ACC ~ 2 Timothy 3 v1 - 9

OVERVIEW:

Inevitably, unfaithfulness is displayed by some, as pride rears its head particularly in the form of a greedy, worldly loveless-ness. This kind of deceit, or false faith, has been present from of old and especially victimizes weak and needy women in this present time (CHRYSOSTOM). The evil of our times is the evil in people’s hearts, an evil that leads them to be false, proud and grandiose (THEODORE). The present time of heresy and unfaithfulness is that foretold by Paul, but these heretics, while they may increase in number, will ultimately fail and their deceit will become manifest (THEODORET). The Fathers discuss whether these are the last days (TERTULLIAN, CYPRIAN) or whether these evils are typical of the trials of the righteous of all times (CHRYSOSTOM). The last days were also felt to be coming in earlier times (AUGUSTINE). In any event, in our time modesty seems to have become obsolete (TERTULLIAN). No one fears future judgment (CAESARIUS). The mad fury of discord rends the church, destroys faith, disturbs peace, puts love to flight and profanes religion (CYPRIAN). The only progress heretics make is in impiety, for they cannot simulate genuine piety for very long (THEODORET). We are not to follow that worst of all teachers, our own self-confidence (JEROME). Lacking works, faith is like an impotent cartoon (CHRYSOSTOM) as if one is called a virgin without being one (PSEUDO-CLEMENT). People who love themselves by leaving God out of their lives do not even remain in themselves but go away from themselves (AUGUSTINE). God is so immeasurable that, even though he has been found, he may still be sought (AUGUSTINE).

3:1 | There Will Come Times of Stress

SURROUNDED BY CORRUPTION. TERTULLIAN: The conquering power of evil is on the increase. This is characteristic of the last times. Innocent babies are now not even allowed to be born, so corrupted are the moral standards. Or if born, no one educates them, so desolate are studies. Or if trained, no one enforces the training, so impotent are the laws. In fact, the case for modesty which we are now beginning to treat, has in our time become an obsolete subject. So much is this so that modesty is considered to be not the renunciation of the appetites but merely in their mild constraint. People these days are thought to be chaste if they are not too chaste. ON MODESTY 1.1.

THESE ARE THE LAST DAYS. CYPRIAN: The Lord’s teaching required both unity and love. They embraced all the prophets and the law in two commandments. But what sort of unity, what sort of love, is preserved or contemplated by the mad fury of discord that rends the church, destroys faith, disturbs peace, scatters charity, profanes religion? This evil began long ago, my brothers in the faith. Now its cruel havoc has increased, now the poisonous plague of heretical perversity and schism is beginning to spring up and put out new shoots. So it must be at the end of the world, as the Holy Spirit forewarns and foretells through the apostle. UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 15-16.

TROUBLES ARE PERENNIAL FOR THE RIGHTEOUS. CHRYSOSTOM: He had said in the former epistle that “the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith.” And elsewhere in this epistle he foretells that something of this kind will afterwards happen; and here again he does the same thing: “This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” And this he pronounces not only from the future but from the past: “As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses.” And again from reasoning: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver.” But why does he do this? In order that Timothy may not be troubled, nor any one of us, when there are evil men. If there were such in the time of Moses and will be in later times, it is no wonder that there are such in our times. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 7.

WHETHER THE LAST DAYS WERE ALSO FELT IN EARLIER TIMES. AUGUSTINE: We do not think that in this passage he used his verbs in the present tense for the future, because, in fact, he was warning his correspondent to avoid these persons. Yet he had a purpose in saying: “In the last times shall come on dangerous days.” He demonstrates that the times will be dangerous by prophesying that evil men will become more numerous as the end draws near. They are already numerous at present. But what does that signify if they will be even more numerous after us and most numerous of all when the end itself is imminent, although it is not known how far off it is? Indeed, those last days were spoken of even in the first days of the apostles when the Lord’s ascension into heaven was a recent happening. … So there were last days even then! How much more now is this so, even if there remained as many days to the end as have already passed from the ascension of the Lord to this day, or even if there remain more or less days to come! LETTERS 199.8.23-24.

HOLY FEAR LACKING. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: We see his prediction verified to such an extent, dearly beloved, that there is no more fidelity in the fear of God, in laws of justice, in charity or in good works. Blessed Paul foretold this. … Therefore, let us consider, dearly beloved, whether almost the whole world is not filled with these vices. Why? We reply: Because no one has any fear of the future or trembles within himself over the day of the Lord and God’s wrath, the punishment prepared for unbelievers and the eternal torments to come for the unfaithful. SERMONS 71.3.

3:2 | People Will Be Lovers of Self

ARROGANT SELF-ASSERTION. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The Lord says, “My teaching is not mine but my father’s, and he sent me.” About the robbers he says, “Anyone who speaks on his own authority is seeking his own glory.” Yet are the Greeks: “Lovers of self, arrogant.” In calling them wise, Scripture is not attacking the real sages but those masquerading as sages. STROMATA 1.17.3-7.

GOOD AND BAD LOVE OF SELF. AUGUSTINE: There isn’t anyone, after all, who doesn’t love himself. But we have to look for the right sort of love and avoid the wrong sort. You see, anyone who loves himself by leaving God out of his life and leaves God out of his life by loving himself, doesn’t even remain in himself but goes away from himself. … Listen to the apostle giving his support to this understanding of the matter. “In the last days,” he says, “dangerous times will loom up.” What are the dangerous times? “There will be people loving themselves.” That’s the core of the evil. So let’s see if they remain in themselves by loving themselves; let’s see, let’s hear what comes next: “There will be people, he says, loving themselves, lovers of money.” Where are you now, you that were busy loving yourself? Obviously, you’re outside. Are you, I’m asking you, are you money? Obviously, after loving yourself by neglecting God, by loving money you have even abandoned yourself. SERMONS 330.3.

LOVING BADLY. AUGUSTINE: Since I have already given an example of love [amor] used in a good sense, someone may want an example of the same word used in a bad sense. If so, let him read the text, “Men will be lovers [amantes] of self, covetous [amatores pecuniae].” THE CITY OF GOD 14.7.2.

3:3 | Profligates

THE GREATEST OF EVILS. BASIL THE GREAT: The apostle also showed how much incontinency is to be dreaded by including it among the signs of apostasy, when he said, “In the last days shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves.” Then, after enumerating several forms of iniquity, he adds, “slanderers, incontinent.” Also, for selling his birthright for one portion of food, Esau was charged with incontinency as the greatest of evils. The first disobedience befell men as a consequence of incontinency. THE LONG RULES, Q.16.R.

3:5 | Holding the Form of Religion But Denying Its Power

VIRGINITY KNOWN BY ITS BEHAVIOR. PSEUDO-CLEMENT: Virgins are a beautiful pattern to believers and to those who shall believe. But the name alone, indeed, without works, does not introduce one into the kingdom of heaven. Only if one is truly a believer can one be saved. But if one is called a believer yet does not evidence his belief through works, he cannot possibly be a believer. … Similarly, merely because a person is called a virgin, if he remains destitute of the excellent and comely behavior suitable to virginity, he is no virgin and cannot possibly be saved. ON VIRGINITY 1.3.

LIKE A PAINTED FIGURE. CHRYSOSTOM: Faith without works is fitly called a mere form without power. For as a fair and ruddy body, when it has no strength, is like a painted figure, so is a right faith apart from works. For let us suppose anyone to be “covetous, a traitor, heady” and yet believes correctly. Of what advantage is it, if he lacks all the qualities fitting to a Christian, if he does not the works that characterize godliness but outdoes the Greeks in impiety? What good when he becomes a mischief to those with whom he associates or when he causes God to be blasphemed and the doctrine to be slandered by his evil deeds? HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8.

THE POWER OF GODLINESS. AUGUSTINE: You heard just now, when that reading was read, that Simon Magus was baptized and yet did not lay aside his evil mind. He had the form of the sacrament, but the power of the sacrament he did not have. Listen to what the apostle says about the godless, “having,” he says, “the form of godliness, while refusing its power.” What is the form of godliness? The visible sacrament. What is the power of godliness? Invisible charity. SERMONS 229U.

THE MAINSTAY OF SALVATION. AUGUSTINE: Shut out the evil love of the world so that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel, but you are still full. Pour out what you have that you may receive what you have not. … It is good for us not to love the world in order that the sacraments may not remain in us for our damnation rather than as the mainstays of our salvation. The mainstay of salvation is to have the root of love, to have the power of godliness, not the external form alone. TRACTATES ON THE EPISTLE OF JOHN 2.2.9.

3:6 | Weak Women, Burdened with Sins

THE ARROGANCE OF THE VALENTINIAN GNOSTICS. IRENAEUS: Some of the disciples of Marcus wandered about among the faithful, deceived many silly women and defiled them. They boasted of being so perfect that no one was able to come up to the greatness of their knowledge. No one, not even Peter or Paul, or any other of the apostles. They imagined that they knew more than all others and alone imbibed the greatness of the knowledge and the unspeakable Power. They thought of themselves as on a height above all Power, and so they felt free to do all things without fear of anyone in regard to anything. AGAINST THE HERESIES 1.13.6.

FALSE ASCETICS. JEROME: Avoid men, also, when you see them loaded with chains and wearing their hair long like women, contrary to the apostle’s precept, not to speak of beards like those of goats, black cloaks and bare feet braving the cold. All these things are tokens of the devil. Such a one was Antimus, who Rome groaned over some time ago. And Sophronius is a still more recent instance. Such persons, when they have once gained admission to the houses of the highborn, and have deceived “silly women laden with sins, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” feign a sad face and pretend to make long fasts while at night they would feast in secret. LETTERS 22.28.

3:7 | Who Never Arrive at a Knowledge of the Truth

SEEKING AND FINDING. AUGUSTINE: Let us direct the mind’s gaze and, with the Lord’s help, let us search out God. The word of the divine canticle is, “Seek God and your soul will live.” Let us seek him who is to be found, and in doing so let us seek him who has been found. He has been hidden so that he may be sought for and found. He is immeasurable so that, even though he has been found, he may still be sought for. … Therefore it was not thus said, “Seek his face always,” as about certain men: “always learning and never attaining to a knowledge of the truth,” but rather as that one says, “When a man ends, then he is beginning.” TRACTATES ON JOHN 63.1.

DEFERRING TO PROPER AUTHORITY. JEROME: It is a good thing … to defer to one’s betters, to obey those set over one, to learn not only from the Scriptures but from the example of others how one ought to order one’s life, and not to follow that worst of teachers, one’s own self-confidence. Of women who are thus presumptuous the apostle says that they “are carried about with every wind of doctrine,” “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” LETTERS 130.17.

3:8 | As Jannes and Jambres Opposed Moses

AN UNKNOWN TRADITION. CHRYSOSTOM: Who are these? The magicians in the time of Moses. But how is it their names are nowhere else introduced? Either they were handed down by tradition or it is probable that Paul knew them by inspiration. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8.

PAUL’S SOURCE UNKNOWN. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: A great deal of foolishness has been written about how Paul could have known the names of these two men who resisted Moses. Particularly absurd is the notion that he had access to some information or writing now lost to us. COMMENTARY ON 2 TIMOTHY.

FROM UNWRITTEN TRADITION? THEODORET OF CYR: Paul takes the story of Jannes and Jambres not from holy Scripture but from an unwritten Jewish tradition. INTERPRETATION OF THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

THE PRIDE OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. AUGUSTINE: Do they not resist this truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobates concerning the faith, who respond and speak iniquity, saying, “We have it from God that we are men but from our own selves that we are just”? What are you [Pelagians] saying? You deceive your own selves, not protecting but jettisoning free will, from the height of haughtiness through empty expanses of presumption into the depths of a drowning deep in the sea. Without doubt it is your pronouncement that man of himself does justice. This is the height of your presumption. TRACTATES ON JOHN 81.2.

SACRILEGE, VICE AND CRIME. FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE: The sins of the wicked come about in three ways. Either they are bound up with sacrileges or vices or crimes. For they commit sacrilege when they do not believe rightly concerning God and depart from the true faith either because of fear of temporal misfortunes or desire for temporal advantages or by blindness or perversity of heart alone. They sin by vice when unrestrained or obscene in themselves; they live in a shameful fashion. Then they sin by crimes when they cruelly harm others, either by damages or some kind of oppression. The blessed apostle calls both of them reprobate whether sinning capitally in faith or in works, saying about those who contradict the true faith, “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth, people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.” LETTER TO SCARILA 10.37.

3:9 | But They Will Not Get Far

WHO WOULD DIE FOR A DECEIT? CHRYSOSTOM: For if errors flourish at first, they do not continue to the end, for so it is with things that are not fair by nature but fair in appearance. They flourish for a time and then are detected and come to nothing. But this does not happen to our teaching. Of this you are a witness. For in our doctrines there is no deceit. For who would choose to die for a deceit? HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8.

PSEUDO-PROSPERITY. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: The growth that the heretics enjoy will only be in numbers, not in depth or substance. COMMENTARY ON 2 TIMOTHY.

PROGRESS IN IMPIETY. THEODORET OF CYR: The only progress which heretics will make is in impiety, for they cannot simulate genuine piety for very long. INTERPRETATION OF THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

EVENTUAL REVERSAL. AUGUSTINE: For those whom the Manichaeans lead astray are Christians who have already been born of the gospel, whose profession has been misled by the heretics. They make riches with inconsiderate haste but without good judgment. They do not consider that the followers whom they gather as their riches are taken from the genuine original Christian society and deprived of its benefits. … This recalls what the prophet said of the partridge, which gathers what it has not brought forth, “In the midst of his days they shall leave him, and in the end he shall be a fool.” In other words, he who at first misled people by a promising display of superior wisdom shall be a fool, that is, shall be seen to be a fool. He will be seen when his folly is manifest to all, and those to whom he was at first a wise man he will then be a fool. REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN 13.12.