Baring-Gould’s sources: By almost all the ancient Latin Martyrologies, S. Timothy is commemorated on this day, but by the Greeks on Jan. 22. The Martyrology called by the name of S. Jerome on Sept. 27. That of Wandelbert on May 16, possibly because of some translation of relics. Authorities: the Epistles of S. Paul, and the Acts of S. Timothy, by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (210), which, however, we have not in their original form, but in a recension of the 5th or 6th century; other Acts of S. Timothy, also in Greek, and a life in Metaphrastes.
Saint Timothy, the beloved disciple of S. Paul, was born at Lystra in Lycaonia. His father was a Gentile, but his mother, Eunice, was a Jewess. She, with Lois, his grandmother, embraced Christianity, and S. Paul commends their faith. S. Timothy had made the writings of the Old Testament his study from infancy. [117] S. Paul took the young man as the companion of his labours, [118] but first he had him circumcised at Lystra, as a condescension to the prejudices of the Jews. He would not suffer S. Titus, born of Gentile parents, to be brought under the law, but Timothy, on account of his Jewish mother, to avoid scandal to the Jews, he submitted to circumcision.
When S. Paul was compelled to quit Beræa, he left Timothy behind him to confirm the new converts. But on his arrival at Athens S. Paul sent for him, and sent him to Thessalonica where the Christians were suffering persecution. Thence he returned to S. Paul, who was then at Corinth, to give an account of his mission. [119] From Corinth S. Paul went to Jerusalem, and thence to Ephesus. Here he formed the resolution of returning into Greece, and he sent Timothy and Erastus before him through Macedonia, to apprize the faithful in those parts of his intention of visiting them. Timothy had a special charge to go afterwards to Corinth, to correct certain abuses there. S. Paul awaited his return, in Asia, and then went with him into Macedonia and Achaia.
During the subsequent imprisonment of S. Paul, Timothy appears to have been with him. He was ordained Bishop of Ephesus, probably in the year 64. S. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy from Macedonia, in 64; and his second in 65, from Rome, while there in chains, to press him to come to Rome, that he might see him again before he died.
S. Timothy was afterwards associated with S. John; and in the Apocalypse he is the Angel, or Bishop, of the Church of Ephesus, to whom Christ sends His message by S. John. [120] During the great annual feast of the Catagogii, which consisted of processions bearing idols, with women lewdly dancing before them, and ending in bloodshed, S. Timothy moved by righteous zeal, rushed into the portico of the temple, and exhorted the frenzied revellers to decency; but this so enraged them, that they fell upon him with sticks and stones, and killed him.
