was not the case upon the hypothesis of a single imprisonment at Rome.  Such declarations, where no doctrine or fact of Christianity is concerned, are not to be taken as revelations of the Spirit.  We know, for example, from Paul’s own words, that he changed his declared purpose respecting a visit to Corinth, for which his enemies accused him of using lightness. 2 Cor. 1:15-18.

It is urged again that when Paul wrote the pastoral epistles Timothy was a young man. 1 Tim. 4:12; 2 Tim. 2:22.  But according to ancient ideas one might be called a young man at any age under thirty-five or even forty years.  Paul found Timothy in his second missionary journey, about A.D. 52.  It is not necessary to assume that he was then more than twenty years old.  At the time of Paul’s martyrdom, then, about A.D. 67 or 68, he may have been, for anything that appears to the contrary, a young man in the ancient sense of the word.

36.  The false teachers with whom the apostle deals in these epistles are corrupt in practice as well as in doctrine. 1 Tim. 1:6; 6:5; 2 Tim. 2:16, 17; 3:6, 8; Titus 1:15, 16.  They were chiefly Jews (1 Tim. 1:7; Titus 1:10, 14; 3:9); but not Jews who held to simple Phariseeism, like the false teachers among the Galatians.  They more nearly resembled those who troubled the Colossians—­Jews of a speculative turn of mind, who sought to bring into Judaism the semi-oriental philosophy of that day.  They were not Gnostics; for Gnosticism was essentially anti-Judaistic, separating the God of the Jews from the God of Christianity, and placing the two in antagonism to each other.  The speculations of these false teachers took a direction which was in some respects akin to the Gnosticism of the second century; but the allegation that they were themselves Gnostics rests upon the misinterpretation of certain passages in these epistles, or unwarrantable inferences from them.