Inscription, Greeting, and Thanksgiving (2 Timothy 1:1–4)

2 Tim. 1:1. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.

The salutation resembles all the others: it indicates who writes to whom, and, as is customary for the holy Paul, contains certain terms prompted by the content of the Epistle, introduced in order to foreshadow it.

“An Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” By the will of God the Father—an Apostle of the incarnate Son of God—owing to the unity of Their will. The Father’s will and the Son’s will are not two different wills but one and the same. Therefore, what the Father wills, the Son likewise wills. “The Lord God proposed me as Apostle (προεβαλετο); and Christ Jesus concurred with this (συμψηφισαμενου)” (Oecumenius).

“According to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.” In these words lies a foreshadowing of the content of the Epistle, which gave occasion for their inclusion in this salutation. The purpose of the Epistle is to animate the holy Timothy to courageous proclamation of the faith and to the keeping of the faithful in the faith, in the face of dangers and deaths. But in such circumstances, what could so animate as the promise of life—a life that even death does not take away, but rather opens its door? The Apostle points to this at the very beginning. “I am an Apostle,” he says, “according to the promise of life”—for the sake of proclaiming that promise of life. “The Lord God, with the concurrent will of the Son, appointed me Apostle, that I might proclaim to men the promised eternal life” (blessed Theodoret). He was appointed Apostle to announce this life to all people, but of course with the assurance that it belongs above all to the proclaimers themselves as a certainty—and therefore to the holy Timothy, as one of their number. That thought could not but serve him as consolation and encouragement. Thus the holy Paul “at the very beginning of the Epistle encourages his soul. Do not remind me, he says, of the afflictions here: they bring us eternal life, where there is nothing of that kind, where there is no sickness, sorrow, or sighing” (holy Chrysostom). Not only dangers—that is our lot—but death ready on every side; yet “we die so that we may live eternally” (blessed Theophylact). Although this is only a promise, the promise is so certain that it is as though we already possessed it. Yet for all that, it is still ahead of us. “If it is a promise, then do not seek it here; for ‘hope that is seen is not hope’ (Rom. 8:24)” (holy Chrysostom).

“Which is in Christ Jesus.” “The life that is ‘in Christ Jesus’—that is, with Christ—because He gives it to us and sustains it. Bodily life consists in food and drink, but spiritual life is sustained in Christ Jesus. He is everything to us” (blessed Theophylact). This life is received, developed, and strengthened here below; its manifestation in all its brightness and glory is what is promised. — Κατ᾿ επαγγελιαν — “according to the promise”—one may therefore translate it also as: according to the proclamation, for the sake of proclaiming the life that is in Christ Jesus—the life which, upon faith and the reception of the sacrament, is at once obtained, and of which eternal life is an inalienable part.

2 Tim. 1:2. To Timothy, my beloved child: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“To Timothy, my beloved child.” “Not simply: ‘child’—but: ‘beloved’; for there can be children who are not beloved. But you are not such, he says, and therefore I do not simply call you child, but ‘beloved’ child. He calls the Galatians children too, yet he grieves over them: ‘My little children,’ he says, ‘of whom I travail in birth again’ (Gal. 4:19). By calling him beloved, he bears witness to his great virtue. In what manner? When love is not from nature, it is from virtue; those born of us are dear to us not only for their virtue but also from natural requirement; whereas those beloved in the faith are such for no other reason than virtue. How could it be otherwise, especially with Paul, who did nothing from partiality?” (holy Chrysostom). “Timothy, valiant in all things, was made a son and a beloved not by nature but by the heart” (blessed Theodoret).

“Grace, mercy, peace.” “What he wished him before, that he wishes him now also” (holy Chrysostom). “Grace”—power for one’s own salvation and for that of others; “mercy”—the source that pours out and overflows with grace; “peace”—the good fruit of grace, tasted immediately upon receiving this mercy—peace with God and the heavenly dwellers, peace within oneself with one’s conscience, and peace with all earthly inhabitants, undisturbed by any unpeaceful circumstances, but sustained in all its force even amid them.

“From God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord”—as from a single source common to both. “He wishes him grace, that it may assist him in his presence—wishes it from the mercy of the Father and of Christ Jesus our Lord; for God bestows His grace upon us richly through Christ, so that a single grace may be of both” (Ambrosiaster). The Lord Jesus Christ, after His suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection, ascended into the heavens and sat at the right hand of God the Father, thereby opening the way for the Most Holy Spirit to descend upon the earth—and He, having descended, bestowed grace upon all and continues to bestow it to this day, by the good pleasure of the Father, in virtue of the incarnate economy of the Son.

b) Opening of the Epistle (2 Tim. 1:3–6)

Having expressed his strong love for the holy Timothy (1:3–4), and having praised him and his family for their faith (1:5), the holy Paul reminds him to: stir up the gift of apostolic succession dwelling within him—which constitutes the main subject of the Epistle (1:6).

2 Tim. 1:3. I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as did my forebears, in that without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day.

The holy Paul, who taught everyone to give thanks to God in all things (1 Thess. 5:18), himself always gave thanks to God for everything—for the joyful and the sorrowful, for the outward and the inward, for every good movement of thought and feeling. So here he thanks God for the fact that he holds unceasingly in memory the holy Timothy in his prayers. The thought is this: unceasing remembrance of someone is a sure witness of love; the holy Paul, giving thanks for his remembrance of the holy Timothy, gives thanks for his love toward him. Thus holy Chrysostom: “I thank God, he says, that I remember you—such is my love for you. This is a sign of extraordinary love, when one loves so much that he himself delights in that love”—“when one sees in his love for someone a great honor and a beautiful adornment for himself” (blessed Theophylact, Oecumenius). But behind this lies another thought as well: the Apostle unceasingly remembers the holy Timothy because Timothy is worthy of remembrance; and in thanking God for this remembrance, he gives thanks that the holy Timothy is worthy of it—that he is such a person that one cannot help remembering him, and moreover in such a way that remembering him gives birth to thanksgiving to God. There are people whose memory likewise never departs, but oppresses the heart; whereas the memory of the holy Timothy stirred in the soul of the holy Paul joyful and God-thanking feelings. Thus, with a certain distinctive emphasis, Ambrosiaster: “Since it is fitting to remember the good, the Apostle thanks God that he remembered the holy Timothy, a wondrous man, recognizing that even this is a gift of God; for it is not without merit if one thinks of good men.”

“Whom I serve as did my forebears.” How from his forebears, when they did not serve God as he now serves, and when he did not learn from them this new manner of service? The mode of service is new; but the God served is one and the same, as is the spirit of service. The service he received from his forebears he held with his whole soul, in submission to God. When this same God commanded him to leave that and adopt the new, he began to hold the new with the same wholehearted devotion with which he had held the former—again by the same wholehearted submission to God with which he had been filled in serving Him the former way. Thus both the God and the spirit of service toward Him remained one and the same in the holy Paul. All my lineage, he testifies, believed wholeheartedly in the One true God and submitted to Him wholeheartedly in the service He commanded. The same I observe: I confess the One true God and serve Him as He has commanded. This disposition he expresses in the words: “with a pure conscience,” εν καθαρα συνειδησει — in or according to a pure conscience. Conscience is pure when in thoughts, feelings, desires, words, and deeds nothing is admitted contrary to what one recognizes as true, good, and right—nothing contrary to one’s convictions. The holy Paul, as formerly he served God in the Jewish manner out of conviction that the One God so wills, so now serves in the Christian manner from the same conviction—one not deceptively insinuated but tangibly impressed by God Himself who “appeared.” Therefore in the matter of his service there is not the slightest shadow of wavering: his conviction is radiant as the sun in a cloudless sky at midday; and so likewise is his conscience.

Ambrosiaster writes: “Since the God of Christians is the same who was the God of the Jews, the Apostle truthfully testifies that he offers thanksgiving to the same God whom he served from his forebears. If he confesses and proclaims the very thing his forebears hoped for, their faith is one and the same. Thus, inasmuch as he entered into the inheritance of his forebears’ service to God, and inasmuch as it was already in them when they served God, he rightly says: ‘whom I serve as did my forebears.’ But how does he say ‘with a pure conscience’—when he persecuted the Church? He persecuted the Church, but he did so out of love for God, not out of malice.” We read the same in blessed Theophylact: “How ‘with a pure conscience’—when at first he did not know Christ? He says this—either by conscience meaning his manner of life, for although he lived as a Jew, he was blameless in conduct—or because when he persecuted the Church, he did so out of zeal, and not from any human motives, as some take sides with heresy for the sake of glory, while fully aware of its rottenness. He says all this as if to suggest: do not suspect that I think one thing and say another; my conscience is pure, as always, so also now. Thus I do not lie when I say that I love you and always remember you.” (This is condensed from holy Chrysostom; the same also in Oecumenius.)

“In that without ceasing I remember you in my prayers.” “He says: ‘without ceasing I remember’—and not simply, but: ‘in my prayers’; that is, this enters into my prayer; at all times, unceasingly I fulfil this—for this is expressed by the words: ‘night and day’” (holy Chrysostom). Memory in prayer is a sacred memory—one held to be hallowed by God, and therefore entering into the work of the accomplishment of salvation. True worshippers of God admit nothing inconsistent with reverence before God—nothing of the sort they could not bring with a clear conscience before God in their prayers. Such also was the Apostle’s memory of the holy Timothy—pure, holy, containing nothing of the flesh.

2 Tim. 1:4. Desiring to see you, mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy.

The object of his prayer is to see the holy Timothy, because this was greatly desired — επιποθων — ardently longing for it. “Night and day, he says, I pray to God that He would fulfil my ardent desire to see you” (blessed Theophylact). “Do you see the fervent attachment? Do you see the exceeding abundance of love?” (holy Chrysostom). Perhaps this expressed desire to see him is set forth here as assurance that if the Apostle did not return to Ephesus to him, the reason was not any cooling of love, but the course of circumstances beyond his own will. Holy Chrysostom says: “Observe how at the very beginning he justifies himself before him for not having come to see him; for the words: ‘until I come’—and again: ‘I hope to come to you soon’ (1 Tim. 4:13; 3:14)—had led him to expect his speedy arrival. Therefore he immediately justifies himself. He does not, however, say at once the reason why he did not come, so as not to grieve him too greatly—the reason being that he was detained by the Emperor (Nero)—but only at the end, when he invited him to come, did he disclose it. At the beginning, then, he does not grieve him, but expresses the desire to see him.” By the words: “desiring to see you”—he leads him to the thought: “Could I have voluntarily deprived myself of the pleasure of seeing you, had I the possibility of coming to you?” (blessed Theophylact).

“Mindful of your tears.” The Apostle desired to see him not only for his own love toward him, but also for Timothy’s love toward himself, which Timothy had shown by shedding tears—most likely when, as the Apostle was departing, he said farewell to him. “The Apostle shows here that he does this (prays to see him) not simply or without cause, but: ‘mindful,’ he says, ‘of your tears.’ When parting from Paul, he probably wept and sobbed more than a child taken from the nurse’s breast and milk” (holy Chrysostom). Recalling this, the Apostle seems to say to him: I desire to see you, loving you. “But even if I were utterly unfeeling, harsh, and inhuman, I still could not lack this desire; for the tears of yours that I recall could soften even me” (holy Chrysostom).

Therefore, when the Apostle goes on to say: “that I may be filled with joy”—he at the same time conveys the thought: that I may also dry your tears. The tears of the holy Timothy could not but resonate with deep grief at the separation in the heart of the holy Paul as well. From this naturally arose both the desire to meet and the foreboding of joy from that meeting in both of them. Ambrosiaster writes: “The Apostle assures that he much remembers Timothy and longs to see him, on account of the remembrance of the tears which Timothy shed out of love for the Apostle when the latter, as is self-evident, was departing from him. Not without cause, therefore, does he desire to see one who loves him so much—that he might be filled with joy from the mutual gladness.”

By all this the Apostle bore witness to his most warm and fatherly love for the holy Timothy.