Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

152 First Timothy VI. 6-10.
the first insisted on the Phiirisaico-jndaistic stand-point, but from
those who, after they had come into the possession of the true
knowledge, knew neither how to vahie nor preserve this possession,
in conseqiu-nce of this deficiency, and thus were led into the bypaths
of a pretendedly deeper gnosis and higher ascetical holiness
of which they then made a trade. And if they were Jewish Christians
(Tit. i. 10, etc., comp. the Gen. Introd.), it was most natural
that they should connect their secret wisdom with the Old Testament,
after the manner of the Cabbala, the elements of which were
already in existence at that time. The sense of the passage before
us is—that such were inwardly already destitute of the truth, for
the reception of which they had not enough of moral integrity ;
it by no means follows from this, that their doctl-ines must therefore
have been heresies properly so-called. How far this inward destitution
had gone with them, is shown most clearly by the last
feature in the description, namely that they look upon and treat
piety as a means of gain, comp. Tit. i. 11. How very striking here
again is that which by many is always characterised as a defect,
namely, that so little is said by way of refuting the errors! Here
nothing more is necessary than a description of this pursuit setting
before us its source and its aim ; comp. the Gen. Introd. This last
feature it is which the apostle keeps in his eye, and which in my
opinion he had in view from the first, only he could not refrain from
holding up before Timothy, a complete picture of this teaching
against which he warns him. The last words of this verse, dcpiaraao
dnb Tiov TOLovTOiv, are suspicious ; they are not found in A.D.*F.G.
17.67.**93. (comp. Tischendorf ), and were accordingly added in
order to mark the transition to the following warning in ver. 6.
The plural also, riov toiovtmv, disturl)s the connexion, as afterwards
at ver. 6 only one feature is brought into ])rominence. The most
recent critics have cancelled it.
In vers. 6-10 there follows the warning against such u love of
money; which, as ver. 11 shows, is also specially apj)Ued to
Timothy. It would be difficult to show how it could come into the
mind of a later writer, a disciple of Paul, belonging to the first or
the second century, to introduce into his forged epistle admonitions
such as this addressed to Timothy, irradiated as he would be with
the splendour of the apostolic time. The warni ng, however, and
afterwards the admonition, ver. 11, seq., is so teiulerly and sparingly
expressed, that one has but to suppose, that the a})Ostlc did
not consider Timothy to be exalted above the reach of every temptation
of this kind, in order to feel noway disturbed in the conviction
of its apostolic origin. It is indeed not to be denied, that the
second epistle to Timothy, amid all the tenderness of its admonitions,
shows that there must have been on the part of Timothy, a
certain tendency to indolence and to shrinking from the conflict.
but