Fourth, 1 Timothy 6:20: “Guard the deposit.”
Fourth, 1 Timothy 6:20: “Guard the deposit.”
§ 406. (IV) “1 Tim. 6:20: ‘O Timothy, guard the deposit.’ 2 Tim. 1:13-14: ‘Hold the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me. Guard the good deposit by the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us.’ 2 Tim. 2:1-2: ‘You, then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.’ In these passages we cannot take the word ‘deposit’ to mean Holy Scripture, but rather the treasury of doctrine, the understanding of divine dogmas. That is, he wanted the sense of the Scriptures as well as the sense of other dogmas, and all doctrine, to be spread by tradition, as Chrysostom and Theophylact explain in their commentaries on these passages. If he were speaking about written words, he would not commend the ‘deposit’ so anxiously. After all, pages and scribes preserve the Scriptures easily. But the apostle wants this to be preserved by the Holy Spirit in Timothy’s breast. Next, he would not add: ‘Entrust this to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.’ Rather, he would say, ‘Entrust this to scribes that they may transcribe many copies.’ He would not say, ‘what you have heard from me before many witnesses,’ but ‘what I have written to you.’”
We respond. (1) Tertullian (De praescript., c. 25, p. 208) is a witness that the ancient heretics wanted to demonstrate with the same argument that the apostle did not reveal all things to all people. He says, “Indeed, they confess that the apostles were ignorant of nothing. But they were unwilling to reveal all things to all people, for they entrusted certain matters publicly to everyone and certain matters secretly to a few because Paul used this expression to Timothy: ‘O Timothy, guard the deposit’ [1 Tim. 6:20]. And again, ‘Guard the good deposit’ [2 Tim. 1:14].” And Tertullian responds: “What deposit is so silent that it is regarded as the teaching of someone else? Is it of such a declaration that he says, ‘I commend this declaration to you, O Timothy, my son’?” See the actual place where Tertullian especially urges the fact that this deposit was commended to Timothy “before many witnesses.” Therefore this cannot be taken to mean secret traditions.
(2) Therefore the word “deposit” is taken to mean the entire system of sound and orthodox teaching that the apostle had handed down to Timothy, as we conclude from the circumstances of these passages: 1 Tim. 6:20: “Guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.” 2 Tim. 1:13-14: “Retain the pattern [
] of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit [
].”
(3) By no means can one infer from this that we must accept traditions outside of Scripture “with equal affection of piety” with the written Word of God. After all, the apostle had set forth that sound doctrine to Timothy from Moses and the prophets (Acts [2]6:22). Thus he is also sending him back to Holy Writ, from which, he asserts, Timothy can be completely equipped for every good work and for salvation (2 Tim. 3:15-16). Also, that deposit of heavenly doctrine that the apostle had first handed down to Timothy orally was later put into the Scriptures by God’s will, and in the Scriptures the doctrine of faith and love is set forth clearly and completely.
(4) Therefore that deposit of doctrine is not set against Holy Scripture but against “profane novelties of words” and errors in the faith. Exhortations are often made in our churches that we should be vigilant in preserving the deposit of doctrine and watch out for it reverently, yet none of us claims that the deposit is to be sought outside of Scripture in traditions. In De praescript., Tertullian refers the deposit “to that which the apostle wrote above and below.”
(5) For the faithful protection of this deposit, it is not sufficient that the books of the Bible be carefully preserved in boxes and that scribes make many copies. Instead, sound doctrine must be proclaimed publicly in the Church from the Scriptures, it must diligently be kept free of corruptions, and it must be spread to posterity by the work of the ecclesiastical ministry, so that the internal preservation of the doctrine taken from the books of the Bible be added to the external preservation of the books of the Bible.
(6) It is certain that to this treasury of doctrine and to this precious deposit there pertain both Scripture and the true meaning of the dogmas taken from Scripture. Jerome correctly points out in his commentary on Galatians 1: “The Gospel is not in the words but in their meaning; not on the surface but in the marrow; not in the foliage of words but in the root of definition [ratio].” This, too, is certain: We must not look for that meaning in doubtful and uncertain traditions but in the Holy Scriptures themselves, which carry their own explanations with them and in which “the words of God sound forth and one learns the heart of God.”
(7) Cajetan understands this “deposit” as the flock entrusted to Timothy; others, the office committed to Timothy and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If anyone favors these explanations, every cord is cut from Bellarmine’s argument.