[70] _Laws_, 777 D.
[71] Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 42-45; iii. 14; comp. ii. 30 and iii. 67.
_THE GAIN OF A LOVE OF GODLINESS, AND THE UNGODLINESS OF A LOVE OF GAIN._
"Wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness is a way of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain: for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out....
"Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not high minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed."--1 TIM. vi. 5-7, 17-19.
It is evident that the subject of avarice is much in the Apostle's mind during the writing of the last portion of this Epistle. He comes upon it here in connexion with the teachers of false doctrine, and speaks strongly on the subject. Then he writes what appears to be a solemn conclusion to the letter (vv. 11-16). And then, as if he was oppressed by the danger of large possessions as promoting an avaricious spirit, he charges Timothy to warn the wealthy against the folly and wickedness of selfish hoarding. He, as it were, re-opens his letter in order to add this charge, and then writes a second conclusion. He cannot feel happy until he has driven home this lesson about the right way of making gain, and the right way of laying up treasure. It is such a common heresy, and such a fatal one, to believe that gold is wealth, and that wealth is the chief good.
"Wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth." That is how St. Paul describes the "dissidence of dissent," as it was known to him by grievous experience. There were men who had once been in possession of a sound mind, whereby to recognize and grasp the truth; and they had grasped the truth, and for a time retained it. But they had "given heed to seducing spirits," and had allowed themselves to be robbed of both these treasures,--not only the truth, but the mental power of appreciating the truth. And what had they in the place of what they had lost? Incessant contentions among themselves. Having lost the truth, they had no longer any centre of agreement. Error is manifold and its paths are labyrinthine. When two minds desert the truth, there is no reason why they should remain in harmony any more; and each has a right to believe that his own substitute for the truth is the only one worth considering. As proof that their soundness of mind is gone, and that they are far away from the truth, St. Paul states the fact that they "suppose that godliness is a way of gain."
It is well known that the scholars whose labours during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced at last the Authorized Version, were not masters of the force of the Greek article. Its uses had not yet been analysed in the thorough way in which they have been analysed in the present century. Perhaps the text before us is the most remarkable among the numerous errors which are the result of this imperfect knowledge. It seems so strange that those who perpetrated it were not puzzled by their own mistake, and that their perplexity did not put them right. What kind of people could they have been who "supposed that gain was godliness"? Did such an idea ever before enter into the head of any person? And if it did, could he have retained it? People have devoted their whole souls to gain, and have worshipped it as if it were Divine. But no man ever yet believed, or acted as if he believed, that gain was godliness. To make money-getting a substitute for religion, in allowing it to become the one absorbing occupation of mind and body, is one thing: to believe it to be religion is quite another.