2 Timothy 3:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why does he say this? Not in order to justify them, but to accuse them more strongly. They have sunk into these lusts and sins, and therefore their reason has become dull.

Perhaps they deserve indulgence? By no means. On the contrary, they deserve it even less. Since they have sunk into sins and lusts, their reason has become dull. Therefore their inability to know the truth is not a natural defect, but the consequence of the wrong direction of their will.

Let us turn our spiritual gaze and, with God’s help, strive to know God. The voice of the divine song is this: "Seek God, and your soul shall live" (Ps 68:33).

Let us seek Him who must be found. Let us seek Him who has already been found. So that He may be sought in order to be found, He is hidden. So that He may be sought as already found, He is immeasurable.

Thus, "Seek His face always" (Ps 104:4) is not said in the sense in which one speaks of those who are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Rather, it is said in the sense in which one says: "When a man has finished, he is only beginning," cf. Phil 3:13.

"Always learning," that is, daily tasting the truth and turning back, and never turning with their whole heart to knowledge of the truth.

Flee also men whom you see in chains, with hair grown out like women's hair contrary to apostolic conduct, with a goat's beard, in black clothing, and with bare feet sacrificed to the cold. All these are arguments of the devil. Such, alas, was Anthimus once in Rome. Such recently was Sophronius. Having crept into the houses of nobles and deceived women laden with sins, always learning and never able to come to knowledge of the truth, they assume the mask of holiness. They seem to struggle in long fasts, while meanwhile devoting their nights to secret banquets.

We see the fulfillment of this prophecy, for very many, not suspecting that this is an apostolic prediction, plainly dare to commit this very iniquity. Then the Apostle offers consolation from ancient accounts to those whom his words have grieved.

Because they are crushed by the weight of sins and enslaved to various lusts, their hearts have become wholly hardened. Therefore, even when taught by pious men not to be carried away by errors, they can in no way understand what good is.

"Always learning and never able to come to knowledge of the truth." This is a clear sign of their dullness: they learn and know nothing, because they have teachers who teach them nothing. Outside true teaching there can be not only no good knowledge, but no knowledge at all.

The Apostle says this also about women carried away by heretics. According to Blessed Theophylact, their "inability to recognize the truth is not a natural defect, but the consequence of the wrong direction of their will."

Commanding that one turn away from the impious, the Apostle points to certain especially obvious evil deeds of theirs. These are their cunning intrusion into households and their deception of women.

These women, like Eve, strive to know something new, though in reality they cannot know the truth because of the frivolity of their minds.

The deceivers make use of this feminine frivolity, laying a path through women also to men who are just as lacking in caution.

Although it is proper to all heretics, as they slip into a house, to captivate women with intricate and seductive words, so that through them they may afterward draw husbands to their side, this applies most of all to the Manichaeans, Ambrosiaster writes.

Do you wish, hearers, that this ever-living and active word of God should also be fruitful in your souls?

When reading or hearing it, compel every earthly wisdom of your own to be silent. For when God speaks, every creature must keep silence.

Hearing the word of the Lord God Himself, strive to fulfill it in deed, by faithful keeping of His commandments. Then it itself will instruct you in every truth.

The one who hears and does not act will never understand the power of the word of God, nor grow by it unto salvation. Nor will the one who reads and does not submit his whole heart to it.

Of such people the holy Apostle Paul says: "Having a form of piety, but denying its power; always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim 3:5, 7).

The forerunners of these people nest also in the society contemporary with Timothy. First of all, they find favorable reception among women who seek in fellowship with false teachers not knowledge, but the opportunity to satisfy their various lusts, which the false teachers approve.

This too is about women: that amid vanity and passion they are also always learning. This would be good, but it is not good that, despite this continual learning, they can never know the truth properly.

Why? Certainly because they learn only from feminine curiosity and a thirst for novelty, like fashion. This does not let them examine whether what is offered is true.

They run after it simply because it is new and has an attractive appearance. But truth is ancient, strict, and everywhere uniform.

It does not satisfy them. They allow themselves to seek something satisfying outside it, and they fall upon such a thing at the prompting of those who enter their houses and teach otherwise.