Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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First Timothy I. 4. 27
cause, namely, the former expression involves the idea of making a
business of teaching otherwise. = to ]Aa.j the erepodiddoKaXog. On
Baur's critical doubts about this vi^ord comp. the General Introduction,
Ver. 4. Not to give heed. On -npoaExc^iv comp. Tit. i. 14. 01shausen
says rightly, that the injunction not to give heed to such
doctrines is aptly connected with the foregoing. We may also
gather from this verse what that was, in which this erepodiSaaKaXelv
consisted. Fables and endless genealogies are the things to which
the persons referred to (rivtV) are not to give heed. We have already
met with the word iivOot at Tit. i. 14, connected there with
the epithet Jeivish; it occurs again at 1 Tim. iv. 7, and 2 Tim. iv.
4. The latter passage speaks of the future, and in so far does not
belong to our present purpose.
In the former these /a&?es are characterized
as profane and old wives', or insipid fables. Any more
direct and special information as to their contents is as little to be
obtained from this epistle, as from that to Titus. On the other
hand, what clue may be found in the epistles, and especially in the
Epistle to Titus, for farther determining this, and how much reason
we have for believing that one and the same error is meant, has already
been shown on Tit. i. 9. The case is similar with regard to
the genealogies, which are named again only at Tit. iii. 9, and the
connexion of which with the fables (comp. on Tit. i. 14, and iii. 9),
as also with the strifes about the laio, can scarcely be questioned
(comp. on the same passages, and also on 1 Tim. iv. 7). We were
accordingly induced to understand things of a Jewish character and
origin as meant in all these expressions which throw any light on
the constituent elements of these fables.* The genealogies, which
at Tit. iii. 9 have no designative epithet, are here called endless (not
aimless), Tob. xxxvi. 26 ; 3 Mace. ii. 9. Things are meant which
may be spun out to an endless extent. The words following contain
the reason of the warning against these things, which minister,
etc. The reading o'tKovo^iav is so strongly confirmed, in comparison
with the other, okodoniav D**-- and olKodofiriv D*, etc. (comp. Tischendorf),
that we are not at liberty to yield it up from the convenience
of the latter. Z-qrijoeig is not to be taken differently here
from vi. 4 ; 2 Tim. ii. 23 ;
Tit. iii. 9, in all of wh^h passages it
denotes not strife, but questions of controversy, as the result of
which are mentioned in these very passages, conteoitions, strifes.
The epithet /oo?ts/i applied to these questions in 2 Tim. ii. 23; Tit.
iii. 9, is not necessary here any more than at vi. 4, as that with
which they are contrasted plainly shows their nature. On -naptx^Lv
comp. Gal. vi. 17 ;
the original signification of the word, " to hold
* Huther explains ixv^oi and yevsal. of the Gnostic doctrine of Aeons. Comm. z
N.T.V. 1.