Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Second Timothy I. 3, 185
springs at once into view the personal relation between the two parties,
comp. 1 Tim. i. 3. The introduction expresses gratitude for
the faith of Timothy, and a longing to see him again—the two
emotions, as it were, interpenetrating each other, The similarity
of this introduction to Kom. i. 8-11, is worthy of remark. Its essential
feature is that there, as here, the apostle speaks of his gratitude
to God, as of his prayer to him that he may yet see the receivers of
tlie epistle, and there connects his unceasing remembrance of them,
as here of Timothy, with his thanksgiving and his prayer. The same
train of ideas might easily arise under like circumstances.
The details
are so entirely diverse, that our
passage must be regarded as
perfectly independent, and wholly discountenances the suspicion of
a clumsy imitation.
Ver. 3.^—
" I thank God whom I serve from my ancestors with a
pure conscience, how unceasingly I remember thee in my prayers day
and night, longing to see thee," etc. The construction here is difficult,
yet not without grammatical and logical consistency, as De
Wette thinks. Wherever the apostle begins with a thanksgiving
having reference to the readers, he indicates the ground of his gratitude
;
and this is their then Christian position. But he connects
immediately with his evxaptoroj on what occasion he gives thanks,
viz., on fjiveia in his prayers, and then subjoins the ground of it. This
clue will easily unravel the passage. The