There are two kinds of biography that make history captivating: first, that of illustrious, famous figures, the heroes charging at full gallop in the splendour of the day; then there are the stories of those who made mystery their abode, whose most beautiful traits of soul escaped human admiration, allowing us only to detect a diffuse brilliance behind the enigma.
Among these epics shrouded in mystery, like those of Henoc, Melchisedek or Elijah, emerges that of a man whose name is as well known to Christians as his story is unfamiliar: St. Timothy.
Among the epics shrouded in mystery emerges that of a man whose name is as well known to Christians as his story is unfamiliar
His life was not penned by human hands, and so God took it upon Himself to tell it, inscribing it in the Bible, the most sacred book of all. In the Acts of the Apostles, in the Pauline epistles and even in the Book of Revelation, traces appear here and there of this famous yet unknown personality.
The first chapter of this odyssey is written, according to the Divine Author’s custom, with straight letters on crooked lines.
Confiscated by St. Paul
In unison with Barnabas, St. Paul made the dangerous name of the Crucified One echo in Iconium… riskier still, as the Risen One. The people, incited by the Jews, rose up to stone the preachers, who fled to Lystra, a town some forty kilometres away (cf. Acts 14:1-7). It was the spring of 40 AD.
In this small town in Lycaonia, they took as their headquarters the house of Eunice, a pious Jewish woman married to a Greek, whose hospitality was more than rewarded. In fact, of the whole city, the field that best received the seed of the Gospel was her son Timothy.
Prepared for grace with a thorough religious education (cf. 2 Tm 1:5), he was a fertile meadow for the Good News. And St. Paul, irrigating him with the water of Baptism, made that dwelling place of the Trinity fruitful.
However, the Apostle was not to have the joy of seeing the first shoots of the seed. On the verge of being worshipped in that city because of a miracle, he was almost stoned for refusing to be just another god in the Lycaonian pantheon. And so he left it to God to continue the book he had only just begun to write: this twelve-year-old Timothy.
From son to brother
About eight years later, when the Apostle returned to the region, he saw the fruits of his labours. Not only that: he also found support for the new anguish that afflicted him. From that day on, two heralds of the Gospel would accompany St. Paul: Silas and Timothy (cf. Acts 15:40).
Timothy, the “true child in the faith” (1 Tm 1:2), now became the “brother and God’s servant in the Gospel of Christ” (1 Thes 3:2).
Thus began the golden age of his life. That of gold refined in the crucible of living with the master and in the forge of struggles. He left his paternal home to follow his spiritual father through Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia and Troas; Samothrace, Neapolis and Philippi (cf. Acts 16:6-12). This was the pace of the apostolic battle that awaited him from now on. From town to town, from success to disappointment, from hope to struggle, on they went; the soldiers of the Lord.
In the meantime, moral sufferings trained Timothy even more than the physical labours. In Philippi, Paul and Silas were imprisoned for casting out a demon; Timothy, however, remained outside the chains… (cf. Acts 16:23-24). Why had he not also deserved the honour of shackles and flogging?
God was mapping out this epic, but now with fiery red tears of blood from his soul: those of solitude.
Apostle from the hands of the Apostle
This was not the only time St. Timothy was deprived of his inseparable friend. Many were the missions he undertook alone: he was sent to Macedonia for a delicate task (cf. 1 Thes 3:2), he brought the first of the letters to the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor 4:17), and he went to the aid of the Philippians (cf. Phil 2:19).
The great Apostle to the Gentiles, however, only parted company with his beloved disciple when circumstances did not allow him to do otherwise: “Therefore when we could bear it no longer,” he would write wistfully, “we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy” (1 Thes 3:1-2). He urged the Corinthians to send him without delay: “that he may return to me; for I am expecting him” (1 Cor 16:11)… Just before his martyrdom, he would implore his son in the faith directly: “Do your best to come to me soon” (2 Tm 4:9).
Prepared by grace with a thorough religious formation, St. Timothy became the principal fruit of St. Paul’s apostolate in Lystra
United in activity, they were even more so in charity. This is what Paul says about Timothy: “my co-worker” (Rom 16:21), “dear son” (2 Tm 1:2), “man of God” (1Tm 6:11), “brother Timothy” (Col 1:1), “the good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tm 2:3) who “labours just as I do in the Lord’s work” (1 Cor 16:10).
Like St. Paul… He was therefore the “alter ego”,1 the “other me” of the great St. Paul. “For I have no man,” he would add in the Epistle to the Philippians, “so of the same mind, who with sincere affection is solicitous for you.” […] But Timothy’s worth you know, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the Gospel” (Phil 2:20, 22).
He was the rest of the indefatigable, the refreshment of that soul of fire, the apostle who came from the hands of the Apostle.
The ultimate proof of love
The only time Timothy’s absence from the Acts of the Apostles surprises us is during St. Paul’s last journey. He follows his spiritual father on the ascent to the Holy Land; however, we know nothing of the omnipresent disciple at this time. He is not mentioned with Paul in Jerusalem, nor in Caesarea, nor even on the way to Rome. What is certain is that he appears as the co-author of the letters from the Roman prison: to the Philippians, the second to the Corinthians, and to Philemon, thus making up the six letters he signed with St. Paul.2
Some significant indicators: after a period of remaining discreetly in the background, the apprentice had begun to “co-exercise” the founder’s functions. It was a sign that he had already become fully configured to him by living with him and imitating him in everything: “Now you,” Paul would write to his perfect disciple, “have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, my sufferings” (2 Tm 3:10-11).
It was then time for the ultimate mission. Moved by prophecies about Timothy’s vocation (cf. 1 Tm 1:18), St. Paul had already elevated him to the episcopal rank (cf. 2 Tm 1:6). Now he bequeathed to him the most cherished portion of his inheritance: the church of Ephesus.3
Imprisoned bishop
The famous city of antiquity, nestled by the Aegean Sea, was destined for greater glories in the Christian era. In fact, Our Lady, moving out of old Zion, would settle in the “heart of the disciples’ apostolic domain”4 that was Ephesus.
She lived there with St. John from the beginning of the anti-Christian persecutions in Jerusalem until the end of her earthly life. It was there that Timothy met her when he accompanied the Apostle for three years of preaching (cf. Acts 20:31). From there She departed for Heaven; from there the first shoots of Marian devotion spread. And there, centuries later, She would be solemnly proclaimed as the Virgin Mother of God.
Along with such Marian distinctions, the Ephesians would yet receive the greatest of honours: combat, both inside and outside the community. Outside, paganism raged from the city’s notorious temple, persecuting whoever opposed the cry: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:28). Inside, many were pretentiously “desiring to be teachers of the law” (1 Tim 1:7), sowing tares in the fertile fields of Paul.
The internal and external battle of the church of Ephesus was the worthy mission of St. Timothy, and the Apostle urged him: “wage the good warfare”
It was both an internal and external battle, a worthy mission for St. Timothy. Not without reason, the master alerted him: “This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my son, […] wage the good warfare” (1 Tm 1:18).
We know nothing of the bishop’s first clashes, except for the hatred he aroused. And the magnitude of the hatred speaks for the painful blows he struck. In fact, during the period between St. Paul’s two imprisonments in Rome, Timothy was arrested and released (cf. Heb 13:23).
While he was far from his father, the Lord continued to compose Timothy’s biography, through the plume of St. Paul.
Correspondence with his father
The close contact between the two continued through letters. However, we are left with only two letters addressed to his disciple.
The first letter outlines the ideal bishop and the rules by which he should shepherd his flock: “Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher” (1 Tm 3:2). Specifically to Timothy, St. Paul commands him to win the respect of others despite his young age of forty (cf. 1 Tm 4:12).
The second epistle, however, is more intimate and, we might almost say, confidential. It is often considered to be St. Paul’s testament. In it, the Apostle spills the secrets of his heart, whispering through the so often thunderous plume: “I remember you constantly in my prayers. As I remember your tears, I long night and day to see you, that I may be filled with joy” (2 Tm 1:3-4).
What were these tears? Certainly those of an unspeakable longing for the time when he felt within him that vernal atmosphere of the early days of his vocation. “Hence I remind you,” his father wrote, “to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Tm 1:6).
Only this could console and sustain the disciple from the moment when he would no longer read those letters so strongly stamped on the parchment. Shortly afterwards, his father and founder would rise far beyond the third Heaven (cf. 2 Cor 12:2)… without returning.
It was then that God began to write the last verse of his epopee – always on crooked lines.
Mary’s martyr
In Paul’s absence, the world seemed empty. Only his last piece of advice – “rekindle the gift” – filled that vacuum. It was perhaps while he was meditating on it that a large scroll arrived for Timothy from the Isle of Patmos. St. John was sending him a book full of mysteries, which posterity would call the Apocalypse. The manuscript contained letters to each of the Angels of the seven churches of Asia. “Angel” here, like so many other apocalyptic expressions, has more than one meaning, and certainly the one that most interested Timothy was that of bishop. Especially when he noticed that the first missive was addressed to the Angel – or Bishop – of Ephesus.5
What a surprise! It sounded like St. Paul’s final words: “To the Angel of the church in Ephesus write: […] I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance […]. You are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rv 2:1-4).
Burning with zeal for the honour of the Mother of God, St. Timothy earned the lofty title of martyr, perhaps the first to shed his blood for Mary
No, he would not allow himself to hear such an admonition from the Divine Judge again when he arrived in the afterlife. He redoubled his enthusiasm, enkindled his dedication even more, and multiplied his daring.
It is said that on January 22 of the year 97, the vehemence of this fire, so new and so old, broke through the confines of his heart. It was a festive day for the Ephesians. Drunk on paganism and driven mad by pride, they displayed the idol Artemis.
This goddess was a satanic forgery, a filthy counterfeit of the Virgin Mother of God. A sui generis deity, she was worshipped as the goddess of virginity and motherhood; both a virgin and the dispenser of fertility.6 Her shameless statue must have made Timothy’s soul shudder with indignation. Certainly moved by the memory of Mary Most Holy, whom he had met in that city, he rebuked the idolaters.
The reaction was hatred! They threw themselves on the bishop and, with sticks and stones, raised him to the exalted status of martyr. Perhaps he was the first of them to have the honour of shedding his blood for Mary.
God put an end to Timothy’s earthly story. In other words, he traced the cross upon it.
“You are a letter from Christ”
Son and brother of St. Paul, apostle of the Apostle, prototype of bishops, martyr of denunciation and Marian devotion. What grandeur is immersed in the mists of a life that only reached us because God revealed it!
This grandeur came essentially from a disposition of the saint’s soul: to offer his soul to God like a clean, pure book, empty of self. On the white pages of unpretentiousness, the Divine Artist wrote an unimaginable epic, a veritable legend – a true legend! – that will be projected into eternity, a hymn of perpetual glory to the Creator.
St. Paul reminds us of this in an epistle also signed by St. Timothy: “you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written […] not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3). ◊
Notes
1 These are the words used by Benedict XVI (cf. General Audience, 13/12/2006. In: Insegnamenti di Benedetto XVI. 2006 [luglio-dicembre]. Città del Vaticano: LEV, 2007, v.II/2, p.807).
2 These are: to the Colossians, the Philippians, the second to the Corinthians, the two to the Thessalonians and to Philemon.
3 Cf. EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA. Historia Eclesiástica. L.III, c.4, n.5. Madrid: BAC, 2008, p.124.
4 CLÁ DIAS, EP, João Scognamiglio. Mary Most Holy: The Paradise of God Revealed to Men. São Paulo: Heralds of the Gospel, 2022, v.II, p.541.
5 Regarding the hypothesis that the letter of Revelation to the Angel of the church of Ephesus was addressed to St. Timothy, see: MUNIESA, D. Timoteo. In: ROPERO BERZOSA, Alfonso (Ed.). Gran diccionario enciclopédico de la Biblia. 7.ed. Barcelona: Clie, 2021, p.2491.
6 Cf. ELIADE, Mircea. História das crenças e das ideias religiosas. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2010, v.I, p.266.
