A. THE “PASTORALS”
These writings known as the “Pastorals,” comprising the First and Second Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, differ considerably from other writings attributed to Paul, due to their unique destination and their predominantly pastoral character. All the other Epistles of Paul, with the exception of the Epistle to Philemon, are addressed to churches and are obviously, in most cases, examples of a chief pastor's work in advising, admonishing, and disciplining the flock over which he has supervision. But the Pastoral Epistles are directed to men who are themselves pastors. These letters are examples of the supervisory work of a chief pastor addressing himself to those who are under-shepherds. This distinction is a basic factor in determining those features of the Pastoral Epistles which have provoked much scholarly discussion and have led to the charge that these letters cannot be the work of Paul.
The designation “Pastoral,” despite its obvious appropriateness, has not been applied to these letters from time immemorial, but is of relatively recent origin. To be sure, it was anticipated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century; but not until the early eighteenth century were they referred to as “the Pastorals”; and not until this designation was adopted by the famed commentator Dean Alford, in 1849, did this manner of referring to them become customary.
The designation “the Pastorals” is appropriate within limits. The central concern of the letters is what has come to be called the “cure of souls” as that ministry was being carried on in Ephesus and Crete by Timothy and Titus respectively. Paul is giving advice and warning, exhortation and encouragement to his sons in the gospel who are now his assistants in the care of the churches. Out of the wealth of his knowledge of the faith and his experience in dealing with men and churches of varying types, he gives these younger ministers admonitions and guidance. But the Pastoral Epistles possess the limitation that they are not “manuals of pastoral theology,” to use Donald Guthrie's phrase.1 Most of the topics essential to such a manual are omitted from these letters. They deal vigorously with only a few of the issues faced by a pastor—the issues which were uppermost in importance in these particular churches, and no more. Indeed these letters are designed, in all probability, only to supplement the apostle's oral instruction of these younger ministers. This is a fact which must be borne in mind when reading any of Paul's letters, and especially those directed to churches which Paul himself established. Behind the theological and religious instruction in his Epistles there stands the extensive preaching of the apostle, and back of many of the apparently incomplete discussions of the Epistles there must be assumed a body of coherent teaching imparted by the apostle in oral discourse.
Though the Pastoral Epistles may be limited in the area which is covered, the fact remains that their contents lie squarely in the field of pastoral theology, and the designation “Pastoral” is a fitting one.
B. AUTHORSHIP
1. The Traditional View
The view that St. Paul is the author of these Epistles is not one to be lightly thrust aside. The Epistles claim Pauline authorship; this is clearly stated in the greeting of each letter; and despite the modern tendency to disregard such evidence, the burden of proof still rests with those who would set it aside. On the side of the authenticity of these Epistles is the fact that from the earliest days of the Church they were held to be the work of Paul. Alfred Plummer puts it bluntly in these words: “The evidence respecting the general acceptance of them as St. Paul's is full and positive, and reaches back to the earliest times.”2 It is significant that it was not until the early nineteenth century that the Pauline authorship began to be questioned. Surely Guthrie's point is well taken when he says: “If the grounds of objection [to the Pauline authorship] are as overwhelming as they are claimed [by their proponents] to be, some adequate reason must be given for the extraordinary lack of insight on the part of Christian scholarship over so long a period.”3
2. The Attack on Pauline Authorship
Despite the cogency of the evidence pointing toward the authorship of these letters by Paul, a persistent attempt has been made by some scholars to prove this evidence untrustworthy. The attack on the authenticity of the Pastorals has been carried forward on at least four fronts: (1) the difficulty in fitting them into Paul's career as revealed in the New Testament literature;(2) their alleged incompatibility with the organization of the churches as it is believed to have existed during Paul's lifetime;(3) the doctrinal emphases in the Pastorals which are held to differ radically from the teachings in Paul's other Epistles; and (4) the differences in vocabulary which are held to exist between the Pastorals and Paul's letters to the churches.
a. The first of these is the historical problem: How can these letters be fitted into what we know of Paul's career? Our knowledge of that career rests in large part upon the Acts of the Apostles, with valuable supplementary material derived from Paul's own writings. It must be remembered, however, that the Acts of the Apostles makes no claim to be a biography of Paul. Indeed, Saul of Tarsus (as he was first known in the Acts) is not mentioned until Acts 7:58. The story of his amazing conversion to Christ is related in c. 9; and his full acceptance as a Christian leader does not occur until cc. 11 and 13. No attempt is made to inform the reader as to his childhood and youth. His conspicuous presence on the scene during the balance of the Acts is due solely to the fact that his ministry was the most outstanding of any of the apostles and that Luke, the author of the Acts, was a participant in much of Paul's activity. Luke concludes his account of Paul quite as abruptly as he began it, leaving the apostle at the conclusion of his first Roman imprisonment—an incarceration which ended apparently with his acquittal. There is no evidence in the Acts that Paul's death followed closely upon the events therein related.
The opponents of the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals argue that “it is impossible to fit these epistles into the frame-work of the Acts history.”.4 If there were any evidence that the concluding events related in the Acts coincide with the concluding events of Paul's life, this would indeed be a fatal objection. There is no such evidence, however, and to argue solely from the silence of the Acts as to the final years of the apostle's life is to build an argument on a sandy foundation.
It is quite probable that the apostle was granted acquittal and release from his first imprisonment in Rome and enjoyed some additional years of freedom and Christian leadership. And there is reason to believe that his renewed activity could have included the fulfillment of his cherished desire to visit Spain (Rom. 15:28). As W. J. Lowstuter summarizes the issue: “… no valid reason can be given for denying a release and no proof can be cited that actually disproves it. The Pastorals presuppose a release. This allows very reasonably for the various historical references which otherwise prove so hard to manage. Upon release, he could revisit his old churches, renew contact with old work, open new work in Crete, Dalmatia, and Gaul, plan for a winter at Nicopolis, leave a cloak and books at Troas [see map 1] to be sent for in a short time after he had again been thrown into prison, and from a second imprisonment write that his course was finished, his case without hope in imperial courts.”5
b. The second attack upon the authenticity of the Pastorals fixes upon the ecclesiastical problem: the alleged incompatibility of these Epistles with first-century church organization. It is asserted that the Pastorals reflect a state of advanced organization in the Church which by definition could not possibly have prevailed until the middle years of the second century. The directions given in these Epistles concerning the appointment of bishops and deacons and the qualifications laid down for these offices, the authority which appears to rest with Timothy and Titus in the appointment of such officials, the emphasis upon elders as custodians and bearers of the traditions—these factors, so it is argued, point to a period considerably later than the time of Paul. Moreover, the heresies against which warning notes are sounded appear to be Gnostic heresies which first became truly menacing in the second century.
In reply, let it be pointed out that from the earliest period of his ministry Paul was concerned for decency and order in the churches which he founded. Luke relates that on his very first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas “ordained … elders in every church” (Acts 14:23). In writing to the Philippians his salutation is addressed to “all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons” (Phil. 1:1). Moreover, Paul's concern for the several orders of the ministry is made very evident in a passage such as Eph. 4:11-12.
The New Testament thus bears impressive witness to the fact that elders, bishops, and deacons were among the earliest officials of the infant Church. Edwin Hatch indicates that the Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929), p. 1275. organization of the early churches followed patterns which had become familiar in the organization of secular societies. He said: “Every one of the associations, political or religious, with which the Empire swarmed had its committee of officers. It was therefore antecedently probable … that when the Gentiles who had embraced Christianity began to be sufficiently numerous in a city to require some kind of organization, that organization would take the prevailing form; that it would be not wholly, if at all, monarchical, nor wholly, though essentially, democratical, but that there should be a permanent executive consisting of a plurality of persons.”6 This trend is evident in Paul's appointment of elders (presbyters) in the churches which he organized. It is evident, furthermore, that the chairman of this group of elders, the financial as well as the spiritual head of the local church, was known in Greek as episcopos, in English as “bishop.” It was his task, among other duties, to maintain the fiscal integrity of the local church. Since the church had charitable functions as well as religious, including many in its ranks who were in dire need, the custody of the church's benevolent funds was a major responsibility; and this rested on the bishop.
In dispensing these funds to those in need, the bishop had associated with him a group of officials known in Greek as diakonoi, in English as “deacons.” The diaconate which was established later in the Early Church was clearly anticipated in New Testament times when the apostles in Jerusalem appointed “seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom,” whose duty it was to care for “the daily ministration” of help for the needy (Acts 6:1-3). Ultimately it was the practice in the Church that the actual distribution of this help was the business of the deacons, while the final responsibility belonged to the bishop, acting as the president and agent of the church's board of elders. It is true, as the Church moved into the second and third centuries these offices underwent significant changes. But the fact remains that they did exist in New Testament times and that the duties attaching to them were essentially the same as in later times. It appears, therefore, that the type of church organization reflected in the Pastorals does not necessarily take us beyond the period of Paul.
c. The third front on which the Pauline authorship is assailed is the doctrinal: Are there such radical doctrinal differences between these Epistles and Paul's earlier writings as to make untenable the view that the Pastorals are the work of Paul? Those who would deny the Pauline authorship on this score cite the fact that the apostle's characteristic doctrines such as the “fatherhood of God” and “the believer's mystical union with Christ” or the apostle's unique expression “in Christ,” all are missing from the Pastorals. And what, it is asked, has become of the apostle's concept of the Holy Spirit?
In reply it must be pointed out that the purpose of the apostle in writing the Pastorals differs from his purpose in any of his earlier writings. In these earlier Epistles he is writing as an evangelist and teacher and also as a pastor or shepherd of the flock. His method is in some cases theological (as in Romans), corrective (as in the Epistles to Corinth), concerned with removing dangerous misconceptions (as in the Epistles to Thessalonica), and always hortatory. But in the Pastorals he is farther removed than heretofore from the pastoral responsibility. Younger men are leading the combat troops of the faith, and Paul's role lies more in the field of strategy and direction. It is true that he is concerned with soundness of doctrine, as would befit “Paul the aged” writing to younger men. It is true that “the faith” has come to characterize the Christian message and formalized statements of faith appear more conspicuously than in Paul's earlier letters. But these reflect not only the changing situation in the churches and the total Christian enterprise, but also the psychological changes which were accompanying the apostle's advancing years. In view of all these considerations, it seems captious indeed to deny on this score the apostle's authorship of these obviously Pauline letters.
But the question must be faced as to the heresies against which the Pastorals sound a warning: Do these false teachings necessarily belong, as some allege, to the period of the second century rather than the first? Alfred Plummer has made a careful study of the teaching which Paul seeks to refute. He analyzes it thus:
“(1) The heresy is Jewish in character. Its promoters ‘desire to be teachers of the Law’ (1 Tim. 1:7). Some of them are ‘they of the circumcision’ (Titus 1:10). It consists in ‘Jewish fables’ (Titus 1:14). The questions it raises are ‘fightings about the Law’ (Titus 3:9).
“(2) Its Gnostic character is also indicated. We are told both in 1 Tim. 1:3, 4 and in the Epistle to Titus (1:14; 3:9) that it deals in ‘fables and genealogies.’ It is ‘empty talking’ [KJV: ‘vain jangling ’] (1 Tim. 1:6), ‘disputes of words’ (1 Tim. 6:4), and ‘profane babblings’ (1 Tim. 6:20). It teaches an unscriptural and unnatural asceticism (1 Tim. 4:3, 8). It is ‘Gnosis’ [KJV: ‘science ’] falsely so called' (1 Tim. 6:20) .”7
Plummer furthermore cites Godet, who observes that in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the first century there were three distinct phases. First was the period when Judaism was outside the Church and opposed it to the point of blasphemy. Second was the period when Judaism attempted to invade the Church, seeking to foist the Mosaic law upon it. Finally came the period when Judaism became a heresy within the Church. In this third period, says Godet, “pretended revelations are given as to the names and genealogies of angels; absurd ascetic rules are laid down as counsels of perfection, while daring immorality defaces the actual life.”8 It is this final phase which confronts us in the Pastorals, a phase which obviously fell within the lifetime of the apostle. We can only conclude that, whatever changes may have come over the Gnostic heresy in subsequent years, we see that heresy clearly foreshadowed in the final years of the apostle's life and clearly unmasked by him in the Pastoral Epistles.
d. The fourth and final front on which the battle has been carried on is the linguistic: Are the differences in vocabulary which exist between the Pastorals and Paul's letters to the churches sufficient to impair the thesis that the Pastorals are Pauline in origin? Here the issue turns about the appearance of some one hundred seventy-five so-called “hapaxes” (words which appear for the first time in an author's work) in the three Pastoral Epistles. These words, it is alleged, are second-century words; which, if this allegation be sound, points to an authorship later than Paul.
Research has discovered, however, that the language of the Pastorals contains no words which do not appear elsewhere in Christian and secular literature by the middle of the first century; and nearly half of the supposedly “new words” appear in the Septuagint (ca. 200 B.C.). These and similar allegations are all based on a view of Paul's mental abilities which does him no credit. His was a vital and imaginative personality, in rapport with the changes incident to the growing influence of Christianity in its invasion of the Gentile world, and fully alive to the perils to the faith which attended these changes. Speaking to this very point, N. J. D. White observes that “such a man is likely to undergo changes in mental outlook, to become possessed by fresh ideals and conceptions, so as to bewilder less agile minds; and, of course, new thoughts require for their expression words and phrases for which the man had ho use before. In the case of St. Paul, this is no imaginary supposition. The difference between the Paul of Philippians and the Paul of I Timothy is not greater than, perhaps not as great as, between the Paul of Thessalonians and the Paul of Ephesians.”9
This is not to say that the apostle was personally responsible for every word employed in these Epistles, or, for that matter, in any of his Epistles. J. N. D. Kelly10 has recently suggested that Paul's dependence upon an amanuensis could well have been considerably greater in the circumstances under which the Pastorals were produced, and that this could easily account for whatever variations in style and vocabulary his critics believe they have detected. But to concede this is in no sense to leave the authenticity of these Epistles in doubt.
This hasty review of the evidence relevant to the authorship of the Pastorals points to the conclusion that these letters are indeed the work of Paul. Their author is a Paul stricken in years and facing mortal danger, realizing fully that his own ministry nears its close and that the torch must be passed on to younger and more stalwart hands. But his view of the goal of Christianity is in no wise dimmed and his commitment to the Christian task is undiminished.
C. DESTINATION AND PURPOSE
The fact that the Pastoral Epistles are directed to individuals rather than to a church or a group of churches marks them as unique in the Pauline writings. Timothy and Titus were young men who held a very intimate and tender place in the apostle's trust and affection. Paul had placed them in Ephesus and Crete (see map 1) respectively, where they were bearing the heavy responsibility of leading these Christian churches. In both situations the church was a little island of transformed Christian souls surrounded by a vast ocean of paganism and moral corruption. To maintain the integrity of the Christian movement amid such surroundings was a colossal task. Paul could not disengage his mind and heart from the events which were transpiring on these two battlefronts. He was planning a journey which would bring him within reach of these two under-shepherds and he must see them to encourage and advise them. But some questions were too pressing to await personal interviews and on these matters he gives written advice. There are bishops and deacons to be appointed, and they must be men of peculiar integrity. There are false teachings which threaten the unity of the faith, and the apostle is constrained to do what he can to keep his young assistant's vision in sharp focus. In the second letter to Timothy he is facing the fact that little time remains to him. He leaves with Timothy a final confession of his unfaltering trust in Christ and his assurance that, though the state may destroy his body, it cannot impair his vision of the glorious future.
D. PROBABLE DATE
These Epistles were written after Paul's release from his first Roman imprisonment, a release which came probably in A.D. 61 or 62. Tradition has it that the apostle suffered martyrdom sometime during 67 or 68. The terminal dates of this final period in Paul's life are thus defined with a fair degree of assurance. During this period the Pastorals were written, and in this order: I Timothy, Titus, and II Timothy. In spite of some disagreement among the experts, this seems the probable sequence. Following his release Paul returned to his campaigning for Christ, though his goings and comings can only be conjectured. It is clear that Timothy and Titus were commissioned to serve as pastors, the one in Ephesus, the other in Crete. Their new responsibilities included the selection and appointment of suitable officials in these churches, and unmasking and rooting out of heretical trends, the direction and disciplining of the faith and conduct of these new Christians. I Timothy and Titus were written during the interval of freedom which Paul enjoyed between his two Roman imprisonments, perhaps as early as 63 and 64 respectively. II Timothy was written during the apostle's final confinement, the outcome of which was becoming increasingly plain, the date thus falling somewhere about 66 or 67. Here then we have what may properly be called the last will and testament of the great apostle, the man whom Deissmann describes as “the first under Christ” in the inception of the Christian Church.