Westminster Commentaries: Pastoral Epistles by Ernest Brown

This is an exegetical commentary on the Pastoral Epistles of 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus from the Westminster Commentaries series. Ernest Faulkner Brown [1859-1933] was a leader of the Oxford Mission to Calcutta and a Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral in that city.

My thanks to Book Aid for making a copy of this public domain title available for digitisation.

Ernest Faulkner Brown [1854-1933], The Pastoral Epistles with Introduction and Notes. Westminister Commentaries. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1917. Hbk. pp.121. [Click to visit the download page for this title]

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  1. Timothy and Lystra
  2. Timothy as companion of S. Paul
  3. Titus as companion of S. Paul
  4. Authorship of the Letters
  5. Titus and Crete
  6. The Second Epistle of Timothy
• Text and Commentary
  • The First Epistle of Timothy
  • The Second Epistle of Timothy
  • The Epistle of Titus
• Index

Intrroduction

I. Timothy and Lystra.

‘The very brilliant colony of Lystra’ as it delighted to call itself1 was a place of some importance in the middle of the first century. Though merely a small rustic town in the Lycaonian territory of southern Asia Minor, it had been raised some fifty years before to the dignity of a Roman ‘ colony’ by the Emperor Augustus, i.e. it had received a garrison of Roman veterans, with the view of holding in check the wild tribes of the !saurian mountains in its neighbourhood. These Romans would be few in number and would keep very much to themselves ; though they were found in several of the towns which S. Paul visited, Philippi is the only one where they have left any trace on the narrative ; and there they did so owing to peculiar circumstances. The commerce and civic life of such a town would be carried on mainly by the educated Jews and Greeks; by the latter term is meant not only Greeks by race, but also those indigenous inhabitants who had imbued themselves with Greek culture and manners~. The most numerous class of the population would be the Lycaonians, rough and uncultured, from the country round. In these conditions we have an almost exact parallel to many of the country towns in India, more especially those in the hill districts. A small body of Europeans holding themselves aloof may answer to the Roman colonists. The educated Musulmans and Hindus represent the Jews and Greeks by whom the business of the city is carried on. The crowd of aboriginal inhabitants, mostly poor and uneducated, form the main part of the population’. Between the last three classes no very sharp line of demarcation exists. The aboriginals may at any time pse to the level of the educated. The Mahomedans and Hindus mix together freely in the ordinary affairs of life. They draw the line however at intermarriage, whereas between the Jews and Greeks of such a city as Lystra marriage might occasionally take place, as in the case of Timothy’s parents, though owing to the difference of religion and the abhorrence of the stricter Jews for idolatry it could not have been common.

Sir William Ramsay has proved, to the satisfaction of nearly all critics, that Lystra in common with Derbe, Antioch and Iconium belonged to the Roman 1 province of Galatia, and ‘Galatians’ was the name by which their inhabitants would prefer to be called….

Pages xi-xii.