2 Timothy 3:6-7

Vers. 6, 7. The apostle now not only presupposes the existence of parties to whom his description in a measure applied, but also points to a specific line of operations carried on by them. For of these are they who creep into houses, and take captive silly women, laden with sins, led away by diverse lusts. A sly and cunning mode of procedure is indicated, as of persons in a low moral condition, watching their opportunities, and ready to take advantage of the infirmities and troubles of others to compass their own selfish ends. They creep into houses: ἐνδύνοντες, not necessarily more than entering into, but here, as also sometimes in classical writers, with the collateral idea of doing so by secret, stealthy movements; so that, as Chrysostom states, “something dishonourable is implied deceit, cozening.” Their object in this is said to get thoroughly under their power (αἰχμαλωτίζοντες, a word said to be of Macedonian origin, meaning literally, to take captive Luke 21:24; figuratively, to get dominion over, or bring under one's control Romans 7:23; 2 Corinthians 10:5) γυναικάρια (a diminutive, ἅπαξ λεγόμ., expressive of contempt), little, or silly women. And these are further described as laden (σεσωρευμένα, heaped up, hence laden) with sins, led away, or borne along (ἀγόμενα), by various kinds of lusts: in 2 Timothy 3:7 further characterized as ever learning, and never able to come to the full knowledge (ἐπίγνωσιν, knowledge in the true and proper sense) of the truth.

It is not quite easy to get a perfectly satisfactory view of the sort of women here referred to, or why the designing and corrupt characters spoken of should have especially sought to win their confidence. It may naturally be supposed that they were possessed of wealth, though of small worth as to personal qualities, and that it was this the intriguers were mainly intent on acquiring. Such, probably, was the case, but it can only be matter of inference: the fact is not directly stated. Reference has been made to the well-known circumstance that the Gnostic leaders sought to lay hold of females, used them as instruments for the propagation of their false doctrines, and not unfrequently carried on with them, under high-sounding pretensions, the most licentious practices. Irenaeus ( Haer. i. 13), Epiphanius ( Haer. xxvi. 12), and others, have given special notices of these; and Baur finds, in the supposed allusion here to those wily and corrupt proceedings of the second century heresiarchs, a proof of the sub-apostolic origin of this epistle ( Pastoralbr. p. 36). But the character of the women as described here is not such as we are given to understand were chiefly sought after by the Gnostic leaders.: these were, as might be expected from the Gnostic pretensions, and as Irenaeus expressly tells us, “the well-bred, elegantly attired, and very wealthy; “and it was rather (if we except the fables of a later age about Simon and Nicolaus) the fascinating and corrupting influence which the Gnostic teachers contrived to exert over women hitherto reputed honourable and good, that the accounts in question complain of, than their intercourse with women of loose character, carried away by sinful lusts. But it is of such the apostle speaks women, not sinners merely, but laden with sins (which we have no right to interpret, with De Wette, whom Alford follows, burdened in their consciences with a sense of sins, labouring under convictions of guilt; for such were not the indications of silliness in the early church, nor was it customary then any more than now to represent people as laden with sins in any other than an objective sense). And, finally, it is not said by the apostle that the persons who acted this treacherous and ensnaring part to the women in question were teachers: they were adversaries and opponents of the gospel, because agents of deceit and corruption, while it was all intent on the interests of truth and purity; but nothing more is known of them, and the allusion that follows to the Egyptian magicians, and a little after to others of a like description now (2 Timothy 3:12), rather leads us to suppose that they were of the class generally called sorcerers or magicians the class to which Simon the Samaritan, Elymas, and the sons of Sceva belonged (Acts 8; Acts 13; Acts 19) men of bloated consciences and reprobate minds, who, for merely selfish ends, played upon the weakness and credulity of mankind, and pre-eminently upon certain portions of the female section of them. We have undoubted evidence of persons of that description abounding in apostolic times about Ephesus and its neighbourhood; and from what is known of them, nothing seems more likely than that they should have presented themselves to the apostle as the prototypes of the most worthless and depraved characters of the latter days.

Taking this view of the deceivers, we can scarcely hesitate where to find the deceived. They were, as the words of the apostle naturally import, the loose, the frivolous, worldly-minded ladies, who lived for the most part in fulness and pleasure, but, as frequently happens with such persons, were visited at times with recoils of feeling, guilty compunctions, fears of a judgment to come; and yet, when casting about for relief, and desirous of learning what might be for their good, continued still too light-hearted and unstable to embrace a life that aims at conformity to the example of Christ; hence they were peculiarly in danger of being caught by the arts of those who pretended, by some heaven-taught secret, to charm away from their disciples the powers of evil. It is precisely among such that impostors of that stamp have ever found their readiest dupes and their richest harvest.