Suggest an Edit — Timothy

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Biography

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Timothy, whose Greek name Timotheos means one who honors God, was a first-century Christian missionary and church leader, known above all as a close companion and trusted delegate of the Apostle Paul. The Acts of the Apostles states that he was a native of Lystra in Lycaonia, in Asia Minor. His mother Eunice was a Jewish woman who had become a Christian believer, and his grandmother Lois is likewise commended for sincere faith in the Second Epistle to Timothy; his father was a Greek. Because he was the son of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father and had not been circumcised, Paul had him circumcised before taking him on missionary journeys, so that their work among Jewish communities would not be hindered. Local believers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, and Paul chose him as a fellow worker, most likely during the second missionary journey in the late 40s or early 50s of the first century.

Timothy became one of Paul's most relied-upon associates. He is named as co-sender of several New Testament letters, including 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Paul dispatched him as an emissary to the churches of Thessalonica, Corinth, and Philippi to encourage the faithful, convey teaching, and report on local conditions. The two letters known as 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy are addressed to him. They present him as a younger leader left at Ephesus to oppose false teachers, regulate public worship, and appoint qualified overseers and deacons. Whether those pastoral epistles were written by Paul in the 60s or by a later writer in the Pauline tradition, they became the chief source for later images of Timothy as pastor and bishop.

Fourth-century church historians, notably Eusebius of Caesarea, report the tradition that Timothy was the first bishop of Ephesus. A later legendary narrative, the Acts of Timothy, often dated to the fifth century, describes his martyrdom: during a pagan festival in Ephesus, commonly identified with a Dionysiac procession, he is said to have tried to halt the revelry and to have been beaten and stoned by the crowd. That account places his death in 97, in the reign of the emperor Nerva. The New Testament itself does not record his death, and the precise year and circumstances remain a matter of later hagiography rather than contemporary evidence. Tradition holds that he was first buried at Ephesus. In 356 the emperor Constantius II had relics identified as Timothy's translated to Constantinople and enshrined in the Church of the Holy Apostles. In the modern period the cathedral of Termoli in Italy has also claimed to possess his relics.

Timothy is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. The Roman Catholic Church keeps his memorial on 26 January together with Saint Titus; Eastern Orthodox churches commemorate him on 22 January. Because Paul, in 1 Timothy 5:23, advised him to use a little wine for the sake of his stomach and his frequent illnesses, he has long been invoked as a patron of those who suffer from stomach and intestinal disorders. He is also honored as a patron of Termoli. Historically he stands as a representative figure of the second generation of the Pauline mission: a believer of mixed Jewish and Gentile background who helped carry the apostolic message through Asia Minor and Greece and who, in later memory, became the prototypical disciple-bishop of Ephesus.

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