Sunday, April 28, 2024

Protestant Commentaries on 1 Timothy 1:4 and "endless genealogies"

  


 

Myths and Genealogies

 

The coupling of the terms myths and genealogies is already found in Plato and elsewhere. In the passage under discussion the use is, to be sure, not specifically literary. “Myth” (μῦθος) is used here, as is frequently the case elsewhere, to denote false and foolish stories. As a formal parallel, cf the reproachful question in Epictetus Diss. 3.24.18 “And do you take Homer and his tales as authority for everything?” (σὺ δʼ Ὁμήρῳ πάντα προσέχεις καὶ τοῖς μύθοις αὐτοῦ;), cf Plut. Mor. 348a–b. See also the double meaning of “myth” in Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. salv. 42: “Hear a story that is no mere story, but a true account of John the Apostle that has been handed down and preserved in memory” (ἄκουσον μῦθον, οὐ μῦθον, ἀλλὰ ὄντα λόγον περὶ Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἀπόστολου παραδεδομένον καὶ μνήμῃ πεφυλαγμένον). “Endless” (ἀπέραντος) is used in the same sense in the criticism of “those who want to speak at length” (μακρολογεῖν ἐθέλοντες) in Galen (ch. VIII, p. 748.8 [Kühn]). What are we to understand by “genealogies”? Is the commonly heard alternative between Gnostic enumerations of aeons and Jewish, Biblical speculations adequately formulated in this way? Philo (Vit. Mos. 2.45–47) designates a portion of the historical presentation of the Pentateuch as “genealogical matters” (γενεαλογικόν): “One division of the historical side deals with the creation of the world, the other with genealogical matters, and this last partly with the punishment of the impious, partly with the honouring of the just.” (ἔστιν οὖν τοῦ ἱστορικοῦ τὸ μὲν περὶ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου γενέσεως, τὸ δὲ γενεαλογικόν, τοῦ δὲ γενεαλογικοῦ τὸ μὲν περὶ κολάσεως ἀσεβῶν, τὸ δʼ αὖ περὶ τιμῆς δικαίων) [Loeb modified]. The word is not used here to designate a literary genre, but rather refers only to the content. Moreover there is no corresponding “mythological part” (μυθολογικόν)—which is an impossibility for Philo. Since the genealogies are mentioned together with “myths,” they cannot, in this passage, refer to the Jewish proof for kinship of Abraham, nor to the demonstration of Israel’s historical continuity. Neither Paul nor a pseudo-Paul could mention such things in the same breath with “fables.” Kittel has pointed out that in post-exilic Judaism genealogical speculations about Biblical persons led to discussions which could under certain circumstances be regarded as heretical, in view of their criticism of Biblical accounts. That Christians too could be involved in these discussions is shown by Baba Batra 91a, where statements are made about the mothers of the men of the OT: “Why does one have to know about that? To answer the Minim (that is, the heretics).” To be sure, in the Pastorals it is not a question of debates within the frame of (rabbinic) interpretation of scripture, as the whole controversy shows, but rather of a gnosticizing Judaism. (Cf. Tit 1:14; 3:9 on the one hand; 1 Tim 4:3; 6:20; 2 Tim 2:18; Tit 1:16 on the other.). Gnosticizing interpretations in which Old Testament genealogical registers are understood mythologically (Iren. Adv. haer. 1.30.9) and, moreover, mythical speculations about sequences of principalities and aeons are as fundamental to the theology of Gnosticism (see below the excursus to 1 Tim 4:5) as they are destructive to the belief in the divine education for salvation (οἰκονομία) which is held by the writer of the Pastorals. To be sure, Irenaeus and Tertullian are wrong to refer such passages from the Pastorals to the advanced Gnosticism of their time; they naturally took the statements as prophecy. Cf. Iren. Adv. haer. 1, Preface 1: “Inasmuch as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, ‘minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith’ … 2 … I have deemed it my duty (after reading some of the Commentaries, as they call them, of the disciples of Valentinus ….)” (ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παραπεμπόμενοί τινες ἐπεισάγουσι λόγους ψευδεῖς καὶ γενεαλογίας ματαίας, αἵτινες ζητήσεις μᾶλλον παρέχουσι, καθὼς ἀπόστολός φησιν, οἰκοδομὴν θεοῦ τὴν ἐν πίστει … 2 … ἀναγκαῖον ἡγησάμην, ἐντυχὼν τοῖς ὑπομνήμασι τῶν, ὡς αὐτοὶ λέγουσιν, Οὐαλεντίνου μαθητῶν). Cf. also Tertullian, Praescr. haer. 33. Rather, we must think of early Jewish or Judaizing forms of Gnosticism, which are reflected elsewhere within the horizon of deutero-Pauline literature. Characteristic are: speculations about the elements, but no systematic cosmology; a tendency towards soteriological dualism and the observation of ascetic rules. All this applies to the false teachers opposed by the Pastorals; a similar picture emerges from the epistles of Ignatius. Thus we may view the different reproaches (“teachers of the law,” “ritualists,” “Jews,” “Gnostics,” and “speculators”) as forming a unified picture. A surprising parallel, which points in the same direction, is found in the Manual of Discipline from Qumran: “For the man of understanding, that he instruct and teach all the sons of light concerning the succession of the generations of all the sons of men, all the spirits which they possess with their distinctive characters; their works with classes; and the visitation with which they are smitten, together with the times when they are blessed.” (Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972], 16–17)

 

genealogies—not merely such civil genealogies as were common among the Jews, whereby they traced their descent from the patriarchs, to which Paul would not object, and which he would not as here class with “fables,” but Gnostic genealogies of spirits and aeons, as they called them, “Lists of Gnostic emanations” [ALFORD]. So TERTULLIAN [Against Valentinian, c. 3], and IRENAEUS [Preface]. The Judaizers here alluded to, while maintaining the perpetual obligation of the Mosaic law, joined with it a theosophic ascetic tendency, pretending to see in it mysteries deeper than others could see. The seeds, not the full-grown Gnosticism of the post-apostolic age, then existed. This formed the transition stage between Judaism and Gnosticism. “Endless” refers to the tedious unprofitableness of their lengthy genealogies (compare Tit 3:9). Paul opposes to their “aeons,” the “King of the aeons (so the Greek, 1 Ti 1:17), whom be glory throughout the aeons of aeons.” The word “aeons” was probably not used in the technical sense of the latter Gnostics as yet; but “the only wise God” (1 Ti 1:17), by anticipation, confutes the subsequently adopted notions in the Gnostics’ own phraseology. (Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible [Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997], 2:404)

 

These myths were legendary tales characteristic of the false teachers in Ephesus and Crete. See parallels in 1 Tim 4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; and Titus 1:14. They were perhaps built by speculation from the patriarchal narratives in the OT; hence the connection with genealogies and with wanting to be teachers of the law (v. 7). (Note to 1 Tim 1:4, The NET Bible)