The authorship of First Timothy was traditionally attributed to the
Apostle Paul, although in pre-Nicene Christianity this attribution was open to dispute. He is named as the author of the letter in the text (
1:1). Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship questioned the authenticity of the letter, with many scholars suggesting that First Timothy, along with
Second Timothy and
Titus, are not the work of Paul, but of an unidentified Christian writing some time in the late-first to mid-second centuries. Most scholars now affirm this view. As evidence for this perspective, they put forward that the pastoral epistles contain 306 words that Paul does not use in his unquestioned letters, that their style of writing is different from that of his unquestioned letters, that they reflect conditions and a church organization not current in Paul's day, and that they do not appear in early lists of his
canonical works. Modern scholars who support Pauline authorship nevertheless stress their importance regarding the question of authenticity:
I. H. Marshall and P. H. Towner wrote that "the key witness is
Polycarp, where there is a high probability that 1 and 2 Tim were known to him". Similarly
M. W. Holmes argued that it is "virtually certain or highly probable" that Polycarp used 1 and 2 Timothy. The question remains whether Marcion knew these three letters and rejected them as
Tertullian says, since in 1 Timothy 6:20 "false opposing arguments" are referred to, with the word for "opposing arguments" being "antithesis", the name of Marcion's work, and so a subtle hint of Marcion's heresy. However, the structure of the Church presupposed is less developed than the one
Ignatius of Antioch (who wrote ) presupposes, as well as the fact that not only is "antithesis" itself a Greek word which simply means "opposing arguments" but as it has been noted, the attack on the heretics is not central to the three letters. Late in the 2nd century there are a number of quotations from all three
pastoral epistles in Irenaeus' work
Against Heresies. Irenaeus also makes explicit mention of Timothy in his book and ascribes it as being written by Paul The
Muratorian Canon () lists the books of the New Testament and ascribes all three pastoral epistles to Paul.
Eusebius () calls it, along with the other thirteen canonical
Pauline epistles, "undisputed". Exceptions to this positive witness include
Tatian, as well as the
gnostic Basilides. Possible earlier allusions are found in the letters from
Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (), Ignatius to the Ephesians () and Polycarp to the Philippians (), although it is difficult to determine the nature of any such literary relationships. ==Date==