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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 4:21 - 4:21
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Ver. 21. Do thy endeavour to come before winter—that is, while still the sea was open for navigation, according to the usages of the time; at the approach of winter, vessels were for the most part laid up till the return of spring (Act_27:9-10). Ex die tertio Iduum Novembris, usque in diem sextum Iduum Martiarum, Maria clauduntur, is a passage quoted by Mr. Smith, from Vegetius, in his Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, p. 45. He has others to the same effect. So that, if Timothy did not reach Rome before winter, his visit would in all probability have to be postponed till the following year; and by that time the apostle should very possibly have finished his course. Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. The names mentioned here occur nowhere else in New Testament Scripture. Tradition in one form connects with this Linus the first presidency of the church of Rome after the apostles, while another tradition assigns that honour to Clemens. The Pudens and Claudia here associated have been supposed to be the same mentioned as man and wife in an Epigram of Martial, 4:13, comp. with 11:34; and much learned labour has been employed of late to make out the identity. An outline of the discussion may be found in Alford’s Prolog, to this epistle—Appendix; also in Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii. pp. 500-2. But the story is woven together by so many slender threads, and has to be eked out by such a variety of hypothetical, sometimes not very probable conjectures, that I confess, with Ellicott, the identification appears to me “very doubtful.”