1 Timothy 1:3-4 As I sought you to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine,… St. Paul condemns such speculations on four grounds. 1. They are fables, myths, mere imaginings of the human intellect in its attempt to account for the origin of the world and the origin of evil. 2. They are endless and interminable. From the nature of things there is no limit to mere guesswork of this kind. Every new speculator may invent a fresh genealogy of emanations in his theory of creation and may make it any length that he pleases. If hypotheses need never be verified — need not even be capable of verification — one may go on constructing them ad infinitum. 3. As a natural consequence of this (αἴτινες) they minister questionings and nothing better. It is all barren speculation and fruitless controversy. Where any one may assert without proof, any one else may contradict with out proof; and nothing comes of this see-saw of affirmation and negation. 4. Lastly, these vain imaginings are a different doctrine. They are not only empty but untrue, and are a hindrance to the truth, they occupy the ground which ought to be filled with the dispensation of God which is in faith. Human minds are limited in their capacity, and, even if these empty hypotheses were innocent, minds that were filled With them would have little room left for the truth. But they are not innocent: and those who are attracted by them become disaffected towards the truth. The history of the next hundred and fifty years amply justifies the anxiety and severity of St. Paul. The germs of Gnostic error, which were in the air when Christianty was first preached, fructified with amazing rapidity. It would be hard to find a parallel in the history of philosophy to the speed with which Gnostic views spread in and around Christendom between A.D. 70 and . Throughout the Christian world, and especially in intellectual centres such as , , and Rome, there was perhaps not a single educated congregation which did not contain persons who were infected with some form of Gnosticism. s famous hyperbole respecting might be transferred to this earlier form of error, perhaps the most perilous that the Church has ever known: "The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Gnostic." However severely we may con demn these speculations, we cannot but sympathize with the perplexities which produced them. The origin of the universe, and still more the origin of evil, to this day remain unsolved problems. No one in this life is ever likely to reach a complete solution of either. (A. Plummer, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, |
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