Timothy

Timothy (d. 97), disciple of the apostle Paul, bishop and martyr. Born at Lystra, the son of a Gentile father and a Jewish mother, Eunice, he studied Scripture as a young man, but was circumcised only by Paul, to make him acceptable to the Jewish Christians (Acts 16: 3). From then onwards he became the companion and sometimes the representative of Paul, for example to the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, and the Ephesians. The tradition recorded by Eusebius claimed him as first bishop of Ephesus: Paul's letters to Timothy direct him to correct innovators and teachers of false doctrine and to appoint ‘bishops’ and deacons.

The Acts of Timothy relate his martyrdom by pagans when he opposed pagan festivals (probably in honour of Dionysus, not Diana, as usually stated). He was killed by stones and clubs, ready to hand in the pagan festival of Katagogia. His supposed relics were translated to Constantinople in 356, where the cures at his shrine were mentioned by Jerome and John Chrysostom. Feast: in the East, 22 January (his traditional day of death); in the West, formerly 24 January, but since 1969 in the Roman calendar 26 January, with Titus.

Bibliography
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• Acts of the Apostles and Paul's Letters to Timothy, passim; Propylaeum, p. 33; H. Delehaye, ‘Les Actes de S. Timothée’ in Mélanges d'Hagiographie grecque et latine (1966), pp. 408–15