Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

124 First Timothy V. 9,
nothing is to be supplied : "as widow let one be enrolled who is
not under sixty years old." That the object of this enrolment was
only the receiving support, is a mere presumption on the part of the
commentators, and is not warranted by ver. 16 (see below). If it
can be proved from history that there was an em'olment of widows
as such, that as widows they were promoted to a place of ecclesiastical
distinction, then we must regard the passage before us
as referring to this practice ; and it is difficult to see why rich
widows, who in other respects possessed the necessary qualifications,
should have been excluded from this distinction. And are the qualifications
themselves laid down in vers. 9 and 10 suitable, on the
supposition of their having special reference to the receiving of
support from the church ? There are a thousand things against
this, says Schleiermacher j and when his opponents, as Planck,
Baumgarten, and others say in reply, that there is no necessity to
understand that all of these qualifications together must have been
possessed by every widow to be taken into the list, they forget the
true point of view, namely, that it is not widows in general, but
those who were needy, that are exclusively spoken of, and regarded
from this point of view, the qualifications there laid down cannot
but appear strange. And why should the church fulfil the
duty of charity only toM^ards widows who were sixty years old ?
Might there not have been younger ones in a much more necessitous
condition ? And why only towards a widow who had been the wife
of one man ?
Was the ^vidow to whom this did not apply, but who
in other respects was blameless, to receive no support ? And similar
questions might be put with reference to the having brought up
children, and the qualifications that follow. But it may be said in
a general way, that the apostle here makes the ecclesiastical support
of such widows as were helpless and destitute to be dependent on
their former conduct. Even in ver. 5 he does not do this. This
were quite contrary to the spirit of Christian charity ; and it would
be pronounced foolish were any one in the present day, in the case
of any similar institution in behalf of widows, to insist on the qualifications
which the apostle has here laid down. And not only are
vers. 9 and 10 inconsistent with this interpretation, but the following
verses also—ver. 11, hut the younger luidoius refuse, and ver. 14, /
will therefore that the younger loidows marry : for neither could
the younger widows be all at once refused, if the receiving of support
is what is referred to, nor could they be reasonably enjoined to
marry again, if thereby all prospect of support from the church
should be withdrawn (h-ug dvdpbg yvv?]). Nor, in what is said of
the younger widows in these verses, is there the
slightest indication
of any want of the ncccssaiy means of subsistence on their part.
Mosheim has already estimated aright the force of these considera-