Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Second Timothy IV. 16, 17. 243
Ver, 16.—The apostle now gives an account of his first defence.
These details are evidently still unknown to Timothy ; and as the
epistle cannot have been written at the commencement of that imprisonment
which is known to us, this rrpcjrT] drxoXoyia can denote
only an event which transpired after the letters written during that
imprisonment. Hence Phil. i. 7 furnishes no parallel to the present
passage ;
there, too, the apostle speaks not of a definite actio, as
here (comp. Wieseler p. 429, seq.), where, as Wieseler has strikingly
shewn, we are to understand by np^ri] d-noXoyla^ the prima
actio which, as Paul was neither acquitted nor condemned, must
have had for its result a " non liquet." How these proceedings were
conducted, especially under Nero, comp. Wieseler, pp. 409 and 464.
Ovdeig ^iol ovfinapeyeveTo— " JSTone stood by me," as witness or advocate.
For the term ovfiTrap. Luke xxiii. 48, here = adesse alicui.
" But all abandoned me," an entirely difierent condition of the apostle
from that depicted in the epistles dated from his previous imprisonment.
" May it not be reckoned to them," their conduct being
the result not of malice but of weakness. His pardon assumes the
form of a supplication to Grod who alone can pardon.
Yer. 17.— " But the Lord stood by me," in contrast with the
companions that had forsaken him. The presence of the Lord was
evinced alike in strengthening and in rescuing him. On iv6vvafj,6o),
Phil. iv. 13 ; 1 Tim. i. 12, Chrys. napprjOLav ixapcaaro. The object
of this strengthening appears in the Iva, k. t. A., that through me
the preaching might be fulfilled and all nations hear it. Others
take TT?irjpo(f>. as " confirmed, brought to perfect certainty ;" of this,
however, Eom. iv. 21, xiv. 5, where the word is used of personal conviction,
is no proof. In its connexion with the following Kal aKovay
ndvra rd tdvT], it is much more naturally taken in the same sense as
above, iv. 5 ; Col. iv. 12 = nXrjpovv, Kom. xv. 19 ; Col. i, 25 (comp.
iv. 5), as, in fact, some codd. read -nXripod^. On Luke i. 1, comp.
Meyer's explanation. Kripvyna also accords better with our view.
This nXrjpocpoprjdfi together with aKovoj] will then refer, according to
the context, to the same event to which belongs the t:vedvvdp,(jjoe ; it
does not then refer to the apostle's preaching in Ptome, or to any
further missionary journeys—a view discountenanced alike by vers.
6-8, which assert his approaching death, by Kal ippvad'qv which represents
deliverance as a new and subsequent stage in the matter,
and by nal pvoeTai, ver. 18, in which the eye of the apostle is already
fixed on the end. Kather it is his defence in the capital of the
world, the representative of the nations, before the supreme tribunal
and the encircling multitude of people, which Paul regards as
the crown and consummation of his apostolic preaching, and as
preaching in the hearing of all nations, comp. Acts ix. 15, xxvi. 16.
So also Wieseler (who remarks justly that Iva would, on the other