Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

First Timothy V. 16. 133
ver. 10 ; the position of the verse, howeveij will warrant our interpreting
it with special reference to what is said concerning the ecclesiastical
widows, either thus—that the apostle gives this injunction,
because younger widows sought, from motives of economy, to be
received into the viduatus (De Wette), or thus—that the apostle
would press this also with reference to the ecclesiastical widows, that
the church was to be burdened with their
support only in the case
of there being no relative on whom any obligation rests to assist
them. The reading morbg i) Tnon] in preference to the other which
omits marfx; j'j (codd. A.C.F.G., 17, 47^ etc.), has been retained by
Tischendorf with reason, in opposition to Grriesbach and Lachmann ;
comp. De Wette. On ISapeiodoj^ comp. 2 Cor. i. 8, v. 4. With such
widows the church is not to be burdened, in order that it may be
in a condition to afford assistance to the real widows in the sense
described, vers. 3-5.
Dr. Baur has offered a solution entirely new of the difficulties contained
in this section about the widows, vers. 3-16, which has already
in the Introduction, § 3, been considered in a historical point
of view. Here we shall only, in addition, briefly shew how little his
interpretation can be justified in an exegetical point of view. He
understands, vers. 3-8, of " holding widows in honour" in general,
ver. 9, seq., of their support as ecclesiastical persons. The rag ovroig
XUpfi'^ are, according to him, real widows in opposition to merely socalled
widows, i. e., widows in the ecclesiastical sense, who might
also be virgins. But the real widows are, according to vers. 4 and
5, either such as have children or such as are solitary. But in reply
to this, we would observe that the meaning of rag ovrog XUP^^ is
shewn by that to which it is opposed in ver. 4, and again in ver. 5 ;
namely, only the widow who is quite desolate. Ver. 4 does not
speak of an 6vT(^q XUP^ but ver. 5 first speaks of this in opposition
J
to ver. 4. Here, however, it wiU be seen that the opposition which
Dr. Baur has made between real and so-called widows is one which
he himself has introduced. Ver. 9, then, according to him, describes
a particular class of the oVrwf ^//pai, those, namely, to whom the
KaraXeyeadac was applicable, which of course implies that the widows
were not ecclesiastical widows, as being 6vTG)g xW'^h or again, that
they belonged to the ovrojg XW^'- o^^lj ^^ real, not as ecclesiastical
widows. To this it may only be objected that it can by no means
be maintained with certainty, that the apostle thought merely of
the oi'Tcog %7jpat in the KaraXiyeoOac (ovTO)g in the sense of ver. 5).
But is it not the merest petitio principii when it is further said, the
ecclesiastical widows, vers. 9 and 10, differed from the ovTcog x^lP^'-
mentioned before, in so far as that to the former might belong such
as were not really widows ; whence is it that %/Jpai obtains this
ecclesiastical signification ? Whence then does our opponent learn.