The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Timothy — Section 100

mystery of godliness was operating, there was alRO, as announced in 2 Thesealoniana, already operating the mystery of iniquity. II. How THE APOSTASY WAS TO BE BROUGHT ABOUT. 1. Bour~. "Giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." The apostle points to the apostasy as having its origin from beneath. There is the agency of those who are the tools of the devil. These are seducing spirits, their object being to lead away from Christ. And they are demons, hostile to souls, who give rise to soul-destroyin~ doctrines. This is the quarter from which the apostates are to rlraw their inspiration and their faith. It has been remarked here how we cannot stand isolated. If we are not influenced by the Holy Spirit, we must fall under the power of one or other- for they are a plurality, and do not agree unless in their end--of the deceiving spirits. If we do not give heed to the doctrine of God onr Saviour--one and thoroughly consi,tent as well as sublime-we must give heed to one or other of the doctrines of devils, many and inconsistent. 2. instrumentality. "Through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron." The evil spirits are to be thought of as working in and through these heretical teachers. They are hidden· from our view and from the consciousness of the teachern themselves; but there srems no reason to doubt that those who pay no heed to the leadings of the Spirit of truth lay them~elves open to be possessed, in an ordinary way, by one or other of the spirits ol falsehood whose instruments they become. The heretical teachers are suitably described as speakers of lies. They were to give forth a.s truth what were lies-what did not agree with the nature of things, what did not agree with the nature of God, with the facts uf human nature, that for which they were without evidence, and of which they had no clear conviction. They were to be like men wearing a mask, laying claim to superior sanctity and to show the way to sanctity, but only to conceal their own tnrl'itude. For they were to be branded in their own conscience, branded as criminals were branded, and branded where the marks of their crimes could not be concea.led from themselves. III. Two POIN'l'S IN THE HERETICAL TEACHING THAT WAS TO BE THE PRECUBSOB OF THE APOSTASY. "Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." This asceticism was already appearing in Essenism. The honourable, and even exagge- rated, estimate of marriage which was characteristic of the Jew, and of the Pharisee as the typical Jew, found no favour with the Essene. Marriage was to him an abomina- tion. Those Essenes, who lived together as members of an order, and in whom the principles of the sect were carried to their logical consequences, eschewed it altogether. To secure the continuance of their brotherhood, they adopted children, whom they brought up in the doctrines and practices of the community. There were others, how- ever, who took a different view. They accepted marriage as necessary for the preserva- tion of the race. Yet even with them it seems to have been regarded only as an inevitable evil. They fenced it off by stringent rules, demanding a three years' proba- tion, and enjoining various purificatory rites. The conception of marriage as quickening and educating the affections, and thus exalting and refining human life, was wholly foreign to their minds. Woman was a mere instrument of temptation in their eyes, deceitful, faithless, selfish, jealous, misled and misleading by her passions. But their ascetic tendencies did not stop here. The Pharisee was very careful to observe the distinction of meats lawful and unlawful, as laid down by the Mosaic code, and even rendered those ordinances vexatioUB by minute definitions of his own. But the Essene went far beyond him. He drank no wine, he did not touch animal food. His meal consisted of a. piece of bread and a single mess of vegetables. Even this simple Iare was prepared for him by special officers consecrated for the purpose, that it might be free from all contamination. Nay, so stringent were the rules of the order on this point, that, when an Essene was excommunicated, he often died of starvation, being bound by oath not- to take food prepared by defiled hands, and thus being reduced to eat the v,iry grass of the field (Lightfoot). In Gnosticism, which came to its full development after the apostle's day, these points had great prominence, being grounded in the idea. of matter as being the principle of evil. 'l'he same points come out ver remarkably in &man Catholicism. The ordinance of marriage, which our Lord honoured, is thus depreciated in a decree of the Council_ of_ 'I'.reut: "Whosoever shall 5'.'Y. that the married 1t&te is to be preferred to a state of v1rgm1ty or celibacy, and that 1t 1s not better and  90 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. [on. 1v. 1-16.