hymenaeus Summary and Overview

(belonging to marriage), the name of a person occurring twice in the correspondence between St. Paul and Timothy; the first time classed with Alexander, #1Ti 1:20| and the second time classed with Philetus. #2Ti 2:17,18| (A.D. 66-7.) He denied the true doctrine of the resurrection.

HYMENAE'US (hymeneal) is mentioned The Striped Hyaena. once with Alexander and once with Philetus. He is first, 1 Tim 1:20, represented as having made shipwreck of his faith, and then as having denied the doctrine of a future resurrection of the body, 2 Tim 2:17. Paul delivered him up to Satan, which probably refers to ecclesiastical excommunication.

"Having put away a good conscience," and so "concerning faith having made shipwreck" (for when one's faith does not better his morals, his moral defects will corrupt his faith), therefore "delivered (by Paul) to Satan to learn not to blaspheme" (1 Timothy 1:20). "Erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is past already, overthrowing the faith of some" (2 Timothy 2:17-18). Satan is lord of all outside the church (Acts 26:18); he, by God's permission, afflicts saints and executes wrath on the disobedient (1 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Corinthians 12:7; Ephesians 4:27; Job 1:2). Paul, as an infallible apostle, had powers not transmitted to fallible successors (2 Corinthians 10:8; Matthew 18:17-18).

His sentence pronounced at Rome took effect on Hymenaeus at Ephesus, in the form of some bodily sickness (so Acts 5:5; Acts 5:10; Acts 13:11; 1 Corinthians 11:30), that he should learn not to blaspheme. (See EXCOMMUNICATION.) Hymenaeus after excommunication was probably restored in the interim between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, and troubled the church again. Gnosticism, or the pretension to extraordinary spiritual knowledge above what is written, was Hymenaeus' heresy, in concert first with Alexander, afterwards with Philetus.

The Gnostics (2 Peter 3:16) "wrested Paul's words" (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12) as though the resurrection was merely the spiritual raising of souls from the death of sin (John 5:24-25). The difficulties of the resurrection (Acts 17:32; Acts 26:8), the supposed evil inherent in matter, and the disparagement of the body, tended to this error (Colossians 2:23). Paul confutes this by showing that, besides the raising of the soul now from the death of sin, there shall be also hereafter a raising of the saint's body from the grave (John 5:28-29)