Identifying the Faithful Sayings in the Pastoral Epistles

1. This article is written on the assumption, which there is no space to defend, that the author was not Paul himself, but that PE were put together by members of his immediate circle not long after his death.

2. The fullest treatment of the faithful sayings is the monograph by G.W. Knight III, The Faithful Sayings in the Pastoral Epistles (Kampen: Kok, 1968). His conclusions remain unchanged in idem, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992).

3. Unless otherwise stated, the translation used is RSV.

4. Instead of πίστός some Latin MSS read humanus presumably influenced by the alternative reading άνθρΏπίνος at 3.1. There is no likelihood that άνθρΏπίνος was the original reading here. See B.M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), p. 639.,

5. Knight, Commentary, pp. 99-102.

6. The reading is found in a number of Western witnesses but is rejected by UBSGNT³ on the grounds that a scribe is more likely to have wanted to alter πίστός as unsuitable than to conform άνθρΏπίνος to the wording of the other faithful sayings.

7. This was the view taken by Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy IX, in P. Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (New York, 1889), p. 436, and is the view adopted by the editors of UBSGNT³ and NA²⁶ and apparently by M. Dibelius and H. Conzelmann (The Pastoral Epistles [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972]). The text printed above each section of their commentary places the formula at the end of 2.8-15, although the editors reach no decision in their comments (p. 51).

8. Bernard, Jeremias, Spicq, Kelly, Fee, Roloff and Knight all prefer to take the words with what follows.

9. Jeremias, Kelly, Fee, Knight, but not Dibelius and Conzelmann or Roloff, who think that 4.10 is quoting Col. 1.29.

10. Bernard, Dibelius and Conzelmann, Kelly, Fee, Knight.

11. Dibelius and Conzelmann in the whole of vv. 3-7, Bernard, Barrett, Brox, Jeremias and Knight in vv. 4-7, Easton, Lock and Spicq in vv. 5-7, and Kelly in just vv. 5b to 6. Quinn does not specify the length of the saying, but clearly assumes it is to be found in what precedes.

12 E.g. RSV and REB. NIV is unclear.

13. W.J. Conybeare and J.S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St Paul (London: Longman, 1877), II, p. 570. (The above translation is their own.)

14. E.F. Scott, The Pastoral Epistles (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936), p. 178.

15. F. Rendall, 'Faithful is the Word', Expositor 3/5 (1887), pp. 314-20.

16. W.E. Evill, 'The Faithful Sayings', ExpTim 29 (1918), p. 442.

17. J.G. Duncan, 'ΠIΣTOΣ O ΛOΓOΣ', ExpTim 35 (1923), p. 141, He cites Paul's asseverations in Gal. 1.20 and 2 Cor. 11.31 as similar in function.

18. A.T. Hanson, The Pastoral Epistles (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1982), p. 64.

19. Scott, Pastoral, pp. 177-78.

20. Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles, p. 570 n. 5. For other examples of this construction, see C.F.D. Moule, An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1959), pp. 144-45.

21. The first word, ός, is supported by the earliest and best uncials. Ό was probably a scribal attempt to match the relative pronoun with the preceding μυστήρίον, and θεός either a simple misreading of ός or an attempt to make v. 16 into a complete sentence. See Metzger, Commentary, p. 641.

22. Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles, II, p. 557 n. 1. The emphasis is mine.

23. E.E. Ellis, 'Traditions in the Pastoral Epistles', in C.A. Evans and N.F. Stinespring (eds.), Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 237-53. I am grateful to Dr Ellis for providing me with a copy of this article. See also, E.E. Ellis, 'Traditions in 1 Corinthians', NTS 32 (1986), pp. 481-502. It should be added that Dr Ellis himself inclines to identify the faithful saying as 1 Tim. 2.15 (Traditions in the Pastoral Epistles', p. 239). A similar view of the author's technique is put forward by Hanson, Pastorals Epistles, pp. 42-47.

24. Ellis, 'Traditions in the Pastoral Epistles', p. 244.

25. J.N.D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (London: A. & C. Black, 1963), p. 231, Dibelius and Conzelmann, Epistles, p. 132.

26. The scribe who changed πίστός to άνθρΏπίνος was right about the character of the new saying, even if he was false to the author's intention!

27. This has been fully set out by A.T. Hanson, Studies in the Pastoral Epistles (London: SPCK, 1968), ch. 7.

28. So Spicq, Kelly, Hanson, Knight (1992), and REB: 'revealing God's purpose at God's good time'. Roloff takes it as a reference to the apostolic mission.

29. Such an understanding presumably lies behind the reading of D*, G and a few other MSS which add the words οὐ and έδόθη, and is reflected in the RSV rendering, 'the testimony to which was borne at the proper time'.

30. With 1 Tim. 1.15 I suggest Rom. 5.8; with 1 Tim. 3.16, Rom. 1.3-4; with 1 Tim. 4.10, 1 Thess. 1.9-10; with 2 Tim. 2.11, Rom. 6.3.; with Tit. 3.8, Rom. 12.8 and Eph. 2.10.

31. C. Wordsworth, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the original Greek with Introduction and Notes: St Paul's Epistles (London: Rivington, 1861), p. 434: 'a formula peculiar to these Epistles, and very appropriate to a time when the Apostle would leave certain memorable sentences as "faithful say ings," to be like "nails fastened by the Masters of Assemblies, which are given by one Shepherd"—even by Christ Himself, the Chief Shepherd.' Wordsworth, of course, used KJV. The correct translation of ?is uncertain (see R. Murphy, Ecclesiastes [Dallas: Word Books, 1992]), but many scholars favour 'collected say ings', so that we have 'their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails' (NIV), and 'like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings' (RSV), but cf. REB: 'like nails driven home; they guide the assembled people'.