as a valid reason; let us, therefore, see whether any difference in the persons and circumstances removes the contradiction. It is argued that such a difference exists in the fact that, whilst Titus was altogether a Gentile, Timothy, on the side of his mother at least, was a Jew; and Thiersch, following a passage quoted by Wetstein, states that, according to Talmudic prescriptions, the validity of mixed marriages between a Jewess and a Gentile was only recognized upon the condition that the children should be brought up in the religion of the mother. In this case, he argues, Paul merely carried out the requirement of the Jewish law by circumcising Timothy, which others had omitted to do, and thus secured his admission to the Jewish synagogues to which much of his ministry was directed, but from which he would have been excluded had the rite not been performed.(1) Even Meyer, however, in reference to this point, replies that Paul could scarcely be influenced by the Talmudic canon, because Timothy was already a Christian and beyond Judaism.(2) Besides, in point of fact, by such a marriage the Jewess had forfeited Jewish privileges. Timothy, in the eyes of the Mosaic law, was not a Jew, and held, in reality, no better position than the Greek Titus. He had evidently been brought up as a heathen, and the only question which could arise in regard to him was whether he must first become a Jew before he could be fully recognized as a Christian. The supposition that the circumcision of Timothy, the son of a Greek, after he had actually become a Christian without having passed through Judaism, {299}