Timothy

   1) (first century)

   Missionary, Bishop and Saint.

   According to the Acts of the Apostles, Timothy was a native of Lystra, Asia Minor, and was the son of a Jewish woman and a pagan man. In order to placate the Jews, Paul circumcised him and he accompanied Paul on the second missionary journey. Later he preached to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians and became Paul’s representative in Ephesus. Two letters written by Paul to him are collected in the New Testament. eusebius of caesarea recorded that he was the first Bishop of Ephesus and, according to one tradition, he was martyred when he protested against the excesses of the pagan festival of Diana.

   The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 16;

   I Timothy;

   II Timothy;

   A.T. Hanson, Studies in the Pastoral Epistles (1968);

   F. Young, The Theology of the Pastoral Epistles (1994).

   2) (d. 517)

   Patriarch.

   Timothy became Patriarch of Constantinople in 511. He was a Monophysite and in 515 he condemned the Chalcedonian formula at a synod. Previously he had tried to introduce severus’s formula ‘who was crucified for us’ into the Trisagion prayer ‘Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us’. According to the historian, Theodore the Lector, he also introduced the Nicene Creed into the Constantinople liturgy, but this has been disputed.

   W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (1972).

   3) (728–823)

   Patriarch.

   Timothy was elected Patriarch of Ctesiphon, Arabia, in 780 and he transferred the Patriarchate to Baghdad. He is remembered as an outstanding Church leader; he created several new sees and he was on good terms with the Muslim Caliphs, particularly with the famous Haroun-al-Rashid. He was the author of the Dialogue with al-Mahdi, an apology for Christianity which was much used in later Christian– Islamic apologetic. He sent out missionaries to evangelise the pagans in Turkey and on the silk route to China and several of his letters to the new Christian centres have survived.

   J.W. Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology (1945–55).