Further, since falsehood cannot hold the moral powers in proper tension, these liars naturally indulge themselves in many things, even in things forbidden by their own teaching as improper. Yet they cannot do this openly, because that would undermine both their teaching authority and the teaching itself.
From this hypocrisy inevitably arises in them, or the care to appear holy and blameless while living an unholy and not blameless life. This is one side of hypocrisy.
One may say that another side inevitably joins it. When deeds contrary to the teaching are permitted, conviction in the soundness of the teaching itself weakens or completely disappears in the soul of the one preaching it. He then becomes a preacher without conviction, or a hypocritical teacher.
Our interpreters especially set forth this side in these words of the Apostle. “In hypocrisy,” writes Oecumenius, “means in craftiness and wicked resourcefulness. Although they know that the dogmas they have prepared are false, they contrive to present their lying speech as truth.”
The same is in Theophylact: “What they falsely speak, they do not falsely speak through ignorance. Knowing that it is false, they pretend to teach it as true,” from Saint Chrysostom.
Blessed Theodoret takes it generally: “Having put upon themselves the name of Christians, they teach what is completely contrary.”
Saint Paul mentions such hypocrisy in order to prevent future apostasies from the faith. Nothing turns people away from teachers so much as discerning hypocrisy in them.
“Seared in their own conscience.” Hypocrisy is partly visible outwardly, but searing by conscience is an entirely inward matter. Only in its final degrees is it revealed by a certain bold shamelessness in pursuing aims they know to be evil.
Nevertheless, the Apostle also set forth this characteristic feature of false teachers, in order to prevent people from being carried away after them. His thought is this: if you notice hypocrisy, look closely and you will see the searing of conscience. Once you notice this, what good can you expect from such people?
The searing of conscience suggests two thoughts: either that their conscience is seared, or that they have been branded by conscience. Conscience itself never burns away. But the soul can reach such insensibility to its promptings and accusations that it is as though conscience did not exist, as though it had been burned away.
The Apostle presents the false teachers as living inconsistently with their teaching and teaching by word inconsistently with conviction. Conscience could not leave this without rebuke, and surely did rebuke them.
If, despite this, they continue to live and act in the same spirit, then it is evident that they have already stifled conscience, or have become deaf to its promptings. This is the same as being seared.
Blessed Theodoret writes, “The Apostle called them seared in conscience, showing their extreme shamelessness. For a cauterized place, having become dead, loses its former sensitivity.”
The searing by conscience may be understood as a burn or, more precisely, as a branding by conscience. The Greek κεκαυστηριασμενον gives occasion for this. Καυστηριαζειν means to brand a mark.
In the East, owners brand marks upon animals by which both they themselves and others recognize that these are their animals. Conscience brands similar marks on the forehead of the false teachers’ consciousness. Those who have eyes to see, see and recognize that they belong to the number of the guilty. They are worthy of condemnation here, and prepared for condemnation there at God’s judgment. They carry condemnation in themselves.
Blessed Theophylact writes, “Since they knew many unclean things about themselves, conscience had branded in them the marks of their unclean life.” Oecumenius says the same.
Ambrosiaster explains this: “As a burn damages the skin and imprints a mark, so conscience marks false teachers for destruction because of their lying. Through this lying they craftily hold one thing in mind and express another in speech. The Apostle gives us to understand that such men cannot change for the better so as to be saved. For as a brand on animals cannot be changed, so their soul cannot be corrected. There is nothing worse than hypocrisy.”
THEOSIS