ἐπὶ πλεῖον, κ.τ.λ.: Those who utter ““babblings ” (subject of προκόψουσιν) are not, as is sometimes supposed, merely negatively useless; they are positively and increasingly mischievous, In iii, 9, οὐ προκόψουσιν ἐπὶ πλεῖον, the Situation is different. When a man’s ἄνοια has become manifest to all, he has lost his power to do mischief to others; on the other hand there is no limit to the deterioration of “evil men and im- postors”” in themselves, προκόψουσιν ἐπὶ TO χεῖρον (iii. 13).
ἀσεβείας : genitive after ἐπὶ πλεῖον. The commentators compare Joseph. Bel/. Fud. vi. 2,3. προὔκοψαν eis τοσοῦτον
166
Il.
u Luke ii, γὰρ '"προκόψουσιν " ἀσεβείας - 17. καὶ 6 λόγος αὐτῶν ὡς “ γάγγραινα
52, Rom. ΧΗ1. 12,
πὶ. τὰν -
χ νομὴν ἕξει - ὧν ἐστὶν Ὑμέναιος καὶ Φιλητός, 18. οἵτινες περὶ THY A
2 Tim. iil. αλήθ ἢ ᾿ λέ 1 ἀνά ἠδ 4 t n. 111. ηνειαν ὐστοχησαν, εγοντες αναστασιν OH γεγονεναι, κα
9, 13, not 2
LXX. νΕοω ας σδ 0075
xi, 26, Tit. TOU
> ΄ ανατρέπουσιν τήν τινων πίστιν.
Θεοῦ ἕστηκεν, ἔχων τὴν 4 ῦ ἕστηκεν, έχων τὴ
19. 6 " μέντοι ᾿ στερεὸς “ θεμέλιος σφραγῖδα ταύτην, Ἔγνω Κύριος τοὺς
z John ii. 15, Tit.
y See 1 Tim. i. 6. c See i Tim.
b Heb. v. 12, 14, 1 Pet. v. 9.
ii. 12, Jude 15, 18. w Here only, not LXX. x John x. 9 only, N.T. 1. ττοπ ντ. a John (5), Jas. ii. 8. Jude 8. Vi. το. d Rom. iv. 11, 1 Cor. ix. 2, Rev. ix. 4, etc.
1 Ins. τὴν ACDKLP, and almost all other authorities; om. τὴν ΝΕ, 17.
παρανομίας. Charles thinks προκόψου- σιν ἐπὶ κακῷ ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ, Test. of Twelve Patriarchs, Judah, xxi. 8, the source of this phrase; but it is merely a parallel.
Ver. 17. ὡς γάγγραινα νομὴν ἕξει: spread, R.V.m., ut cancer serpit, Vulg. Ell. compares Ovid. Metam. ii. 825, “solet immedicabile cancer Serpere, et illaesas vitiatis addere partes’. ΑΙ. supplies many illustrations of νομή as “the medical term for the consuming progress of mortifying disease”’.
Harnack (Mission, vol. i., pp. 114, 115) illustrates copiously this conception of moral evil from the writings of the early fathers.
Ὑμέναιος καὶ Φίλητος. This Hymen- aeus is perhaps the same as he who is mentioned in 1 Tim.i. 20. Of Philetus nothing is known from other sources.
Ver. 18. οἵτινες implies that Hymen- aeus and Philetus were only the more conspicuous members of a class of false teachers.
περὶ--στόχησαν: τα απ Gy HO},
λέγοντες, κ.τ.λ.: There can be little doubt that the false teaching here alluded to was akin to, if not the same as, that of some in Corinth a few years earlier who said, “‘ There is no resurrection of the dead”’ (x Cor. xv. 12). What these persons meant was that the language of Jesus about eternal life and a resurrec- tion received its complete fulfilment in our present conditions of existence, through the acquisition of that more ele- vated knowledge of God and man and morality and spiritual existence gener- ally which Christ and His coming had imparted to mankind. This sublimest knowledge of things divine is, they said, a resurrection, and the only resurrection that men can attain unto. These false teachers combined a plausible but false spirituality, or sentimentality, with an invincible materialism; and they at- tempted to find support for their material-
See notes on I
istic disbelief in the resurrection of the body in a perverse misunderstanding of the Christian language about “‘ newness of life’? (Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12, iii. 1). “Esse resurrectionem a mortuis, agni- tionem ejus quae ab ipsis dicitur veritatis” (Irenezus, Haer. ii. 31, 2; cf. Tert. de Resurr. 19); an achieved moral experi- ence, in fact; not a future hope. The heresy of Marcion, on the other hand, while denying the future resurrection of the body, affirmed positively the immor- tality of the soul; cf. Justin Martyr, Dial. 8ο. ‘“Marcion enim in totum carnis resurrectionem non admittens, et soli animae salutem repromittens, non quali- tatis sed substantiae facit quaestionem ” (Tert. adv. Marctonem, v. Io).