Vigils Reading – SS Timothy & Titus

THE VIRTUE OF ST TIMOTHY

AS A PATTERN FOR CHRISTIANS

From a sermon by St John Henry Newman

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“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and

for your other infirmities”. This is a remarkable verse, because it accidentally tells

us so much. It is addressed to Timothy, St Paul’s companion, the first Bishop of

Ephesus. Of Timothy we know very little, except that he did minister to St Paul,

and hence we might have inferred that he was a man of very saintly character; but

we know little or nothing of him, except that he had been from a child a careful

reader of Scripture…

Timothy…had so read the Old Testament, and had so heard from St Paul the

New, that he was a true follower of the Apostle, as the Apostle was of Christ. St Paul

accordingly calls him “my own son”, or “my true son in the faith”. And elsewhere

he says to the Philippians that he has “no man like-minded to Timothy, who would

naturally” or truly “care for their state”… St Paul does not expressly tell us that he

was a man of mortified habits; but he reveals the fact indirectly by cautioning him

against an excess of mortification. “Drink no longer water,” he says, “but use a little

wine.” It should be observed that wine, in the southern countries, is the ordinary

beverage; it is nothing strong or costly. Yet even from such as this, Timothy was in

the habit of abstaining, and restricting himself to water; and, as the Apostle

thought, imprudently, to the increase of his “frequent infirmities.”

There is something very striking in this accidental mention of the private

ways of this Apostolic Bishop. We know indeed from history the doctrine and the

life of the great saints, who lived some time after the Apostles’ age; but we are

naturally anxious to know something more of the Apostles themselves and their

associates. We say, “Oh that we could speak to St Paul – that we could see him in his

daily walk, and hear his…teaching! – that we could ask him what he meant by this

expression in his Epistles, or what he thought of this or the other doctrine.” This is

not given to us. God might give us greater light than He does; but it is His gracious

will to give us the less. Yet perhaps much more has been given us in Scripture, as it

has come to us, than we think, if our eyes were enlightened to discern it there. Such,

for instance, is this text; it is a sudden revelation, a glimpse of the personal

character of Apostolic Christians; it is a hint which we may follow out. For no one

will deny that a very great deal of doctrine, and a very great deal of precept, goes

with such a fact as this: namely, that this holy man, without impiously disparaging

God’s creation, and thanklessly rejecting God’s gifts, yet, on the whole, lived a life

of abstinence.

I cannot understand why such a life is not excellent in a Christian now, if it

was the characteristic of Apostles and friends of Apostles then. I really do not see

why the trials and persecutions, which surrounded them from Jews and Gentiles,

their forlorn despised state, and their necessary discomforts, should not even have

exempted them from voluntary sufferings in addition, unless such self-imposed

hardships were pleasing to Christ. Such were the holy men of old. How far are we

below them! Alas for our easy sensual life, our cowardice, our sloth! Is this the way

by which the kingdom of God is won?