1 Timothy 6:20-21

Vers. 20-22. The conclusion, containing another very earnest charge to fidelity: O Timothy, keep the deposit (τὴν παραθήκην, used again in 2Ti 1:12, 2 Timothy 1:14, and each time with the same verb). What deposit? Neither here nor in the other two passages in which the word is employed, first with reference to Paul, and then with reference to Timothy, is any further description given of it: the apostle himself commits to Christ's keeping what he calls a deposit; and Timothy had committed to him a deposit to keep, which is simply characterized as good. So far, however, the connection here throws some light upon the subject; for the deposit is plainly represented as what, if faithfully kept, would preserve Timothy from the false teachings of the Gnostic school, which were already beginning to make themselves heard: turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of knowledge (the gnosis) falsely so called, which some professing, erred concerning the faith. So that remaining stedfast in the one, he should avoid the dangers of the other. And what could possibly avail for such a purpose, but the sound faith or doctrine of the gospel? This is what the apostle himself, in various passages, sets against the false tendency in question, as the only true antidote; for example, at chap. 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 1:11 1 Timothy 1:18, 1 Timothy 4:6; 1 Timothy 6:3, etc. So Chrysostom, who identifies the deposit with faith, on the ground that “where faith is not, there is no knowledge; when anything is produced of one's own thoughts, it is not knowledge:” in other words, the errors to be guarded against are the teachings of man; the safeguard against them is what is received by faith from the teaching of God. Tertullian also not only explains it in the same way, but argues against the abuse made of the passage by the Gnostic teachers, to support their assertion that the apostles taught certain things secretly and to a few, which they withheld from others. “What (says he) is this deposit, so secret, that it may be reckoned another sort of doctrine?” And referring to the charge given in 1 Timothy 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:13, of this epistle, as probably pointing to the same thing, he proceeds: “From what is written in the preceding and subsequent context, it will be perceived that there is no allusion in the form of expression to any secret doctrine, but rather that he is warned against admitting any other doctrine than that which he had heard from himself (viz. Paul), and that openly Before many witnesses, says he (2 Timothy 2:2). If by those many witnesses they are unwilling to understand the church, it is of no moment; since nothing could be secret which was set forth in the presence of many witnesses “( de Prcescrip. Haeret. c. 25). The modern advocates, therefore, of a secret traditional doctrine handed down from Patristic testimony, follow not the Fathers, but the Gnostics, in their use of this passage; and in the interpretation they put on it, they always assume two things which are absolutely incapable of proof, first, that Timothy's deposit embraced something of importance not in Scripture; and second, that Patristic tradition is an infallible informant as to what that deposit was (see Goode's Rule of Faith, ii. p. 78). Even Vincentius Lirinensis, in a long passage regarding the deposit in his Commonitorium, expressly designates it, like Tertullian, as no more of private teaching, than of private invention: “Quid est depositum?... rem, non ingenii sed doctrinae, non usurpationis privatae sed publicae traditionis;” nothing else, in short, than the great facts and principles which constituted the burden of apostolic teaching.

The profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge have already been referred to, both in the Introduction to the epistles and at 1 Timothy 1:6; 1 Timothy 1:19-20. What is meant is that peculiar kind of religious speculation which originated in the East, but gradually spread westward to Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt, and which bears the general name of Gnosticism, because of the predominant account it made of gnosis, or knowledge. It was this, however, still only in an incipient form, not as ultimately developed into the regularly constructed systems, which appeared one after another in the second and third centuries, and which, though courting alliance with Christianity, were always denounced as essentially antichristian by the Fathers. It was this in spirit and character, even in its earlier and more sporadic existence, in which it assumed a variety of phases and manifestations; so that it cannot be either very particularly characterized or identified with any single locality and individual, but was the native fruit of the spirit of the age, animated and influenced by the circumstances of the time (see Reuss, Theol. Chretienne, vol. ii. p. 641). But being in its very nature of a presumptuous and pragmatical tendency, whenever yielded to, it was sure to lead men away from the simple and earnest faith of the gospel.

The grace (namely, of God) be with you! (The best authorities have ὑμῶν, א, A, F, G, P, which at 2 Timothy 4:22 is the reading also of the received text.) or simply, Grace be with you: thee, and those with thee.

(For the subscription, see close of INTRODUCTION.)