The chief of the alleged Gnostic references in the pastoral epistles are to be found in the /./.00or.
and -yeveaXcryfac of r Tim. i. 4; iv. 7; Tit. 9; in the ascetic notions referred to I Tim. iv. 3 ; and in the declaration that the resurrection was past already (2 Tim. ii. 18). That these refer to some speculative and theosophic notions by which the simplicity of the faith was endangered, seems clear from the tone of the apostles' remarks; but it is not in any degree made certain by this, that these were such as afterwards distinguished the Gnostic schools. It is not probable that had the writer had in view such speculations as those of Basilides, Valentinus, or Marcion, he would have applied to them such a term as ypathoets, which conveys the idea not so much of error as of imbecility. When, moreover, we advert to the epithet vbuticat, as applied to the kccexat which the writer denounces (Tit. iii. 9), we shall probably see cause to attri bute a Jewish source to the errors by which the Christians were assailed ; especially as the writer expressly describes those whom he opposes as they of the circumcision,' and cautions his readers against Jewish myths (Tit. i. ro, 14).
Drawing our information from the epistles them selves as to the views and tendencies by which the false teachers (grepoStclacricdXot) alluded to in them were characterised, it appears that they boasted of a Otit000Ola, which the apostle stigmatises as a KEPi) ard7-77, an empty cheat (Col. ii. 8), and a -yr,C3o-zy, which he denounces with equal decisive ness as \beu5dnmuos, falsely called (I Tim. vi. 2o). This they pretended to have derived from tradition (Col. ii. 8), and presented in the form sometimes of myth, sometimes of speculative discussion (I Tim. vi. 3-5 ; Tit. iii. 9). They held by Jewish rites and ordinances (Col. ii. 1, 16; I Tim. i. 7); followed and enjoined ascetic courses (20-23 ; I Tim. iv. 1-7), and propagated their errors under a specious guise of sanctity (Col. ii. 23 ; r Tim. iv. 2 ; 2 Tim. iii. 6). They pretended to a superior knowledge of God (Tit. L 16) ; theyheld worship to be due to angels, and pro bably assigned to Christ, as the Logos, the place of cipxci-y-yeXos ; they taught that the resurrection was already past (2 Tim. ii. 18); and they may also have held doctrines opposed to the absoluteness of the divine essence, the universality of the divine scheme of redemption, the reality of the person of Christ, and the exclusiveness of his mediatorial office, and may have stigmatised child-beating as deriving a taint from standing connected with matter, the es sentially evil ; so as to lead the apostle to make such pointed statements as we have in r Tim. i. 17 ; ii. 4, 6, 15 ; 16 ; iv. To ; vi. 15, 16, etc. Whether we conclude that they held an emanation doctrine similar to the Gnostic doctrine of /Eons, will depend very much on the meaning we attach to the yevEaXcrylat to which they were addicted. By some these are held to be the Jewish family registers, by others gradations of existences like the 'Eons. There are difficulties attaching to both
views. On the one hand there is the entire ab sence of any authority for understanding -yuca AD-y(0c in the sense of a series of beings of different grades ;* and, on the other hand, there is the want of any- traceable connection between the genealogi cal rolls of the Jews and doctrinal errors on the part of those who attached importance to them. In this uncertainty no help can be obtained from the application by the apostle of the epithet drop civrot to the yeveaXo-ylat of which he speaks, for whether we take this in the sense of limi*ss, end less, or in the sense of useless, profitless (iiroc irepas Anab, exovcrat ot'i•Uwxpjcribtov, Chrysostom, /on), it will apply equally well to the Jewish rolls or to the Gnostic onology. On the whole, the prefer ence seems due to the latter of the opinions above noted (comp. Neander, Apost. p. 422, Eng. Tr. i. 34o).
It is impossible to overlook the predominant Jewish element in these doctrines. It is not, how ever, of the same type as the Judaism which the apostle opposes in other of his writings, the Epistle to the Galatians for instance. There it was the Jewish ceremonial tradition which occupied the foreground; here it is philosophy and speculation. In the one case what the apostle resisted was the attempt to force upon Christianity the beggarly elements' (zrz-wx21. o-rof.xcia) of a defunct economy ; in the other, what he resisted was the attempt to mix up with the pure truth of the gospel the worldly elements' (oz-otxe2a TOO Koap,011) of a purely human theosophy. In the latter there was undoubtedly a mingling of the ethnic with the Jewish speculation (7p6.)crts); and probably Neatt cler has exactly determined the position of these heretics when he describes them as a Judaizing sect, in which we see the germ of the Judaizing Gnos ticism ' (Apostol. Zeitalt., p. 404; Eng. Tr. 325).
The conclusion to which this inquiry has brought us, is, that whilst there is no evidence that Gnosti cism as it appeared in the 2c1 century was known to the apostles, and whilst the teachers of error against whom they had to contend came from the side of Judaism, there were in their doctrines the germs both of Doketic and Gnostic speculation; so that when these systems came into vogue, the Christians found in the writings of the apostles the most suitable weapons with which to oppose them (Michaelis, Elided. ins. N. T, sec. 16o; Tittmann, De Vestigiis Gnosticorum in N. T. frzistra quce sitis, Lips. 1773 ; Scherer, De Gnosticis qui in N. T. impagnari a'icuntur, Arg. 1841 ; Hilde brand, Phil. Gnosticce engines, Ber. 1839; Bohmer, Isagoge in Epist. ad Coloss., Ber. 1829 ; Burton, Heresies of the Apar/al. Age, Works, voL ; Baur, Die sogcnazznten Pastoralbriefe des Ap. Paului _Km?. untersucht, Thb. 1835 ; Schott, Isagoge Crit. in N. T., plur. locc. ; Matthies, Erkliir. der Pas toralbr., Greifsw. 1840 ; Lange, Apost. Zeitall. 117-45).—W. L. A.