But shun profane and vain babblings: for they grow much towards ungodliness.
τας δε βεβηλους κενοφωνιας περιιστασο επι πλειον γαρ προκοψουσιν ασεβειας
11 Church Fathers comment on this verse
"But avoid profane empty speech," because the matter will not stop there. When something new is introduced, it constantly produces new divisions. The one who has left the quiet harbor wanders without end and will stop nowhere. "They will progress still more," he says, "in impiety."
"But avoid profane empty speech." That is, flee from it. Saint John Chrysostom everywhere understands by "empty speech," κενοφωνία, new tendencies, καινοτομίας, in doctrine and in what follows from it. Some, instead of "avoid," περιίστασο, read περισσωσίστασο, meaning: pay greater attention to stopping and restraining them. This is not correct. "For they will progress still more in impiety, and their word will spread like gangrene." He says that this evil is unrestrainable and admits no cure. It infects everything, and such men are incorrigible. "Gangrene" is a disease that produces decay and spreads around. Such are Hymenaeus and Philetus.
Avoid the profane and foul-sounding words of all sects that are foreign to the wisdom of Scripture. Such men only multiply still more through their impiety. That is, because of their lawlessness, all lawless men rush madly after them.
No one endures being defeated in an argument, even if he knows that what he hears is true. But a good conscience acts rightly when it speaks with those who are willing and peaceful.
"But shun profane empty talk." The Apostle clearly showed that by "right handling" he meant the teaching of truth, for he urged them to flee hateful and vain teachings. "For they will progress still more in impiety, and their word will spread like gangrene." Gangrene is a disease that continually spreads and damages the healthy parts of the body. The Apostle compared to it those who undertake to teach what is contrary to the truth, because they often corrupt even those free from the disease. But the Apostle also sets forth the names of those whom he compared to the disease. "Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus." What do they teach?
"But shun profane empty talk." Turn away from vain words unworthy of pious hearing. Avoid them by withdrawing from them and taking the opposite position toward them. By empty talk he also means the people who speak emptily. "For they will progress still more in impiety." They will succeed if you do not turn away from them, but remain attached to them.
Shun profane empty talk: κενοφωνίας. In Chrysostom and in some manuscripts it reads κοινοφωνίους, new words. In the times of the Apostles, error tried to conceal itself by inventing new words or by using known words in a new meaning. Such, for example, were all the words invented by false teachers to denote the involvement of the invisible world in human actions: aeon, pleroma, gnosis, and the like. In relation to religious truths, all these words were also empty. "For they will progress still more in impiety" refers to the false teachers, not to the empty words.
“But avoid profane and empty babblings” (2 Tim. 2:16). But was Timothy himself, who had known the sacred Scriptures from childhood (2 Tim. 3:15), forbidden to have any dealings whatever with false teachers?
If it is generally unsafe for the flock to contend with cunning false teachers, does there not lie upon the pastor, on the contrary, a direct obligation to struggle with them by words of rebuke or persuasion?
In answer to this, one must note that the Apostle does not forbid Timothy all verbal dealings with false teachers in general. In many cases this would be cowardly faintheartedness on the part of the head of the Church.
It is known that the Apostle, on the contrary, requires him to be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who oppose it.
“For there are many insubordinate men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped” (Tit. 1:9-10).
It is clear that the Apostle forbids the pastor of the Church a special kind of scholastic dispute about faith, carried on from motives of self-love.
This happens when men think they can defeat an opponent by clever speeches alone. They want to force him to be silent before an audience by skillful rhetorical devices, in order to win praise and admiration for themselves and humiliate the opponent.
This is what the Apostle calls useless empty talk, and also foolish and ignorant disputes. He commands him to avoid these, knowing that they breed quarrels (2 Tim. 2:23).
He commands him to instruct opponents with meekness, “if perhaps God may grant them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). This is the proper manner of conduct for a pastor of the Church.
For the false teachers will advance still more in ungodliness.
That is, in the case of an irritable contentiousness on the pastor’s part, they will then sow their tares still more persistently. Their corrupting word, like the disease of cancer, will imperceptibly infect an ever greater number of healthy and holy members of the Church.
Again turning them away from disputes about words, and showing their harmful influence by comparison with the disease of cancer, the Apostle points to a visible example in the destructive activity of Hymenaeus and Philetus.
Of one of them the Apostle had spoken in the first epistle (1:20), as one excommunicated from the Church together with Alexander for blasphemy. Here this blasphemy is defined more precisely as the introduction of innovations.
“This is an irresistible evil which cannot be stopped by treatment, like gangrene or cancer, but infects everything,” says Saint John Chrysostom.
“The Apostle indicates that newfangled speech, that is, new teachings, is a disease, and even worse than a disease. He also expresses the incorrigibility of such people. They err not by chance, but willingly, and therefore they are completely incorrigible.”
To this Bishop Theophan adds: “Gangrene is likened to a greedy beast which, finding a meadow with lush grass, begins to devour it greedily and does not leave until it has eaten everything.
“So too cancer seems to have the soft parts of the body as its pasture, and it grazes on them until it has eaten up the whole body. What cancer is for our body, once it has lodged in it, such is the innovating word for the body of the Church.
“It is such also for the totality of God’s truths, when it is admitted among them. It will damage one member after another, and distort one truth after another, until it has harmed them all and distorted all the truths.
“The members of the Church and the very truths of God will be like pasture for the innovating word, as fat is for cancer. It will greedily devour them until it has devoured them all.”
If until now the Apostle has been persuading Timothy to endurance in sufferings, he now rouses his energy for action. He gives him instructions on how to conduct himself toward false teachers.
Timothy must restrain believers from empty disputes about words, into which false teachers usually provoked them. He must also make himself a faithful and worthy worker, εργάτην.
He must rightly cut, όρθοτομοϋντα, the word of God like a field, and not spoil this field with crooked furrows. That is, Timothy must handle the teaching entrusted to him as its importance requires, and not introduce his own additions into it.
He himself must avoid empty disputes with heretics. From impious words, the latter will quickly pass to impious deeds. Their teaching will spread more and more, as cancer spreads through the fatty parts of the human body.
“But,” the Apostle adds for Timothy’s consolation, “the firm foundation of God,” that is, the Church, which forms the foundation of salvation for the whole world, “stands” unshaken despite every effort of heretics to shake it.
It bears an inscription that gives complete assurance of the strength of the whole building. One side of the inscription points to the highest consolation of believers: the nearness to them of God Himself.
The other side points to their holy calling. By virtue of it, they themselves must avoid everything that can harm the firmness of the Church.
From the Apostle’s words, Timothy could clearly see that unrighteousness and evil had already crept into the Church of God. Thinking of this, he naturally had to ask why the Apostle did not command him to remove this evil from the Church immediately.
As if answering this question, the Apostle says that in so large a society as the Church, great differences among its members must necessarily exist.
Some Christians are like gold and silver vessels, held in honor and appointed for honorable use. Others are like fragile wooden and earthen vessels, which are not highly valued and cannot serve long in a house.
Thus, on one side, the Apostle points to the necessity of tolerating evil men in the Church. On the other, he points out that these men will not always remain in the Church.
They will be cast out in time, when their unfitness is clearly revealed. The good vessels, or Christians in general, must keep away from these poor vessels, so as not to be defiled by contact with them.
“Profane,” βεβηλους, means unclean, defiling. Such things are not only unclean and profane in themselves, but they make everything that touches them unclean and defiled. Thus in Judaism a carcass defiles everything that touches it.
“Empty babblings,” κενοφωνιας, are not only idle words, but empty sounds containing no meaning. In common speech, they are hollow ringing. In relation to the true faith, attested by God Himself, everything not in agreement with it is truly hollow ringing.
Let us note that Saint Chrysostom did not read κενοφωνιας, empty utterances, but καινοφωνιας, novel utterances, new sayings and new expressions. Of course, this was because of new teachings. Oecumenius follows him, and the Vulgate reads vocum novitates.
“Shun,” περιιστασο, means leave to the side, avoid, or stand around, surround, enclose, and press, not giving way. Thus two thoughts are given in these words. Avoid empty utterances, that is, disputes in which there is much noise, many voices, and many exclamations, but no sense. Also, enclose novel utterances, that is, hedge in new teachings so that they do not spread, as one encloses a place where a contagious disease has taken root. Do not only enclose them, but also press them, so as to suppress them.
Saint Chrysostom says: “The matter is not limited to this, that is, merely giving forth new sounds. Once something new has been introduced, it constantly produces καινοτομιας, new divisions in teaching and in those who follow it. The one who has gone out from the quiet harbor, that is, from the teaching held by the Church, wanders without end and will stop nowhere.”
Therefore, Oecumenius adds: “Drive away everything introduced into preaching from new inventions as contagious and defiling. Press it so that it may not spread and may cease.” The latter thought accords more closely with what is said immediately afterward.
“For they will proceed further in ungodliness,” επι πλειον γαρ προκοψουσιν ασεβειας. That is, they will advance, move forward, and give themselves to a greater measure of ungodliness, if, of course, you do not cut them off, enclose them, and constrain them.
On the one hand, novelty attracts attention and widens the circle of those who hear and give heed. On the other, the production of one novelty irritates the impulse and need to produce new innovations. New divisions, that is, new teachings, naturally multiply, as polyps multiply when cut apart.
“If something adulterated and counterfeit is introduced into the realm of faith, it goes farther and farther, from absurdity to absurdity, and daily receives greater increase” (Oecumenius).
If truth spread in this way, piety would spread through it. Yet what spreads is novelty and, for that reason, falsehood. Falsehood is always from the devil, the first fighter against God and the first teacher of opposition to God. Therefore, through the spread of innovations, only ungodliness will spread.
Innovations damage faith. Since they attract the attention of believers by their novelty, they also damage believers and cast them into ungodliness. They place them in an improper relation to God, instead of the piety, that proper relation to God, in which faith holds them.
The innovation itself is ungodliness, because it sets its own invention above God’s decree in His word. It is a repetition of the act of the first ancestors. By weaving a new interpretation into the commandment from the words of the father of lies, they fell into extreme ungodliness and cast the whole human race into it.
Since innovation in faith is such by nature, it always and everywhere produces fruit according to its kind. That is, it casts into ungodliness and spreads it according to the measure of its own spread.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 10 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS