37.  The genuineness of these epistles is sustained by the unanimous testimony of the ancient church.  Only in modern times has it been called in question by certain writers, who rest their arguments wholly on alleged internal evidence.

So far as their objections are founded on the assumed early date of the pastoral epistles—­before the close of Paul’s imprisonment at Rome recorded by Luke, on their peculiar tone and diction, or on the supposed references in them to the Gnosticism of the second century, they have already been considered.  But it is further alleged: 

(1.) That they reveal a hierarchical spirit foreign to the character of the apostle Paul.  The answer is that no trace of such a spirit is discernible in them.  The churches had from the first their officers—­bishops or elders and deacons; and the apostle simply gives the necessary directions for the selection of these, with a few brief hints respecting the line of conduct to be observed towards them. 1 Tim. 5:1, 17, 19, 22.

(2.) That the institution of widows (1 Tim. 5:9-16) belongs to a later age.  Respecting the exact position of those who were enrolled in the class of widows there have been different opinions.  One is that this class consisted of those who were to receive relief from the funds of the church; another, that they were matrons set apart for special service in the church, performing for their own sex duties analogous to those which the presbyters performed for the church generally.  The latter opinion is the more probable of the two, as it explains the conditions insisted on by the apostle.  But according to either view there is no difficulty in admitting the existence in apostolic times of such an arrangement.

38.  In these pastoral epistles we have the affectionate counsels of the great apostle to the Gentiles, when he was now ripe in years and Christian experience and about to close his earthly ministry, addressed to two young men whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers of the churches.  They are a rich storehouse of instruction for all to whom God has committed the ministry of reconciliation.  Let them, as they hope at last to render up an account of their stewardship with joy and not with grief, prayerfully study and reduce to daily practice these precepts of heavenly wisdom given by the Holy Spirit through the pen of “Paul the aged.”

39.  THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY.—­The time of this epistle lies, as we have seen, beyond the recorded history of the apostle, and before his second and final imprisonment at Rome, perhaps about A.D. 65 or 66.  It was addressed to Timothy at Ephesus not long after the apostle had left that city to go into Macedonia (chap. 1:3), but whether from Macedonia or some other province of the Roman empire cannot be determined.  The occasion we learn from the epistle.  Paul had left Timothy in charge of the Ephesian church, and, being apprehensive of a protracted absence, he sends him these written instructions relating partly to his own personal demeanor as a Christian minister, but chiefly to his office as the overseer of the Ephesian church.  In the discharge of this office he is (1) to withstand and keep down the growing heresies of the day; (2) to superintend the government of the church in various particulars which the apostle specifies.