Keep That Which Is Committed to Your Trust (1 Timothy 6:20–21)

Brief; it touches on nothing extraneous, only reminding of the most important thing—guard the deposit, shunning empty words dangerous to the faith—and imparts the Apostolic blessing in a fatherly manner. At the beginning of the Epistle this was set down as the chief task for all.

1 Tim. 6:20. O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you, turning away from profane and idle talk and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

“The deposit,” παραθηκην,—what has been entrusted by someone (παρα) to another for safekeeping. Since the present passage speaks of faith, by the word “deposit” is understood all the teaching about the faith entrusted to St. Timothy. The Apostle commands him: guard this teaching as it was handed down to you. “Do not diminish it: it is not yours; you have been entrusted with what belongs to another; do not subtract from it” (St. Chrysostom). “Everything I have commanded you, guard, since these are the Lord’s commandments” (blessed Theophylact). “Guard the commandment of God, which God entrusted to you through me” (Oecumenius). — This is the law for all pastors of all ages—having received what was handed down, to guard it as it was handed down, so as to hand it on to one’s successors in the same form, without the addition of one’s own inventions. Vincent of Lérins writes on this passage: “Who is ‘Timothy’ today, if not the whole Church in general, or more specifically, not the entire assembly of leaders, who both ought themselves to possess and ought to communicate to others the unimpaired knowledge of the divine faith? What does it mean: ‘guard the deposit?’ It means: stand watch, for there are thieves, there are enemies, so that among the good wheat seed which the Son of Man has sown in His field, they may not, while men sleep, sow weeds (Matt. 13:37–39). ‘Guard,’ he says, ‘the deposit.’ What is ‘the deposit?’ That which is entrusted to you, not that which you have invented; what you have received, not what you have devised; a matter not of intellect but of teaching; a matter transmitted to you, not originated from you—in which you are not the originator (auctor) but the guardian, not the founder but the follower, not the one who leads but the one who follows. ‘Guard,’ he says, ‘the deposit’—that is, preserve the talent of the universal faith whole and untouched. What is entrusted to you, let it remain with you; let it be transmitted by you (to others after you as well). You received gold—give back gold. Do not substitute one thing for another; instead of gold do not shamelessly give me lead or deceptively copper. I desire gold not in appearance but by nature. ‘O Timothy’! O priest! O man of conversation! O teacher! If God’s grace has deemed you fit for this, by ability, labor, and learning; then be a Bezaleel of the spiritual tabernacle, work the pearls of the divine teaching, fit them faithfully, adorn them wisely, give them brilliance, grace, attractiveness. Let what was previously believed less clearly be understood more clearly through your exposition. May posterity, through you, have the joy and consolation of understanding clearly what antiquity formerly revered without understanding. Yet teach the same as what you were taught—so that in speaking what is new you may not teach what is new.’”

“Turning away from profane and idle talk and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.” — “Knowledge,” γνωσεως — knowledge; a knowledge that boasts of knowing when it does not know, and therefore falsely bears such a name—it is falsely named. Knowledge has become falsely named because reason has gone down a false road and gone astray, supposing, however, that it is going correctly, looking correctly, and seeing correctly; therefore it has become not what it ought to be—it has become unreason, and while being named reason, is falsely so named—it is a false name. How did this happen to reason? Because it has taken on what is not its proper task. To understand the things of this life has been given to it, but to comprehend what is divine has not been given. This it must receive by faith, as God reveals it. God has revealed it; receive it by faith, striving only to understand this revealed content as it has been revealed. When reason, even in revelation, attempts to understand everything in its own way and not as it has been revealed, it commonly confuses things and goes astray—as it does also when it attempts to comprehend the divine without revelation. And yet in this case too it regards its own comprehensions as unquestionable and strenuously contradicts not only those who, like it, interpret the revealed according to their own reasoning—but differently from it—but above all those who understand the revealed as it has been revealed. Contradiction is therefore its inalienable characteristic. But it contradicts in vain, for since it does not stand in the truth, it contradicts not with truth but with falsehood—and everything it produces is empty babbling, idle talk. Those, however, who hold the truth as it has been revealed do not like to contradict—they say only: this is how God has revealed it and this is how we hold it; if you wish to submit to God, hear us; if not, God is your judge. “We” have “no such custom,”—that is, of arguing—(1 Cor. 11:16). This is what the Apostle reminds St. Timothy: shun these idle words and contradictions. What these idle words and contradictions are, he does not specify; whatever they may be—as soon as they are inconsistent with what God has plainly revealed to us, shun them. Teach the flock the truth of God, and this truth will make it capable of repelling all idle talkers. St. Chrysostom says: “Do you see how again he commands not even to associate with such people. ‘Turning away,’ he says, ‘from contradictions.’ Therefore there are contradictions to which one should not even reply. Why? Because they remove one from faith; because they do not allow one to stand firm and steadfast. Therefore we must hold fast not to these things but to the faith, which is an immovable rock. For then neither rivers nor winds, rushing upon us, will be able to cause us any harm, because we have been immovably established on the rock. Empty words and contradictions he called the offspring of falsely named knowledge. And well did he speak thus. For where there is no faith, there is no knowledge (of divine things). When something is generated (in this regard) from our own reasonings, it is not knowledge.”

“Idle talk,” κενοφωνιας,—empty words. If instead of ε one puts αι, it becomes: new words. Oecumenius and Theophylact say that St. Chrysostom read it that way (evidently somewhere other than in his Commentary), understanding by this novelties in teaching. In the Vulgate and in the text it reads: vocum novitates. The venerable Vincent draws his conclusions from these words in his famous treatise on the guarding of what has been handed down—as is evident from the final words of the passage cited from him above.

1 Tim. 6:21. By which some, making profession, have strayed from the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.

“By which, making profession”—of knowledge, boasting of knowledge. People of great ability, having acquired much knowledge of created things—having studied history, natural sciences, mathematics, medicine, jurisprudence, philology—frequently arrive at the false conviction that the objects of faith are not incomprehensible to them either, and begin to interpret them so that they may be rational, so that their faith may be a rational faith—that is, containing nothing that cannot be rationally comprehended, and everything in it understood naturally. But since faith, proceeding from the supernatural God and leading believers by a supernatural path toward supernatural communion with the supernatural God, cannot be naturally understood and interpreted, the clever men who set out to relate to it in this way inevitably deviate from it, interpret its tenets crookedly, and, presenting such interpretations as truth, err. This was always the case and remains so today—that those who boast of knowledge, επαγγελλομενοι,—professional experts in learning, when they undertake to understand the faith, err in the faith. Ηστοχησαν, says the Apostle—they have missed the mark of faith, they have gone in the wrong direction from where it was pointing. “For one who follows only human reasonings, it is inevitable to αστοχειν,—to miss the rhythm and target of faith. For faith does not permit rational comprehensions” (blessed Theophylact). St. Chrysostom says: “The Apostle says this, perhaps because at that time some were calling themselves Gnostics—that is, knowing more than others.” To this blessed Theodoret adds: “They called themselves Gnostics from Simon, saying of themselves: what Divine Scripture passed over in silence, God has revealed to us. And this is full of every impiety and depravity. This knowledge the Apostle rightly called ‘falsely named.’ They have the darkness of ignorance, not the light of the knowledge of God.” The Gnostics came into full force in the second century; but it is not surprising that their beginnings were already manifesting themselves in the time of the Apostles.

“Grace be with you.” “The Apostle appended the customary blessing” (blessed Theodoret). “As a seal upon everything, he wishes him the grace by which every good is given and preserved. May we all be richly partakers of it—not losing the goods received through it, but by it preserving them and glorifying Christ, the Giver of graces, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit” (blessed Theophylact).

Let us also cite the concluding word of blessed Theodoret on the whole Epistle: “This teaching all who have been accounted worthy of the priesthood ought to preserve with exactness; and, as a certain rule, always have it before them, and in accordance with it consider both what they should say and what they should do. In this way it is possible to be accounted worthy of the portion of the blessed Timothy, and even of the most divinely blessed Paul himself, by the grace and love of mankind of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory and magnificence now and always and to the ages of ages! Amen.”