Of Hymenæus and Philetus nothing further is known. Hymenæus is probably the same person as is mentioned in the first Epistle with Alexander, as having made shipwreck of the faith, and been delivered unto Satan by the Apostle, to cure him of his blasphemies. We are told here that much mischief had been done by such teaching: for a number of persons had been seduced from the faith. "Some," in the English phrase "overthrow the faith of _some_," conveys an impression, which is not contained in the Greek (τινων), that the number of those who were led astray was small. The Greek indicates neither a large nor a small number; but what is told us leads to the conclusion that the number was not small. It is probably to this kind of teaching that St. John alludes, when he writes some twenty or more years later than this, and says, "Even now there have arisen _many_ antichrists" (1 John ii. 18). Teaching of this kind was only too likely to be popular in Ephesus. It is by no means unknown among ourselves. At the present time also there is a tendency to retain the old Christian terms and to deprive them of all Christian meaning. Not only such words as "miracle," "Church," "catholic," and "sacrament" are evaporated and etherealized, until they lose all definite meaning; but even such fundamental terms as "atonement," "redemption," and "immortality." Nay it is quite possible to find even the word "God" used to express a Being which is neither personal nor conscious. And thus language, which has been consecrated to the service of religion for a long series of centuries, is degraded to the unworthy purpose of insinuating pantheism and agnosticism. This perversion of well established phraseology is to be condemned on purely literary grounds: and on moral grounds it may be stigmatized as dishonest. If Hymenæus and Philetus wish to deny the resurrection, let them also surrender the word which expresses it. They have abundance of words wherewith to express mental and moral enlightenment. Let them not so handle a word of truth as to make it suggest a lie. CHAPTER XXXIII. _THE LAST DAYS.--THE BEARING OF THE MENTION OF JANNES AND JAMBRES ON THE QUESTION OF INSPIRATION AND THE ERRORS CURRENT IN EPHESUS._ "But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.... And like as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth; men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith."--2 TIM. iii. 1, 2, 8.