2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is given by inspiration of God. — Although this rendering is grammatically possible, the more strictly accurate translation, and the one adopted by nearly all the oldest and most trustworthy versions (for example, the Syriac and the Vulgate), and by a great many of the principal expositors in all ages (for instance, by such teachers as Origen, Theodoret, Grotius, Luther, Meyer, Ellicott, and Alford), runs as follows: “Every scripture inspired by God is also profitable for doctrine, for reproof,” &c.

The rendering followed by the English version, and which is certainly grammatically possible, by making — “all Scripture” the subject, and “given by inspiration of God” the predicate, declares positively the inspiration of all the Old Testament Scriptures, for this is what the Apostle must have referred to, if we understand this verse as we have it rendered in the English version above. The New Testament at this period was certainly not all written; for instance, St. John’s Gospel, St. John’s Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse, with several of the Catholic Epistles, probably were composed at a later date than that assigned to this letter to Timothy. St. Paul, massing together an evidently well-known number of writings under the term πᾶσα γραϕή, spoke of the Jewish Scriptures, the “canon” of which was then determined.

But such a declaration of the inspiration of these writings to Timothy and to those associated with him would seem unnecessary and uncalled for. Timothy and the trained Jew of the first century would never dream of doubting the divine origin of their most prized and sacred writings. There is nothing in the verses immediately preceding which would call out such a statement. It seems, therefore, on exegetical, as well as on grammatical, considerations best to follow the interpretation of those ancient and venerable witnesses the Syriac and Latin (Jerome’s) versions, and to understand St. Paul’s words here, as asserting that every inspired writing (this, it should be observed, does not exclude those recent sacred compositions which — Gospels or Epistles — he had seen or written himself, and the divine origin of which he well knew) is profitable for doctrine, &c. Thus he exhorted Timothy to show himself a contrast to the false teachers — ever shifting their ground and waxing worse and worse — by keeping steadily to the old teaching of doctrine and of life. He was not to change, not to advance, but was to remember that every inspired Scripture was profitable for doctrine and for life. It was by these writings, St. Paul would remind him, that he must test his teaching. On the way in which “inspiration of God” was understood in the Church of the first days, see Excursus at the end of this Epistle.

Inspiration of God. — This thought, perhaps, rather than these words, is admirably paraphrased by St. Peter: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). The various uses of Holy Scripture in the training of the man of God are set forth in the enumeration which closes this verse. These sacred writings must, in all ages, St. Paul would urge, be the hand-book of the Christian teacher. From it he must prove the doctrines he professes; hence, too, he must draw his reproofs for the ignorant and erring. It must be the one source whence he derives those instructions which teach the Christian how to grow in grace.

EXCURSUS ON NOTES TO II. TIMOTHY.

ON THE WAY IN WHICH “INSPIRATION OF GOD” [2 Timothy 3:16] WAS UNDERSTOOD IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

“See and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”

— Jeremiah 6:16.

THE question of “inspiration” is one that in the present day often is the subject of debate. In the hot and often angry controversies on this subject among us, it will be useful and interesting to see what were the opinions held by those learned and devoted men living, many of them, in the times immediately succeeding the first age of the Faith, when those walked on earth who had seen and conversed with the Lord Jesus. We wilt give the words of a few of the more distinguished of the early fathers of the Faith, selecting them from different centres of Christianity.
ROME. — Clement, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 70-96. Ad Cor Ep. i. 45. Ad Cor. Ep. i. 47.

Our quotations begin from the very days of the Apostles. Clement mentioned by St. Paul (Philippians 4:3), who, as history tells us, was the second Bishop of Rome, exhorts his readers “to look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit;” and in another place in the same writing he expressly refers to a well-known New Testament Epistle thus: — “Take up the Epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle, what did he write to you in the beginning [that is, in the first days of the preaching] of the gospel? In truth, divinely inspired πνευματικῶς, divinitus inspiratus], he wrote to you Corinthians about himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because just then factions [party spirit] existed among you.”

ASIA MINOR. — Polycarp of Smyrna, A.D. 108. Ep. to Philippians, cap. iii.

Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of St. John, in the one letter we possess of his, tells us “that neither he nor any like him is able to attain perfectly to the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was with you, before the men who were then living taught the word of truth perfectly and surely.”

SYRIA. — Ignatius of Antioch, A.D. 107. Ep. to Philad., cap. v. Ep. to Magn., cap. viii. Ep. to Romans, cap. iv.

“Let us love the prophets” (of the Old Testament), wrote Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, the pupil of St. John, to the congregations of Philadelphia, “because they proclaimed the gospel, and believed in Christ, and waited for His coming, and through their faith in Him were saved.” “These most divine prophets lived according to Jesus Christ,” he writes to the Church of Magnesia, “being inspired by His grace.” Again: “I do not command you [Romans] like Peter and Paul: they were Apostles; I am a condemned man.”

EGYPT. — Barnabas of Alexandria, probably A.D. 140-160. Ep. Barnabas, ix. Ep. Barnabas, x. and v.

Barnabas (probably not the friend of St. Paul, but a teacher of Alexandria who lived some seventy or eighty years after St. Paul’s martyrdom), in his well known letter, speaks there of the inspiration of the Old Testament writings. Writing of Ps. 17:45, “The Lord saith in the prophet;” and of Psalms 33:13, “The Spirit of the Lord prophesieth;” and in another place he tells us how “the prophets received their gift from Christ and spoke of Him;” also that “Moses spake in the Spirit.”

ROME & EPHESUS. Justin Martyr, A.D. 140-150. Cohortatio ad Gen tiles, 12. Apologia, i. 44. Apologia, i. 44, &c.; i. 40; i. 35. Apologia i. 36. Cohortatio ad Gentiles, 8.

This writer, several of whose works we still possess, was a scholar and thinker of no mean order. He wrote within half a century of St. John’s death. He in several places gives us his view of the inspiration of the divine writings. Referring to the Old Testament, he speaks of the history which Moses wrote by divine inspiration. while the Holy Spirit of Prophecy taught us through the instrumentality of Moses. Of David and of Isaiah he writes in similar terms (propheta Isaias divinitus afflatus a spiritu prophetico). His view, of the prophetic office is remarkable. “We must not suppose,” he writes, “that the expressions go forth from the men who are inspired, but from the divine word which moves them.” Speaking of the writers of the Old Testament, he calls them “holy men who required no eloquence, no skill in argumentative speaking, but who only needed to present themselves pure for the Divine Spirit to act upon, in order that the divine plectrum [an instrument, usually of gold or ivory, used for striking the lyre], coming down from heaven, acting on just men as a plectrum on a lyre or harp, might reveal to us the knowledge of divine and heavenly things.”

ATHENS. — Athenagoras, A.D. 160-180. Leg. pro Christ. 9.

This Athenian philosopher, who, while studying the Holy Scriptures with a view of refuting Christianity, was converted by the very writings he was endeavouring to bring into disrepute, writes (using the same strange, powerful metaphor which we found in the above quotation from Justin): “The prophets, while entranced... by the influence of the Divine Spirit, they gave utterance to what was wrought In them — the Spirit using them as instruments as a flute-player might blow a flute.”

LYONS. — Irenœus, A.D. 180. Contra Hœr, iii. 1. Contra Hær.iii. 5.

This famous writer and bishop of the early Church was connected in his early years with Polycarp, the pupil of St. John. He (to choose one out of many passages of his writings on this subject) thus writes of the Apostles: — “After that our Lord rose from the dead, and they [the Apostles] were clothed with the power of the Spirit from on high, they were filled with a perfect knowledge of all things.” “The Apostles, being the disciples of truth, are beyond all falsehood, though they speak according to the capacity of their hearers, talking blindly with the blind.”

Contra Hœr. ii. 28.

In another passage this Bishop of Lyons of the second century tells us, “The Scriptures are perfect, inasmuch as they were uttered by the Word of God and His Spirit.”

NORTH AFRICA: CARTHAGE. — Tertullian, A.D. 200. Apologia xxxi.

Tertullian, perhaps the ablest — and, had it not been for his unhappy choice in later life of a wild and perverted form of Christianity, the greatest — of the Latin fathers, calls the Holy Scriptures the “voices of God” (voces Dei). In another place he writes that “the four Gospels are built on the certain basis of apostolical authority, and so are inspired in a far different sense from the writings of the spiritual Christian. All the faithful, it is true, have the Spirit of God; but all are not Apostles.”

EGYPT: ALEXANDRIA. — Clement master of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, A.D. 199-200. pæd. i. 11. Protr. i. 5

Clement of Alexandria was master of the catechetical school of the most learned city of the world at the end of the second century, only 100 years after the death of St. John; and taught in famous school — as did well-nigh all the early fathers of Christianity — the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripture. “It was by the masters of Israel,” wrote Clement, “that God led men properly to the Messiah — speaking to them in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets... The word of God, disregarding the lifeless instruments, the lyre and the harp, reduces to harmony... man, and through that many-voiced instrument makes melody to God, and says to man, ‘Thou art my harp, my flute, my temple: my harp, from the harmony [of many notes]; my flute, from the Spirit that breatheth through thee; my temple, from the word that dwelleth in thee.’ Truly of man the Lord wrought a glorious living instrument, after the fashion of His own image — one which might give every harmony of God tuneful and holy.”

De Antichriitn 2. ROME. — Hippolytus of Portus, A.D. 218. De antichristo, 2.

Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus (one of the suburban districts of Rome), a most learned and distinguished writer of the Italian Church of the early part of the third century, a pupil of Irenæus of Lyons, in one of his treatises preserved to us, expresses himself very clearly and with singular force on this subject. Speaking of the Jewish prophets, he writes, “These blessed men... spake not only of the past, but also of the present and future, that they might be shown to be heralds of things to come, not for a time merely, but for all generations.... For these fathers, having been perfected by the Spirit of Prophecy, and worthily honoured by the Word Himself, were brought to an inner harmony like instruments; and having the Word within them to strike the notes, by Him they were moved, and announced that which God wrote. For they did not speak of their own power, be well assured, nor proclaim that which they wished themselves, but first they were rightly endowed with wisdom by the Word, and afterwards well foretaught of the future by visions, and then, when thus assured, spake that which was revealed to them by God.”

ALEXANDRIA. — Origen, A.D. 230. De Principiis, lib. i. Proœmium, 4. De Principiis, i. Proœmium, i. Contr.Celsum, vii. 4 Hom. in Jer. xxi. 2.

The Church, while condemning the errors into which the greathearted Origen fell, still reads in every age with reverence and admiration his marvellous and brilliant teaching. It will be well to close this short paper on a great subject with two or three extracts from this famous Alexandrian master, on the subject of inspiration: “The Holy Spirit inspired each of the Saints, Prophets, and Apostles.... The same Spirit was present in those of old times as in those who were inspired at the coming of Christ.” “Christ, the Word of God, was in Moses and the prophet and by His Spirit they sake and did all things.” Again, in his work against Celsus, he writes the following wise and beautiful words: — “The true God acted on the prophets to enlighten and strengthen them, and not to cloud or to confuse their natural powers.... for the divine messengers, by the contact of the Holy Spirit with their soul, so to speak, gained a deeper and a clearer intuition of spiritual truth, and they then became more perfect men as well as wise seers.” In one of his homilies Origen does not hesitate even to say that “there is nothing, whether in the Law or in the Prophets, in the Evangelists or in the Apostles, which does not descend from the fulness of the divine majesty.”

Hom. in Ex. xi. Hom. in Gen. xi. 3. De Principiis, iv. 16 Home. in Jos. xx.

This gifted teacher’s noble words on the way in which these God-inspired writings should be read deserve to be graven on the heart of every Christian believer: “We must read them with pure hearts, for no one can listen to the word of God... unless he be holy in body and spirit:... no one can enter into this feast with soiled garments. He who is a student of God’s oracles must place himself under the teaching of God; such a one must seek their meaning by inquiry, discussion, examination, and, which is greatest, by prayer.... Prayer is the most necessary qualification for the understanding of divine things.... If, then, we read the Bible with patience, prayer, and faith; if we ever strive after a more perfect knowledge, and yet remain content in some things to know only in part — even as prophets and apostles, saints and angels, attain not to an understanding of all things — our patience will be rewarded, our prayer answered, and our faith increased. So let us not be weary in reading the Scriptures which we do not understand, but let it be unto us according to our faith, by which we believe that all Scripture, being inspired by God, is profitable” (Origen, quoted by Westcott).

[For many other early patristic references on this subject of the teaching of the Church of the first days on the subject of the “Inspiration of the Scriptures,” see the exhaustive paper of the Religious Professor of Divinity (Cambridge), Canon Westcott, in his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix C, pp. 383-423, upon which this short Excursus is mainly based.]