, that the spirit may be vigorous
and strong. St. Timothy was then young: perhaps about forty. It is not
improbable that he went to Rome to confer with his master. In the year
64 he was made by St. Paul bishop of Ephesus, before St. John arrived
there, who resided also in that city as an apostle, and exercising a
general inspection over all the churches of Asia.[17] St. Timothy is
styled a martyr in the ancient martyrologies.

His acts, in some copies ascribed to the famous Polycrates, bishop of
Ephesus, but which seem to have been written at Ephesus, in the fifth or
sixth age, and abridged by Photius, relate, that under the emperor
Nerva, in the year 97, St. John being still in the isle of Patmos, St.
Timothy was slain with stones and clubs by the heathens, while he was
endeavoring to oppose their idolatrous ceremonies on one of their
festivals called Catagogia, kept on the 22d of January, on which the
idolaters walked in troops, every one carrying in one hand an idol, and
in the other a club. St. Paulinus,[18] Theodorus Lector, and
Philostorgius,[19] inform us, that his relics were with great pomp
translated to Constantinople in the year 356, in the reign of
Constantius. St. Paulinus witnesses, that the least portion of them
wrought many miracles wherever they were distributed. These precious
remains, with those of St. Andrew. and St. Luke, were deposited under
the altar, in the church of the apostles in that city, where the devils,
by their howlings, testified how much they felt their presence, says St.
Jerom;[20] which St. Chrysostom also confirms.[21]

* * * * *

Pious reading was the means by which St. Timothy, encouraged by the
example and exhortations of his virtuous grandmother and mother, imbibed
in his tender years, and nourished during the whole course of his life,
the most fervent spirit of religion and all virtues; and his ardor for
holy reading and meditation is commended by St. Paul, as the proof of
his devotion and earliest desire of advancing in divine charity. When
this saint was wholly taken up in the most laborious and holy functions
of the apostolic ministry, that great apostle strongly recommends to him
always to be assiduous in the same practice,[22] and in all exercises of
devotion. A minister of the gospel who neglects regular exercises of
retirement, especially self-examination, reading, meditation, and
private devotion, forgets his first and most essential dut