extravagant ascetics, like the Essenes, forbidding to marry and abstaining from meat (1 Tim. 4:3,
8; Tit. 1:14, 15). They denied the resurrection and overthrew the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:18).
Baur turned these heretics into anti-Jewish and antinomian Gnostics of the school of Marcion
(about 140), and then, by consequence, put the Epistles down to the middle of the second century.
He finds in the "genealogies" ( 1 Tim. 1:4; Tit. 3:9) the emanations, of the Gnostic aeons, and in
the "antitheses" (1 Tim. 6:20), or anti-evangelical assertions of the heretical teachers, an allusion
to Marcion’s "antitheses" (antilogies), by which he set forth the supposed contradictions between
the Old and New Testaments.^1200 But this is a radical misinterpretation, and the more recent opponents
of the genuineness are forced to admit the Judaizing character of those errorists; they identify them
with Cerinthus, the Ophites, and Saturninus, who preceded Marcion by several decades.^1201
As to the origin of the Gnostic heresy, which the Tübingen school would put down to the
age of Hadrian, we have already seen that, like its counterpart, the Ebionite heresy, it dates from
the apostolic age, according to the united testimony of the later Pauline Epistles, the Epistles of
Peter, John, and Jude, the Apocalypse, and the patristic tradition.^1202
Ecclesiastical Organization.
The Pastoral Epistles seem to presuppose a more fully developed ecclesiastical organization
than the other Pauline Epistles, and to belong to an age of transition from apostolic simplicity, or
Christo-democracy—if we may use such a term—to the episcopal hierarchy of the second century.
The church, in proportion as it lost, after the destruction of Jerusalem, its faith in the speedy advent
of Christ, began to settle down in this world, and to make preparations for a permanent home by a
fixed creed and a compact organization, which gave it unity and strength against heathen persecution
and heretical corruption. This organization, at once simple and elastic, was episcopacy, with its
subordinate offices of the presbyterate and deaconate, and charitable institutions for widows and
orphans. Such an organization we have, it is said, in the Pastoral Epistles, which were written in
the name of Paul, to give the weight of his authority to the incipient hierarchy.^1203
But, on closer inspection, there is a very marked difference between the ecclesiastical
constitution of the Pastoral Epistles and that of the second century. There is not a word said about
the divine origin of episcopacy; not a trace of a congregational episcopate, such as we find in the
Ignatian epistles, still less of a diocesan episcopate of the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian. Bishops
and presbyters are still identical as they are in the Acts 20:17, 28, and in the undoubtedly genuine
Epistle to the Philippians 1:1. Even Timothy and Titus appear simply as delegates of the apostle
for a specific mission.^1204 The qualifications and functions required of the bishop are aptness to(^1200) The ἀντιθέσεις τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως(" oppositions" in the E. V. and Revision) are understood by the best exegetes
to mean simply the doctrinal theses which the heretics opposed to the sound doctrine (comp. 2 Tim. 2:23; Tit. 1:9). So DeWette,
Matthies, and Wiesinger. Hofmann and Huther identify them with κενοφωνίαι and λογομαχίαι (1 Tim. 5:4). Holtzmann (p.
131) likewise rejects Baur’s interpretation.
(^1201) Holtzmann, l.c., p. 127; also Lipsius, Schenkel, Pfleiderer.
(^1202) See above, § 96 (this vol.)
(^1203) Such is the ingenious reasoning of Baur and Renan (L’Egl. chrét., pp. 85 and 94 sqq.). Comp. the discussion of details by
Holtzmann, l.c., ch. XI., pp. 190 sqq.
(^1204) 1 Tim. 1:3; 3:14; 2 Tim. 4:9, 21; Tit. 1:5; 8:12. See above, § 61 (this vol.) The fact is acknowledged by impartial episcopal
writers, as Dean Alford, Bishop Lightfoot, Dean Stanley, and Dean Plumptre (in Schaff’s Com. N. T., III. 552). I will quote from
Canon Farrar (St. Paul. II. 417) "If the Pastoral Epistles contained a clear defence of the Episcopal system of the second century,
this alone would be sufficient to prove their spuriousness; but the total absence of anything resembling it is one of the strongest
proofs that they belong to the apostolic age. Bishop and presbyter are still synonymous, as they are throughout the New Testament
... Timothy and Titus exercise functions which would be now called episcopal; but they are not called ’bishops.’ Their functions
A.D. 1-100.