The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles Part 19

Matthew has made a slip in writing "Zechariah the son of Barachiah"

instead of "Zechariah the son of Jehoiada"? And is there any honest method of bringing St. Stephen's speech into complete harmony with statements in the Old Testament respecting all the facts mentioned? Must we not suppose that there is error on one side or the other? If, as is quite certain, inspiration does not make a man a grammatical scholar, or give him a perfect literary style, ought we to conclude that it will make him a faultless historian or chronologer? A Divine Revelation through a series of inspired writers has been granted in order to save our souls. We have no right to a.s.sume that it has been granted in order to save us trouble. Those saving truths about G.o.d and our relations to Him, which we could never have discovered without a revelation, we may expect to find set forth without taint of error in the sacred writings.

But facts of geology, or history, or physiology, which our own intelligence and industry can discover, we ought not to expect to find accurately set forth for us in the Bible: and we ought to require very full evidence before deciding that in such matters inspired writers may be regarded as infallible. St. Luke tells us in the Preface to his Gospel that he took great pains to obtain the best information. Need he have done so, if inspiration protected him from all possibility of mistake?

3. Inspiration does not override and overwhelm the inspired writer's personal characteristics. There appears to be no such thing as an inspired style. The style of St. John is as different from that of St.

Paul as the style of Bishop Butler is from that of Jeremy Taylor. Each inspired writer uses the language, and the ill.u.s.trations, and the arguments that are natural and familiar to him. If he has an argumentative mind, he argues his points; if he has not, he states them without argument. If he has literary skill, he exhibits it; if he has none, inspiration does not give it to him. "No inspiration theory can stand for a moment which does not leave room for the personal agency and individual peculiarities of the sacred authors and the exercise of their natural faculties in writing" (Schaff, _Apostolic Christianity_, p.

608).

What inspiration has _not_ done in these various particulars is manifest to every one who studies the sacred writings. What it _has_ done is scarcely less manifest, and is certainly much more generally recognized.

It has produced writings which are absolutely without a parallel in the literature of the world. Even as regards literary merits they have few rivals. But it is not in their literary beauty that their unique character consists. It lies rather in their lofty spirituality; their inexhaustible capacities for instruction and consolation; their boundless adaptability to all ages and circ.u.mstances; above all, in their ceaseless power of satisfying the n.o.blest cravings and aspirations of the human heart. Other writings are profitable for knowledge, for advancement, for amus.e.m.e.nt, for delight, for wealth. But these "make wise unto salvation." They produce that discipline which has its sphere in righteousness. They have power to instruct the ignorant, to convict the guilty, to reclaim the fallen, to school all in holiness; that all may be complete as men of G.o.d, "furnished completely unto every good work."

FOOTNOTES:

[94] "Rationalism in Religion," in _Tracts for the Times_, republished in _Essays Critical and Historical_, vol. i. p. 32.

[95] See the quotations given in Alford's note on p?sa ????d?? in Eph.

ii. 21, which might be increased, if necessary: _e.g._ p?? s?a, in Arist., _Nic. Eth._, I. xiii. 7, which must = "the whole body."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

_THE PARADOXICAL EXULTATION OF THE APOSTLE.--HIS APPARENT FAILURE AND THE APPARENT FAILURE OF THE CHURCH.--THE GREAT TEST OF SINCERITY._

"But be thou sober in all things, suffer hards.h.i.+p, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing."--2 TIM. iv.

5-8.

St. Chrysostom tells us that this pa.s.sage was for a long time a source of perplexity to him. "Often," he says, "when I have taken the Apostle into my hands and have considered this pa.s.sage, I have been at a loss to understand why Paul here speaks so loftily: _I have fought the good fight_. But now by the grace of G.o.d I seem to have found it out. For what purpose then does he speak thus? He writes to console the despondency of his disciple; and he therefore bids him be of good cheer, since he was going to his crown, having finished all his work and obtained a glorious end. Thou oughtest to rejoice, he says; not to grieve. And why? Because _I have fought the good fight_. Just as a son, who was sitting bewailing his orphan state, might be consoled by his father saying to him, Weep not, my son. We have lived a good life; we have reached old age; and now we are leaving thee. Our life has been free from reproach; we are departing with glory; and thou mayest be held in honour for what we have done.... And this he says not boastfully;--G.o.d forbid;--but in order to raise up his dejected son, and to encourage him by his praises to bear firmly what had come to pa.s.s, to entertain good hopes, and not to think it a matter grievous to be borne."

Chrysostom's explanation is no doubt part of the reason why the Apostle here speaks in so exalted a key. This unusual strain _is_ partly the result of a wish to cheer his beloved disciple and a.s.sure him that there is no need to grieve for the death which now cannot be very far off.

When it comes, it will be a glorious death and a happy one. A glorious death, for it will crown with the crown of victory struggles in a weary contest which is now ending triumphantly. And a happy death; for Paul has for years had the longing "to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." The crown is one which will not wither; for it is not made of olive, bay, or laurel. And it is not one of which the glory is doubtful, or dependent upon the fickle opinions of a prejudiced crowd; for it is not awarded by a human umpire, nor amid the applauses of human spectators. The Giver is Christ, and the theatre is filled with angels.

In the contests of this world men labour many days and suffer hards.h.i.+ps; and for one hour they receive the crown. And forthwith all the pleasure of it pa.s.ses away. In the good fight which St. Paul fought a crown of righteousness is won, which continues for ever in brightness and glory.

But besides wis.h.i.+ng to console Timothy for the bereavement which was impending, St. Paul also wished to encourage him, to stimulate him to greater exertion and to a larger measure of courage. "Be _thou_ sober in all things, suffer hards.h.i.+p, do the work of an Evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. For _I_ am already being poured out as a drink-offering, and the time of my departure is at hand." That is: _You_ must be more vigorous, more enduring, more devoted; for _I_ am going away, and must leave you to carry on to perfection that which I have begun. My fighting is over; therefore do you fight more bravely. My course is finished; therefore do you run more perseveringly. The faith entrusted to me has been preserved thus far inviolate: see to it, that what has been entrusted to you be kept safe. The crown which righteousness wins is waiting now for me: so strive that such a crown may await you also. For this is a contest in which all may have crowns, if only they will live so as to feel a longing for the appearing of the righteous Judge who gives them.

But there is more in this pa.s.sage than the desire to comfort Timothy for the approaching loss of his friend and instructor, and the desire to spur him on to greater usefulness, not merely in spite of, but because of, that loss. There is also the ecstatic joy of the great Apostle, as with the eye of faith he looks back over the work which he has been enabled to perform, and balances the cost of it against the great reward.

As has been already pointed out in an earlier pa.s.sage, there is nothing in this touching letter which is more convincingly like St. Paul than the way in which conflicting emotions succeed one another and come to the surface in perfectly natural expression. Sometimes it is anxiety that is uppermost; sometimes it is confidence. Here he is overflowing with affection; there he is stern and indignant. One while he is deeply depressed; and then again becomes triumphant and exulting. Like the second Epistle to the Corinthians this last letter to the beloved disciple is full of intense personal feelings, of a different and apparently discordant character. The pa.s.sage before us is charged with such emotions, beginning with solemn warning and ending in lofty exultation. But it is the warning, not of fear, but of affection; and it is the exultation, not of sight, but of faith.

Looked at with human eyes the Apostle's life at that moment was a failure,--a tragic and dismal failure. In his own simple but most pregnant language, he had been "the _slave_ of Jesus Christ." No Roman slave, driven by whip and goad, could have been made to work as Paul had worked. He had taxed his fragile body and sensitive spirit to the utmost, and had encountered lifelong opposition, derision, and persecution, at the hands of those who ought to have been his friends, and had been his friends until he entered the service of Jesus Christ.

He had preached and argued, had entreated and rebuked, and in doing so had rung the changes on all the chief forms of human suffering. And what had been the outcome of it all? The few Churches which he had founded were but as handfuls in the cities in which he had established them; and there were countless cities in which he had established nothing. Even the few Churches which he had succeeded in founding had in most cases soon fallen away from their first faith and enthusiasm. The Thessalonians had become tainted with idleness and disorder, the Corinthians with contentiousness and sensuality, the Galatians, Colossians, and Ephesians with various forms of heresy; while the Roman Church, in the midst of which he was suffering an imprisonment which would almost certainly end in death, was treating him with coldness and neglect. At his first defence no one took his part, but all forsook him; and in his extremity he was almost deserted. As the results of a life of intense energy and self-devotion, all these things had the appearance of total failure.

And certainly if the work of his life seemed to have been a failure with regard to others, it did not bear any resemblance to success as regards himself. From the world's point of view he had given up much, and gained little, beyond trouble and disgrace. He had given up a distinguished position in the Jewish Church, in order to become the best hated man among that people of pa.s.sionate hatreds. While his efforts on behalf of the Gentiles had ended for a third time in confinement in a Gentile prison, from which, as he saw clearly, nothing but death was likely to release him.

And yet, in spite of all this, St. Paul is exultingly triumphant. Not at all because he does not perceive, or cannot feel, the difficulties and sorrows of his position. Still less because he wishes to dissemble either to himself or others the sufferings which he has to endure. He is no Stoic, and makes no profession of being above human infirmities and human emotions. He is keenly sensitive to all that affects his own aspirations and affections and the well-being of those whom he loves. He is well aware of the dangers both of body and soul which beset those who are far dearer to him than life. And he gives strong expression to his trouble and anxiety. But he measures the troubles of time by the glories of eternity. With the eye of faith he looks across all this apparent failure and neglect to the crown of righteousness which the righteous Judge has in store for him, and for thousands upon thousands of others also,--even for _all_ those who have learned to look forward with longing to the time when their Lord shall appear again.

In all this we see in miniature the history of Christendom since the Apostle's death. His career was a fore-shadowing of the career of the Christian Church. In both cases there appears to be only a handful of real disciples with a company of shallow and fickle followers, to set against the stolid, unmoved ma.s.s of the unconverted world. In both cases, even among the disciples themselves, there is the cowardice of many, and the desertions of some. In both cases those who remain true to the faith dispute among themselves which of them shall be accounted the greatest. St. Paul was among the first to labour that Christ's ideal of one holy catholic Church might be realized. Eighteen centuries have pa.s.sed away, and the life of the Church, like that of St. Paul, looks like a failure. With more than half the human race still not even nominally Christian; with long series of crimes committed not only in defiance, but in the name, of religion; with each decade of years producing its unwholesome crop of heresies and schisms;--what has become of the Church's profession of being catholic, holy, and united?

The failure, as in St. Paul's case, is more apparent than real. And it must be noted at the outset that our means of gauging success in spiritual things are altogether uncertain and inadequate. Anything at all like scientific accuracy is quite out of our reach, because the data for a trustworthy conclusion cannot be obtained. But the case is far stronger than this. It is impossible to determine even roughly where the benefits conferred by the Gospel end; what the average holiness among professing Christians really is; and to what extent Christendom, in spite of its manifold divisions, is really one. It is more than possible that the savage in central Africa is spiritually the better for the Incarnation of which he knows nothing, and which his whole life seems to contradict; for at least he is one of those for whom Christ was born and died. It is probable that among quite ordinary Christians there are many whom the world knows as sinners, but whom G.o.d knows as saints. And it is certain that a belief in a Triune G.o.d and in a common Redeemer unites millions far more closely than their differences about ministers and sacraments keeps them apart. The Church's robe is tattered and travel-stained; but she is still the Bride of Christ, and her children, however much they may quarrel among themselves, are still one in Him.

And where the failure of St. Paul and of those who have followed him can be shown to be unquestionably real, it can generally be shown to be thoroughly intelligible. Although Divine in its origin, the Gospel has from the first used human instruments with all the weaknesses,--physical, intellectual, and moral,--which characterize humanity. When we remember what this implies, and also remember the forces against which Christianity has had to contend, the marvel rather is that the Gospel has had so large a measure of success, than that its success is not yet complete. It has had to fight against the pa.s.sions and prejudices of individuals and nations, debased by long centuries of immorality and ignorance, and strengthened in their opposition to the truth by all the powers of darkness. It has had to fight, moreover, with other religions, many of which are attractive by their concessions to human frailty, and others by the comparative purity of their rites and doctrines. And against them all it has won, and continues to win, man's approbation and affection, by its power of satisfying his highest aspirations and his deepest needs. No other religion or philosophy has had success so various or so far reaching. The Jew and the Mahometan, after centuries of intercourse, remain almost without influence upon European minds; while to Western civilization the creed of the Buddhist remains not only without influence, but without meaning. But the nation has not yet been found to which Christianity has been proved to be unintelligible or unsuitable. To whatever quarter of the globe we look, or to whatever period of history during the Christian era, the answer is still the same. Mult.i.tudes of men, throughout eighteen centuries, under the utmost variety of conditions, whether of personal equipment or of external circ.u.mstance, have made trial of Christianity, and have found it satisfying. They have testified as the result of their countless experiences that it can stand the wear and tear of life; that it can not only fortify but console; and that it can rob even death of its sting and the grave of its victory by a sure and certain hope of the crown of righteousness, which the righteous Judge prepares for all those who love, and have long loved, His appearing.

"Who have loved and do love His appearing."[96] That is the full force of the Greek perfect (t??? ??ap???s??), which expresses the present and permanent result of past action; and therein lies the test whereby to try the temper of our Christianity. St. Paul, who had long yearned to depart and be with Christ, could not easily have given a more simple or sure method of finding out who those are who have a right to believe that the Lord has a crown of righteousness in store for them. Are we among the number? In order to answer this question we must ask ourselves another. Are our lives such that we are longing for Christ's return? Or are we dreading it, because we know that we are not fit to meet Him, and are making no attempt to become so. Supposing that physicians were to tell us, that we are smitten with a deadly disease, which must end fatally, and that very soon,--what would be our feeling? When the first shock was over, and we were able to take a calm view of the whole case, could we welcome the news as the unexpected fulfilment of a long cherished wish that Christ would deliver us out of the miseries of this sinful world and take us to Himself? The Bible sets before us the crown of righteousness which fadeth not away, and the worm which never dieth.

Leaning upon G.o.d's unfailing love let us learn to long for the coming of the one; and then we shall have no need to dread, or even to ask the meaning of, the other.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] The somewhat unusual word here used for Christ's second coming (?p?f??e?a) has been condemned as un-Pauline; but it occurs 2 Thess. ii.

8, and the cognate verb fa?e???? is found Col. iii. 4. Cf. 2 Tim. i. 10; iv. 1; t.i.t. ii. 13; 1 Tim. vi. 14.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

_THE PERSONAL DETAILS A GUARANTEE OF GENUINENESS._

"Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas forsook me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, t.i.tus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for ministering. But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus. The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord will render to him according to his works: of whom be thou ware also; for he greatly withstood our words."--2 TIM. iv. 9-15.

"Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus. Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus I left at Miletus sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren." vv. 19-21.

It would scarcely be exceeding the limits of legitimate hyperbole to say that these two pa.s.sages prove the authenticity and genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles; that they are sufficient to show that these letters are an authentic account of the matters of which they treat, and that they are genuine letters of the Apostle Paul.

In the first of these expositions it was pointed out how improbable it is that a portion of one of these letters should be genuine, and not the remainder of it; or that one of the three should be genuine, and not the other two; and _a fortiori_, that two of the three should be genuine, and not the remaining one.

The pa.s.sages before us are among those of which it has been truly said that they "cling so closely to Paul that it is only by tearing the letter to pieces that any part can be dissociated from that Apostle."[97] The internal evidence is here too strong even for those critics who deny the Pauline authors.h.i.+p of the Pastoral Epistles as a whole. Thus Renan and Weisse are disposed to admit that we have here embedded in the work of a later writer portions of a genuine letter of the Apostle; while Ewald, Hausrath, and Pfleiderer accept not only these verses, but the earlier pa.s.sage about Phygelus, Hermogenes, and Onesiphorus as genuine also. Similar views are advocated by Hitzig, Krenkel, and Immer, of whom the two first admit that the Epistle to t.i.tus also contains genuine fragments. And quite recently (1882) we have Lemme contending that only the central portion of 2 Timothy (ii. 11 to iv. 5) is an interpolation.

These concessions amount to a concession of the whole case. It is impossible to stop there. Either much more must be conceded or much less. For, (1) we cannot without very strong evidence indeed accept so improbable a supposition as that a Christian long after the Apostle's death was in possession of letters written by him, of which no one else knew anything, that he worked bits of these into writings of his own, which he wished to pa.s.s off as Apostolic, and that he then destroyed the genuine letters, or disposed of them in such a way that no one knew that they had ever existed. Such a story is not absolutely impossible, but it is so unlikely to be true, that to accept it without clear evidence would be most uncritical. And there is not only no clear evidence; there is no evidence at all. The hypothesis is pure imagination. (2) The portions of this letter which are allowed by adverse critics to be genuine are precisely those in which a forger would be pretty sure to be caught tripping. They are full of personal details, some of which admit of being tested, and all of which can be criticized, as to whether they are natural and consistent or not. Would a forger be likely to risk detection by venturing on such dangerous ground? He would put into the letter those doctrines for which he wished to appear to have St. Paul's authority; and, if he added anything else, he would take care not to go beyond vague generalities, too indefinite to be caught in the meshes of criticism. But the writer of this letter has done the reverse of all this. He has given an abundance of personal detail, such as can be found in only one other place in the New Testament, and that in the concluding portion of the Epistle to the Romans, one of the indisputable writings of St. Paul.

And he has not been caught tripping. Hostile writers have subjected these details to the most searching criticism; and the result, as we have seen, is that many of them are constrained to admit that these portions of the letter are genuine productions of the Apostle. That is, those portions of the Epistle which can be subjected to a severe test, are allowed to be by St. Paul, because they stand the test; while those which do not admit of being thus tested are rejected, not because there is any proof of their being spurious, but because critics think that the style is not like the Apostle's. Would they not be the first to deride others for such an opinion? Supposing that these details had contained absurdities or contradictions, which _could_ not have been written by St. Paul, would they not have maintained, and reasonably maintained, that it was monstrous to surrender as spurious those sections of the letter which had been tested and found wanting, and to defend as genuine the other sections, which did not admit of being tested?

Let us look at the details a little more closely. Besides St. Paul and Timothy, twenty-three Christians of the Apostolic age are mentioned in this short letter. A considerable number of these are persons of whom we read in the Acts or in St. Paul's other letters; but the majority are new names, and in most of these cases we know nothing about the bearers of the names beyond what is told us here. Would a forger have given us this mixture of known and unknown? If he ventured upon names at all, would he not either have given us imaginary persons, whose names and actions could not be checked by existing records, or else have kept closely to the records, so that the checking might tell in his favour?

He has done neither. The new names do not look like those of imaginary persons, and the mention of known persons is by no means a mere reproduction of what is said of them elsewhere.

"Demas forsook me, having loved this present world.... Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for ministering." A forger with the Acts and the Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon before him would have made Mark forsake Paul, and Demas be commended as useful to him; for in the Acts (xv. 38) Paul had to condemn Mark for slackness, and in the Epistles to the Colossians (iv. 14) and to Philemon (24) Demas with Luke is waiting on the Apostle in his imprisonment. And yet how natural that the Apostle's condemnation should rouse Mark to greater earnestness, and that the Apostle should recognize that earnestness in this farewell letter? And how consistent with human frailty also that Demas should have courage enough to stand by St. Paul during his first Roman imprisonment, and yet should quail before the greater risks of the second! That the Apostle's complaint respecting him means more than this, is unlikely. Yet some have exaggerated it into a charge of heresy, or even utter apostasy. We are simply to understand that Demas preferred comfort and security away from Rome to the hards.h.i.+p and danger of a Roman prison; and therefore went to Thessalonica. Why he selected that town we are not told, but there being a Christian community there would be one reason.

"t.i.tus to Dalmatia." Why should a forger send t.i.tus to Dalmatia? The Pastoral Epistles, whether a forgery or not, are all by one hand, and seem to have been written within a short time of one another. Would not a forger have sent t.i.tus either to Crete (t.i.t. i. 5), or to Nicopolis (t.i.t. iii. 12)? But if t.i.tus went to Nicopolis, and failed to find Paul there, owing to his having been meanwhile arrested, what more probable than that he should go on into Dalmatia? The forger, if he had thought of this, would have called attention to it, to ensure that his ingenuity was not overlooked.

"But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus." The meaning of the "but" is not quite clear. Perhaps the most probable supposition is that it indicates the reason why the Apostle needs a useful person like Mark. "I had such a person in Tychicus; but he is gone on a mission for me to Ephesus." How natural all this is! And what could induce a forger to put it in? We are told in the Acts that Tychicus belonged to the Roman province of Asia (xx. 4), and that he was with St. Paul at the close of his third missionary journey about nine years before the writing of this letter to Timothy. Three or four years later we find Tychicus once more with St.

Paul during the first Roman imprisonment; and he is sent with Onesimus as the bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 7) and to the Ephesians (vi. 21). And we learn from the sentence before us, as well as from t.i.tus iii. 12, that he still enjoys the confidence of the Apostle, for he is sent on missions for him to Crete and to Ephesus. All these separate notices of him hang together consistently representing him as "the beloved brother," and also as a "faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord," whom St. Paul was accustomed to entrust with special commissions. If the mission to Ephesus mentioned here is a mere copy of the other missions, would not a forger have taken some pains to ensure that the similarity between his fiction and previous facts should be observed?

"The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments." Here the arguments against the probability of forgery reach a climax; and this verse should be remembered side by side with "Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake" in the First Epistle (v. 23). What writer of a fict.i.tious letter would ever have dreamed of inserting either pa.s.sage? To an unbia.s.sed mind they go a long way towards producing the impression that we are dealing with real letters and not with inventions. And this argument holds good equally well, whatever meaning we give to the word (fe????) which is rendered "cloke." It probably means a cloke, and is a Greek form of the Latin _penula_. It appears to have been a circular garment without sleeves, but with a hole in the middle for the head. Hence some persons have made the astounding suggestion that it was a eucharistic vestment a.n.a.logous to a chasuble, and have supposed that the Apostle is here asking, not for warm clothing "before winter," but for a sacerdotal dress for ritualistic purposes.

But since Chrysostom's day there has been a more credible suggestion that the word means a bag or case for books. If so, would the Apostle have mentioned both the book-bag and the books, and would he have put the bag before the books? He might naturally have written, "Bring the book-bag,"--of course with the books in it; or, "Bring the books and the bag also." But it seems a strange way of putting the request to say, "The book-bag that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest; the books also, especially the parchments," as if the bag were the chief thing that he thought about. It seems better to abide by the old rendering "cloke;" and, if this is correct, then it fits in well with "Do thy diligence to come _before winter_." Yet the writer in no way draws our attention to the connexion between the need of the thick cloke and the approach of winter: and the writer of a real letter would have no need to do so. But would a forger have left the connexion to chance?[98]

Whether Alexander the coppersmith is the person of that name who was put forward by the Jews in the riot raised by Demetrius (Acts xix. 33), is not more than a possibility. The name Alexander was exceedingly common; and we are not told that the Jew in the riot at Ephesus was a smith, or that Alexander the smith was a Jew. In what way the coppersmith "showed much ill-treatment" to the Apostle, we are not told. As St. Paul goes on immediately afterwards to speak of his "first defence," it seems reasonable to conjecture that Alexander had seriously injured the Apostle's cause in some way. But this is pure conjecture; and the ill-treatment may refer to general persecution of St. Paul and opposition to his teaching. On the whole the latter hypothesis appears to be safer.

The reading, "The Lord _will_ render to him" (?p?d?se?), is shown by an overwhelming balance of evidence to be preferable to "The Lord reward him (?p?d??) according to his works." There is no malediction. Just as in ver. 8 the Apostle expresses his conviction that the Lord will render (?p?d?se?) a crown of righteousness to all those who love His appearing, so here he expresses a conviction that He will render a just recompense to all those who oppose the work of His kingdom. What follows in the next verse, "may it not be laid to their account," seems to show that the Apostle is in no cursing mood. He writes in sorrow rather than in anger. It is necessary to put Timothy on his guard against a dangerous person; but he leaves the requital of the evil deeds to G.o.d.