Acts 16:3

περιέτεμεν αὐτὸν : the act might be performed by any Israelite; cf. Genesis 17:23 for a similar phrase which may indicate that St. Raul performed the act himself. See also Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ii., 674; the marriage and the exemption of Timothy from the Mosaic law may be regarded as typical of a relaxation of the exclusive Jewish standard in Lycaonia and Phrygia, and an approximation of the Jew to the pagan population around him, confirmed as it is by the evidence of inscriptions. διὰ τοὺς Ἰ.: the true answer to the objection raised against Paul's conduct may be found in his own words, 1 Corinthians 9:20 (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:19). As a missionary he would have to make his way amongst the unbelieving Jews in the parts which were most hostile to him, viz., Antioch and Iconium, on his road into Asia. All along this frequented route of trade he would find colonies of Jews in close communication, and the story of Timothy's parentage would be known (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 180). But if so, his own usefulness and that of Timothy would be impaired, since his Jewish countrymen would take offence at seeing him in close intercourse with an uncircumcised person (a reason which McGiffert admits to be conceivable, Apostolic Age, p. 232), and Timothy would have been unacceptable to them, since with a Jewish mother and with a Jewish education he would be regarded as one who refused to adhere to the Jewish rule: “partus sequitur ventrem” (see Wetstein and Nösgen), and to remedy the one fatal flaw which separated him from them: see, however, B. Weiss, Die Briefe Pauli an., Introd., p. 2, who disagrees with this reason, whilst he lays stress on the other reason mentioned above. On the other hand, both among unbelieving and Christian Jews alike the circumcision of Timothy would not fail to produce a favourable impression. Amongst the former the fact that the convert thus submitted even in manhood to this painful rite would have afforded the clearest evidence that neither he nor his spiritual father despised the seal of the covenant for those who were Jews according to the flesh, whilst the Christian Jews would see in the act a loyal adherence to the Jerusalem decree. It was no question of enforcing circumcision upon Timothy as if it were necessary to salvation; it was simply a question of what was necessary under the special circumstances in which both he and Paul were to seek to gain a hearing for the Gospel on the lines of the Apostolic policy: “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”; “neque salutis æternæ causa Timotheus circumciditur, sed utilitatis, Blass, cf. Godet, Epître aux Romains, i., pp. 43, 44; Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 85 87; Knabenbauer, in loco. “There is no time in Paul's life when we should suppose him less likely to circumcise one of his converts,” says McGiffert, u. s., p. 233, but there were converts and converts, and none has pointed out more plainly than McGiffert that the case of Titus and that of Timothy stood on totally different grounds, and none has insisted on this more emphatically than St. Paul himself: ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ Τίτος, Galatians 2:3. The case of Titus was a case of principle: Titus was a Greek, and if St. Paul had yielded, there would have been no need for the Apostle's further attendance at the conference as the advocate of freedom for the Gentile Churches. In the words Ἕλλην ὤν, Galatians 2:3, there may have been a tacit allusion to the different position of Timothy, whose parentage was different, and not wholly Gentile as in the case of Titus. For a defence of the historical nature of the incident as against the strictures of Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, Weizsäcker, see Wendt, 1898 and 1899, who regards St. Paul's action as falling under the Apostle's own principle, 1 Corinthians 9:19. ὑπῆρχεν : Blass translates fuerat, and sees in the word an intimation that the father was no longer living, otherwise we should have ὑπάρχει, cf. Salmon, Hermathena, xxi., p. 229.