Second Epistle to Timothy in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING. In Paul's prison at Rome, just before his martyrdom. Timothy was possibly still at Ephesus, for Priscilla and Aquila whom Paul salutes generally resided there (2 Timothy 4:19); also Onesiphorus, who ministered to Paul at Ephesus and therefore it is presumable resided there (2 Timothy 1:16-18). The Hymenaeus of 2 Timothy 2:17 is probably the Hymenaeus at Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:20); also "Alexander the coppersmith" (2 Timothy 4:14) seems to be the Alexander put forward by the Jews to clear themselves, not to befriend Paul, in the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:33-34). Still, if Timothy was at Ephesus, why did he need to be told that Paul had sent Tychicus to Ephesus, or that Paul had left Trophimus, himself an Ephesian (Acts 21:29), sick at Miletus which was only 30 miles from Ephesus? Probably Timothy's overseership extended beyond Ephesus to all the Pauline churches in Asia Minor; he combined with it the office of "evangelist," or itinerant missionary Ephesus was only his head quarters; and 2 Timothy 4:13 will accord with the theory of Ephesus or any other place in the N.W. of Asia Minor being Timothy's place of sojourn at the time. Paul at his first imprisonment lodged in his own hired house, guarded by a single soldier, and having liberty to receive all comers; but now he was so closely confined that Onesiphorus with difficulty found him; he was chained, forsaken by friends, and had narrowly escaped execution by the Roman emperor. The access however of Onesiphorus, Linus, Pudens, and Claudia to him proves he was not in the Mamertine or Tullianum prison, with Peter, as tradition represents; but under military custody, of a severer kind than at his first imprisonment (2 Timothy 1:16- 18; 2 Timothy 2:9; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; 2 Timothy 4:16-17). (See PETER.) He was probably arraigned before the "rulers" (Clemens Rom., 1 Ep. Corinth. 5, epi ton heegoumenon), i.e. Helius the city prefect, on a double charge: (1) of having conspired with the Christians, as Nero's partisans alleged, to set fire to Rome, A.D. 64; that event took place the year after his liberation from the first imprisonment, A.D. 63; some Christians were crucified, some arrayed in wild beasts' skins, and hunted to death by dogs, wrapped in pitch robes some were set on fire by night to illuminate the Vatican circus and Nero's gardens while that monster played the charioteer. (See PAUL.) But now three years had elapsed; and Paul as a Roman citizen was treated with greater respect for legal forms, and was acquitted on the...