2 Timothy 4:16 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

At my first answer no man stood with me... — And then, after the mention of what his enemy had done out of hatred to the cause of Christ, the old man passed on to speak of the conduct of his own familiar friends at that great public trial before — most probably — the city præfect: Præfectus Urbi, a nominee of the Emperor Nero. No one friend stood by him; no “advocate” pleaded his cause; no “procurator” (an official who performed the functions of the attorney in an English court) helped him in arranging and sifting the evidence; no “patronus” of any noble or powerful house gave him his countenance and support. The position of a well-known Christian leader accused in the year 66-67 was a critical one, and the friend who dared to stand by him would himself be in great danger. After the great fire of Rome, in A.D. 64, the Christians were looked upon as the enemies of the state, and were charged as the authors of that terrible disaster. Nero, to avert suspicion from himself, allowed the Christians to be accused and condemned as incendiaries. A great persecution, in which, as Tacitus tells, a very great multitude of the followers of Jesus perished, was the immediate result of the hateful charge. It is most probable that St. Paul, as a famous Nazarene leader, was eventually arrested as implicated in this crime, and brought to Rome. His implacable enemies among the Jews might well have been the agents who brought this about, and Alexander of the last verse was possibly principally concerned in this matter. But St. Paul, conscious of his own great peril, knew well that to stand by him now, implicated as he was in this net-work of false accusations, would be a service of the greatest danger; so he pleads for them, these weak, unnerved friends of his, who, through no ill-will to the cause, but solely from timidity, had deserted him, remembering, no doubt, his own Master, who, too, in His hour of deadly peril, had been forsaken. (See John 16:32, “Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and ye shall leave Me alone.”) But like his own Master, who proceeded to say, “Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me,” so St. Paul went on to tell Timothy neither was he alone, for One greater than any friend on earth stood by him.