Hymenaeus

VIEW:39 DATA:01-04-2020

HYMENÆUS.—A heretical Christian associated with Alexander in 1Ti_1:19 f., and with Philetus in 2Ti_2:17 f., though some have considered that two different persons are meant. These false teachers ‘made shipwreck concerning the faith’; their heresy consisted in denying the bodily resurrection, saying that the resurrection was already past—apparently an early form of Gnosticism which, starting with the idea of matter being evil, made the body an unessential part of our nature, to be discarded as soon as possible. In the former passage St. Paul says that he ‘delivered’ the offenders ‘unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme’; he uses a similar phrase of the incestuous Corinthian (1Co_5:5), there also expressing the purpose of the punishment,—the salvation of the man’s spirit. The phrase may mean simple excommunication with renunciation of all fellowship, or may include a miraculous infliction of disease, or even of death. Ramsay suggests that it is a Christian adaptation of a pagan idea, when a person wronged by another, but unable to retaliate, consigned the offender to the gods and left punishment to be inflicted by Divine power.
A. J. Maclean.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

"Having put away a good conscience," and so "concerning faith having made shipwreck" (for when one's faith does not better his morals, his moral defects will corrupt his faith), therefore "delivered (by Paul) to Satan to learn not to blaspheme" (1Ti_1:20). "Erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is past already, overthrowing the faith of some" (2Ti_2:17-18). Satan is lord of all outside the church (Act_26:18); he, by God's permission, afflicts saints and executes wrath on the disobedient (1Co_5:5; 2Co_12:7; Eph_4:27; Job_1:2). Paul, as an infallible apostle, had powers not transmitted to fallible successors (2Co_10:8; Mat_18:17-18).
His sentence pronounced at Rome took effect on Hymenaeus at Ephesus, in the form of some bodily sickness (so Act_5:5; Act_5:10; Act_13:11; 1Co_11:30), that he should learn not to blaspheme. (See EXCOMMUNICATION.) Hymenaeus after excommunication was probably restored in the interim between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, and troubled the church again. Gnosticism, or the pretension to extraordinary spiritual knowledge above what is written, was Hymenaeus' heresy, in concert first with Alexander, afterwards with Philetus.
The Gnostics (2Pe_3:16) "wrested Paul's words" (Rom_6:4; Eph_2:6; Col_2:12) as though the resurrection was merely the spiritual raising of souls from the death of sin (Joh_5:24-25). The difficulties of the resurrection (Act_17:32; Act_26:8), the supposed evil inherent in matter, and the disparagement of the body, tended to this error (Col_2:23). Paul confutes this by showing that, besides the raising of the soul now from the death of sin, there shall be also hereafter a raising of the saint's body from the grave (Joh_5:28-29), as the fruit of JESUS' bodily resurrection (1 Corinthians 15).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Hymenae'us. (belonging to marriage). The name of a person, occurring twice in the correspondence, between St. Paul and Timothy; the first time classed with Alexander, 1Ti_1:20, and the second time classed with Philetus. 2Ti_2:17-18. (A.D. 66-7). He denied the true doctrine of the resurrection.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

hı̄-men-ē?us (Ὑμέναιος, Huménaios, so named from Hymen, the god of marriage, 1Ti_1:20; 2Ti_2:17): A heretical teacher in Ephesus, an opponent of the apostle Paul, who in the former reference associates him with Alexander (see ALEXANDER), and in the latter, with Philetus (see PHILETUS).
1. His Career
It is worthy of notice that in both passages where these persons are mentioned, the name of Hymeneus occurs first, showing, perhaps, that he was the leader. In the passage in 1 Tim Hymeneus is included in the ?some? who had put away faith and a good conscience and who had made shipwreck concerning faith. The apostle adds that he had delivered Hymeneus and Alexander unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme.
2. His Denial of the Resurrection
In the passage in 2 Tim, Hymeneus and Philetus are included among persons whose profane and vain babblings will increase unto more ungodliness, and whose word ?will eat as doth a gangrene.? The apostle declares that Hymeneus and Philetus rection are of the number of such people as those just described, and he adds that those two persons ?concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.? Then, for the guidance of Timothy, he goes on to say the seal upon the foundation of God is, ?The Lord knoweth them that are his: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.? The inference intended is, that though Hymeneus and Philetus had named the name of Christ, they did not depart from iniquity. There is no doubt in regard to the identity of this Hymeneus with the person of the same name in 1 Tim. Accordingly, the facts mentioned in the two epistles must be placed together, namely, that though he had made a Christian profession by naming the name of Christ, yet he had not departed from iniquity, but by his profane teaching he proceeded unto more ungodliness, and that he had put away faith and a good conscience and had made shipwreck of faith.
The error, therefore, of Hymeneus and his two companions would amount to this: They taught that ?the resurrection is past already,? that there shall be no bodily resurrection at all, but that all that resurrection means is that the soul awakes from sin. This awakening from sin had already taken place with themselves, so they held, and therefore there could be no day in the future when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth from the grave (Joh_5:28).
3. Incipient Gnosticism
This teaching of Hymeneus had been so far successful: it had ?overthrown the faith of some? (2Ti_2:18). It is impossible to define exactly the full nature of this heresy, but what Paul says regarding it makes evident that it was a form of incipient Gnosticism. This spiritualizing of the resurrection sprang from the idea of the necessarily evil nature of all material substance. This idea immediately led to the conclusion of the essentially evil nature of the human body, and that if man is to rise to his true nature, he must rid himself of the thralldom, not of sin, but of the body. This contempt for the body led to the denial of the resurrection in its literal sense; and all that Christ had taught on the subject was explained only, in an allegorical sense, of the resurrection of the soul from sin.
4. Overthrows Faith
Teaching of this kind is described by Paul as having effects similar to the ?eating? caused by a gangrene. It is deadly; it overthrows Christian faith. If not destroyed, it would corrupt the community, for if there is no literal resurrection of the dead, then, as Paul shows in 1 Cor 15, Christ is not raised; and if the literal resurrection of Christ is denied, Christian believers are yet in their sins, and the Christian religion is false.
5. Delivered Unto Satan
The way in which the apostle dealt with these teachers, Hymeneus and his companions, was not merely in the renewed assertion of the truth which they denied, but also by passing sentence upon these teachers - ?whom I delivered unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.? In regard to the meaning of this sentence much difficulty of interpretation exists. Some understand it to mean simple excommunication from the church. But this seems quite inadequate to exhaust the meaning of the words employed by Paul. Others take it to signify the infliction of some bodily suffering or disease. This also is quite insufficient as an explanation. It seems that a person who was delivered unto Satan was cut off from all Christian privileges, he was ?put away? from the body of Christian believers, and handed over to ?the Satan,? the Evil One in his most distinct personality (1Co_5:2, 1Co_5:5, 1Co_5:13). Compare the cases of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5), and of Elymas (Act_13:11).
It is important that the purpose of this terrible sentence should not be overlooked. The intention of the punishment was distinctly remedial. Both in the case of Hymenacus and Alexander, and in that of the person dealt with in 1Co_5:1-13, the intention was the attaining of an ultimate good. In 1 Cor it is ?for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.? Similarly, Hymeneus and Alexander are delivered unto Satan, not for their final perdition, but that they may be taught, through this terrible discipline - for such is the signification of the word which is translated ?taught? - not to blaspheme. The purpose of this discipline, that they might learn not to blaspheme, shows the dreadful length of impiety and of railing at Christian truth to which Hymeneus had gone.
6. The ?Perverse Things? at Ephesus
In the history of Hymeneus and his companions, and in their bold and anti-Christian teaching which had overthrown the faith of some, we cannot fail to see the fulfillment of what Paul had said many years previously, in his farewell address to the elders of the church in Ephesus: ?I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them? (Act_20:29 f). It was in the Ephesian church that Hymeneus and Alexander and Philetus had arisen. The gangrene-like nature of their teaching has already been described.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Hymenaeus
( ῾Υμέναιος, hymeneal), a professor of Christianity at Ephesus, who, with Alexander (1Ti_1:20) and Philetus (2Ti_2:18), had departed from the truth both in principle, and practice, and led others into apostasy (Neander, Pfianz. 1, 475). The chief doctrinal error of these persons consisted in maintaining that “the resurrection was past already.” The precise meaning of this expression is by no means clearly ascertained: the most general, and perhaps best-founded opinion is, that they understood the resurrection in a figurative sense of the great change produced by the Gospel dispensation. See below. Some have suggested that they attempted to support their views by the apostle's language in his Epistle to the Ephesians (νεκροὺς - συνεζωποίησεν - συνήγειρεν, etc., 2, 1-5); but this is very improbable; for, if such misconception of his language had arisen, it might easily have been corrected; not to say that one of them appears to have been personally inimical to Paul (2Ti_4:14), and would scarcely have appealed to him as an authority. Most critics suppose that the same person is referred to in both the epistles to Timothy by the name of Hymenaeus (see Heidenreich, Pastoralbr. 1, 111). Mosheim, however, contends that there were two. He seems to lay great stress on the apostle's declaration in 1Ti_1:20, “Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” But, whatever may be the meaning of this expression, the infliction was evidently designed for the benefit and restoration of the parties (comp. 1 Corinthians 5, 5), and was therefore far from indicating their hopeless and abandoned wickedness. See below. Nor do the terms employed in the second epistle import a less flagrant violation of the Christian profession than those in the first. If in the one the individuals alluded to are charged with having “discarded a good conscience” and “made shipwreck of faith,” in the other they are described as indulging “in vain and profane babblings, which would increase to more ungodliness,” as “having erred concerning the truth,” and “overthrowing the faith” of others. These can hardly be said to be “two distinct characters, having nothing in common but the name” (Mosheim's Commentaries, 1, 304-306). For other interpretations of 2Ti_2:18, see Gill's Commentary, ad loc., and Walchii Miscellanea Sacra, 1, 4; De Hymenaeo Phileto, Jen. 1735, and Amstel. 1744. Two points referred to above require fuller elucidation.
1. The Error of Hymenaeus. — This was one that had been in part appropriated from others, and has frequently been revived since with additions. What initiation was to the Pythagoreans, wisdom to the Stoics, science to the followers of Plato, contemplation to the Peripatetics, that “knowledge” (γυῶσις) was to the Gnostics. As there were likewise in the Greek schools those who looked forward to a complete restoration of all things (ἀποκατάστασις, see Heyne, ad Virg. Ecc_4:5; comp. Gen. 6, 745), so there was “a regeneration” (Tit_3:5; Mat_19:28), “a new creation” (2Co_5:17; see Alford, ad loc.; Rev_21:1), “a kingdom of heaven and of Messiah or Christ” (Matthew 13; Revelation 7) —and herein popular belief among the Jews coincided unequivocally propounded in the N.T.; but here with this remarkable difference, viz., that in a great measure it was present as well as future-the same thing in germ that was to be had in perfection eventually. “The kingdom of God is within you,” said our Lord (Luk_17:21). “He that is spiritual judgeth all things,” said Paul (1Co_2:15). “He that is born of God cannot sin,” said John (1Jn_3:9). There are likewise two deaths and two resurrections spoken of in the N.T.; the first of each sort, that of the soul to and from sin (Joh_3:3-8), “the hour which now is” (ibid. 5, 24,25, on which see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, 20, 6); the second, that of the body to and from corruption (1Co_15:36-44; also Joh_5:28-29), which last is prospective. Now, as the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was found to involve immense difficulties even in those early days (Act_17:32; 1Co_15:35 : how keenly they were pressed may be seen in Augustine, De Civ. Dei, 22:12 sq.), while, on the other hand, there was so great a predisposition in the then current philosophy (not even extinct now) to magnify the excellence of the soul above that of its earthly tabernacle, it was at once the easier and more attractive course to insist upon and argue from the force of those passages of Holy Scripture which enlarge upon the glories of the spiritual life that now is under Christ; and to pass over or explain away allegorically all that refers to a future state in connection with the resurrection of the body. In this manner we may deride the first errors of the Gnostics, of whom Hymenaeus was one of the earliest. They were spreading when John wrote' and his grand-disciple, Irenaeus, compiled a voluminous work against them (adv. Haer.). A good account of their full development is given by Gieseler, E. H., Per. 1, Div. 1, § 44 sq. SEE RESURRECTION.
2. The Sentence passed upon him. — It has been asserted by some writers of eminence (see Corn. a Lapide, ad 1Co_5:5) that the “delivering to Satan” is a mere synonym for ecclesiastical excommunication. Such can hardly be the case. The apostles possessed many extraordinary prerogatives, which none have since arrogated. Even the title which they bore has been set apart to them ever since. The shaking off the dust of their feet against a city that would not receive them (Mat_10:14), although an injunction afterwards given to the Seventy (Luk_10:11), and one which Paul found it necessary to act upon twice in the course of his ministry (Act_13:51; Act_18:6), has never been a practice since with Christian ministers. “Anathema,” says Bingham, ‘is a word that occurs frequently in the ancient canons” (Antiq. 16, 2, 16), but the form “Anathema Maranatha” is one that none have ever ventured upon since Paul (1Co_16:22). As the apostles healed all manner of bodily infirmities, so they seem to have possessed and exercised the same power in inflicting them-a power far too perilous to be continued when the manifold exigencies of the apostolical age had passed away. Ananias and Sapphira both fell down dead at the rebuke of Peter (Act_5:5; Act_5:10); two words from the same lips, “Tabitha, arise,” sufficed to raise Dorcas from the dead (Act_9:40). Paul's first act in entering upon his ministry was to strike Elymas the sorcerer with blindness, his own sight having been restored to him through the medium of a disciple (Act_9:17. and Act_13:11), while soon afterwards we read of his healing, the cripple of Lystra (Act_14:8). Even apart from actual intervention by the apostles, bodily visitations are spoken of in the case of those who approached the Lord's Supper unworthily, when as yet no discipline had been established: “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and a good number (ἱκανοί, in the former case it is πολλοί) sleep” (1Co_11:30). On the other hand, Satan was held to be the instrument or executioner of all these visitations. Such is the character assigned to him in the book of Job (Job_1:6-12; Job_2:1-7). Similar agencies are described 1Ki_22:19-22, and 1Ch_21:1. In Psa_78:49, such are the causes to which the plagues of Egypt are assigned. Even our Lord submitted to be assailed by him more than once (Mat_4:1-10; Luk_4:13 says, “Departed from him for a season”); and “a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet” the very apostle whose act of delivering another to the same power is now under discussion. At the same time, large powers over the world of spirits were authoritatively conveyed by our Lord to his immediate followers (to the Twelve, Luk_9:1; to the Seventy, as the results slowed, Luk_10:17-20). SEE SATAN.
It only remains to notice five particulars connected with its exercise, which the apostle himself supplies:
1. That it was no mere prayer, but a solemn authoritative sentence pronounced in the name and power of Jesus Christ (1Co_5:3-5);
2. That it was never exercised upon ally without the Church: “Them that are without (God judgeth” (ibid. 5, 13), he says in express terms;
3. That it was “for the destruction of the flesh,” i.e. some bodily visitation;
4. That it was for the improvement of the offender: that “his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (ibid. 5, 5) and that “he might learn not to blaspheme” while upon earth (1Ti_1:20);
5. That the apostle could in a given case empower others to pass such sentence in his absence (1Co_5:3-4). SEE ANATHEMIA.
Thus, while the “delivering to Satan” may resemble ecclesiastical excommunication in some respects, it has its own characteristics likewise, which show plainly that one is not to be confounded or placed on the same level with the other. Nor again does Paul himself deliver to Satan all those in whose company he bids his converts “not even to eat” (1 Corinthians 5, 11). See an able review of the whole subject by Bingham, Ant. 6, 2, 15. SEE EXCOMUNICATION.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

FACEBOOK

Participe de nossa rede facebook.com/osreformadoresdasaude

Novidades, e respostas das perguntas de nossos colaboradores