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HYMENÆUS.—A heretical Christian associated with Alexander in 1Ti_1:19 f., and with Philetus in 2Ti_2:17 f., though some have considered that two different persons are meant. These false teachers ‘made shipwreck concerning the faith’; their heresy consisted in denying the bodily resurrection, saying that the resurrection was already past—apparently an early form of Gnosticism which, starting with the idea of matter being evil, made the body an unessential part of our nature, to be discarded as soon as possible. In the former passage St. Paul says that he ‘delivered’ the offenders ‘unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme’; he uses a similar phrase of the incestuous Corinthian (1Co_5:5), there also expressing the purpose of the punishment,—the salvation of the man’s spirit. The phrase may mean simple excommunication with renunciation of all fellowship, or may include a miraculous infliction of disease, or even of death. Ramsay suggests that it is a Christian adaptation of a pagan idea, when a person wronged by another, but unable to retaliate, consigned the offender to the gods and left punishment to be inflicted by Divine power.
A. J. Maclean.