Timothy 4 : … (Douay Rheims Bible 1610)

1. And the Spirit manifestly saith that in the last times certain shall depart from the faith attending to
spirits of error, and doctrines of devils,

2. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared,

3. forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats which God created to receive with thanksgiving for the
faithful, and them that have known the truth.

4. For (v)every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving.

(v)We see plainly by their words such abstinence only to be disallowed as condemneth the creatures of
God to be naught by nature and creation.

5. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

1. Shall depart. ] It is the proper description of Heretics, to forsake their former faith, and to be
Apostates, as the Greek word importeth: to give ear to particular spirits of error and deception, rather
than to the Spirit of Christ in his Church, to follow in hypocrisy and show of virtue the pernicious
doctrine of Devils, who are the suggestors and promptors of all Sects, and are lying spirits in the
mouths of all Heretics and all false preachers: men that have put their conscience to silence and made it
senseless to the holy Church's admonition: the Apostle noting once before also in this same Epistle, that
Heretics have no conscience, which is the cause both of their fall and of their obduration in heresy. --
All Heretics are apostates from the faith.-- ; ---νεοφυτον ; Chapter 1:19---

3. Forbidding to marry. ] He speaketh (saith St. Chrysostom) of the Manichees, Encraites, and
Marcionists. ho. 12 in 1 Tim. St. Ambrose upon this place, addeth to these the Parrisians also. St.
Irenaeus li. 1 c. 30; St. Epiphanius har. 45.26.63.30; St. Jerome 1 cont. Iouin. c. 2 & ep. 50 c. 1. & 3.;
St. Augustine har. 25.40. and generally all antiquity affirm the same both of them, and also of the
Heretics called Apostolici, Ebionites, and the like. Their heresy about marriage was, that to marry or to
use the act of matrimony, is of Satan, as St. Irenaeus witnesseth li. 1 c. 22: and that the distinction of
male and female and the creation of man and woman for generation, came of an ill God. They taught
their hearers, * saith St. Augustine, that if they did use women, they should in any wise provide that
they might not conceive or bear children. Clemens Alexandrinus (li. 3 Strom. in principio) writeth, that
such admit no marriage nor procreation of children, lest they would bring into the world creatures to
suffer misery and mortality. And this is the damnable opinion concerning marriage, noted here by the
Apostle. --* Aug. haer. 46-- ; ---The old Heresies against matrimony.---
For the second point consisting in the prohibition of meats or use of certain creatures made to be
eaten, the said Heretics or diverse of them (for they were not all of one sect touching these points)
taught that men might not eat certain sorts of meats, specially of beasts and living creatures, for that
they were not made (say they) of the good God, but of the evil. And wine they called the gall of the
Prince of darkness, and not to be drunk at all, and the Vine whereof it came, to be of the Devil's
creation. And diverse other creatures they condemneth as things by nature and creation polluted and
abominable. August. har. Manich. 46 & tot libro de mor. Manich. 10. 1. Lo these were the Heretics and
their heresies which St. Paul here prophesieth of, that forbid marriage and meats as you have heard, for
which they and their followers were condemned in diverse Councils. --The old Heresies about
abstinence from meats.--
It is not now an intolerable impudency of the Protestants, who set a small similitude of words in the
ears of the simple, apply this text to the fasts of the Church, and the chastity of Priest and Religious? As
though either by appointing or using some days of abstinence from certain meats, the Church or any
Catholic man condemned the said meats, unless the Rechabites Hierom 35, or the Nazarites Num. 6.; or
the Ninivites Ion. 3; or Moses Exod. 34.; or Elias 3 Reg. 19; or holy Anna the widow Luke 2; or John
Baptist Matt. 3 & 9; or Christ himself Matt. 4 commending, using, and following a prescript number of
fasting days, or God himself that in the very beginning, in Paradise, prescribed abstinence from the
fruit of one certain tree, and after appointed so many fasts in the Law, unless he therefore, condemned
his own creatures, and the rest, those creatures from which they abstained. No, there be many good and
lawful causes to forbid some or to abstain from some meats: as, for obedience, as in Paradise: for
signification, as the Jews for that they have been offered to Idols, as in the Epistle to the Corinthians:
for chastening the body and penance. For health also: and only those causes are unlawful for which the
Manichees and other Heretics abstained. --The Catholics impudently charged with the said old
heresies.-- ; ---Abstinence from certain meats is no condemnation of the meats.--- ; ----Divers good
causes of abstinence.----
Concerning the marriage likewise, they may as well charge God or the Church for forbidding the
father to marry the daughter, or the brother the sister, or other prohibited persons in the Law: as well
might they charge Christ and the Apostles for prohibiting the man to marry, during his wife's life: and
appointing widows that serve the Church, to live unmarried, and not admitting a married woman as
well as widow, nor her that hath had more husbands, as well as her that hath been married but once: as
they charge the Church for not admitting married persons to the altar, and for forcing them and
Religious persons to keep their promise of chastity. No, the holy Church is so far from condemning
wedlock, that she honoreth it much more than the Protestants, accounting it an holy Sacrament, which
they do not, who only use it to lust as the Heathen do, and not to religion. --Forbidding certain persons
to marry is no condemnation of matrimony.--
But it is an old deceitful practice of Heretics to charge Catholic men with old condemned heresies.
The Eutychians slandered the Council of Chalcedon and St. Leo to be Nestorians, and to make two
persons in Christ, because they said there were two natures. Viligilius li. 5. cont. Eutychen. Arius
charged Alexander his Bishop of Sabellianism, for avouching the unity of substance in Trinity. Socrat.
li. 1 c. 3. Julianus accused St. Augustine of the heresy of Apollinaris. li. 5. cont. Iulian. c. 15. --
Catholics esteem matrimony more than the Protestants do.--
Other Pelagians chalenged him for condemning marriage. Retract. li. 2. c. 53. And that our
Protestants brag not too much of their goodly invention, Jouinian the old Heretic, their Master in this
point, accused * the holy doctors and Catholic upon this same place, to be Manichees, and to condemn
meats and marriage, as both St. Jerome and St. Augustine do testify. And they both answer to the
Heretic, that the church indeed and Catholics do abstain from some for ever, and some for certain days,
and every Christian man lightly all the 40 days of Lent fast: not for that they think the meats unclean,
abominable, or of an ill creation, as the Manichees do: but for punishment of their bodies, and taming
their concupiscences: Hiero. li. 2 cont. Iouin. c. 11; Aug. cont. Adimantum c. 14; Li. de mor. Cath. Eo.;
Hiero in c. 4. ad Galat. And as for marriage, the said doctors answer, that no Catholic man condemneth
it for unlawful, as the old Heretics did, but only preferreth virginity and continency before it, as a state
in itself more agreeable to God and more meat for the Clergy. See St. Augustine against Faustus the
Manichee li. 30 c. 5.6. and har. 21 in the name, Apostolici. St. Jerome ep. 50. c. 1 & 3. All this the
Catholics continually tell the Adversaries, and they cannot but see it. yet by accustomed audacity and
impudency they bear it out still. --*Aug. li. 2 c. 5 de nupt. et concupisc.-- ; ---The Protestants objections
were answered long ago by St. Jerome and St. Augustine.---

4. With thanksgiving. ] By the most ancient custom of the faithful both before Christ and sithence, men
use to bless their table and meats, by the hand and word of a Priest, if any be present, otherwise by such
as can conveniently do it. And in husbandmen's houses where they have no other means, they should at
least bless God's gifts and themselves with a Pater noster or the sign of the Cross: not only to
acknowledge from whom the have their continual sustenance, but also to bless their meat and sanctify
it. For the Greek word used of St. Paul, by Ecclesiastical use, when it concerneth meats, signifieth not
only thanksgiving, but blessing or sanctifying the creatures to be received, as being all one with
ευλογια, and in English we call it grace, not only that after meat, which is only thanks to God, but that
before meat, which is always a benediction of the creatures, as it is plain in the prescript and usual
forms of grace. For which cause a Priest should ever do it rather than a layman or any of inferior order
in the Clergy. In so much that St. Jerome (ep. 85) reprehendeth certain Deacons whom he saw say grace
or bless the meat and the company, in the presence of a Priest. Who also recordeth (in the life of St.
Paul the holy Eremite) the great courtesy and humility of him and St. Anthony, yielding one to the other
the preeminence of blessing their poor dinner. For to bless is a great thing, and a Priestly prerogative, as
the Apostle witnesseth, declaring the preeminence of Melchisedec in that he blessed Abraham. Read the
note following: --Blessing of the table or of meats, specially by a Priest.-- ; ---μετα ευχαρισ τιας---

5. Sanctified. ] All creatures be of God's creation, none of the Devil, or of any other cause and
beginning, as the Manichees blasphemed: and therefore none are ill, abominable, or unclean by
creation, nature, and condition, but all good and made for mans use, though all be not alike holy nor
equally sanctified. God made seven days, but he sanctified only one of them. He made all places, but he
sanctified none but the Temple an such like deputed to his service, as the Ark, the altar, and the rest
which were by sacred use both holy themselves, and gave also holiness and sanctification to things that
touched them or were applied unto them. So our Saviour saith, that the Temple sanctified the gold, and
the altar the gift, and generally all creatures severed from common and profane use, to religion and
worship of God, are made sacred thereby. So the places and days of God's apparition or working some
special wonders or benefices toward the people, were holy, as Bethel, Sinai, and others. And much
more those times and places of Christ's Nativity, Passion, burial, Resurrection, Ascension: which is so
plain a case, that the hill where he was transfigured only, is called therefore by St. Peter, the holy
mount. --No creature ill by nature, yet one more sanctified than another.-- ; ---Holy times and places,
and everything deputed to the service of God, holy.--- ; ----Matt. 22 ; 2 Pet. 1----
These therefore be holy memories and monuments of all sorts sanctified, besides that creatures (as
we see here) be sanctified also by the word of God and prayer, that is to say, by benediction and
invocation of our Lord's holy name upon them, specially by the sign of the Cross, as St. Chrysostom
noteth on this place, ho. 12 in 1 ad Tim. by the which the adversary powers of Satan usurping unjustly
upon God's creatures through mans sin, and seeking deceitfully in or by the same to annoy mans body
or soul, is expelled, and the meats purged from him and made wholesome. St. Gregory (li. 1 Dialog. c.
4) recordeth that the Devil entered into a certain religious woman by eating the herb lettuce unblessed.
And St. Augustine li. 18 de civ. Dei. c. 18 showeth at large, what ways he hath by meats and drinks and
other usual creatures of God, to annoy men: though his power be much less than it was before Christ.
But still much desire he hath on all sides to molest the faithful by abusing the things most near and
necessary unto them, to their hurt both bodily and Ghostly. For remedy whereof, this sanctification
which the Apostle speaketh of, is very sovereign, pertaining not only to this common and more vulgar
benediction of our meats and drinks, but much more (as the propriety of the Greek word used by the
Apostle for sanctification, doth import) to other more exact sanctifying and higher supplying of some
creatures, and blessing them to Christ's honor in the Church of God, and to mans spiritual and corporal
benefices. --Creatures hallowed by the sign of the Cross.-- ; ---The blessing of our meat, what a virtue
it hath.--- ; ----αγιαζεται----
St. Augustine writeth li. 2 de pec. merit. c. 26. besides this usual blessing of our daily food, the
Catechumens (that is, such as were taught toward Baptism) are sanctified by the sign of the Cross, and
the bread (saith he) which they receive, though it be not the body of Christ, yet is holy, and more holy
than the usual bread of the table. He meaneth a kind of bread then hallowed, specially for such as were
not yet admitted to the Blessed Sacrament: either the same, or the like to our holy bread, used in the
Church in England and France on Sundays. And it was a common use in the primitive church to bless
loaves, and send them for sacred tokens from one Christian man to another, and that not among the
simple and superstitious (as the Adversaries may imagine:) but among the holiest, learnedst, and wisest.
Such hallowed breads did St. Paulinus send to St. Augustine and Alipius, and they to him again, calling
them blessings. Read St. Jerome in the life of Hilarion (post medium:) how Princes and learned
Bishops and other of all sorts came to that holy man for holy bread, panem benedictum. In the primitive
Church the people commonly brought bread to the Priests to be hallowed. Author op. imp. ho. 14 in
Matt. The 3rd Council of Carthage cap. 14. maketh mention of the blessing of milk, honey, grapes, and
corn. See the 4th Canon of the Apostles. And not only diverse other creatures used at certain times in
holy Churches service, as wax, fire, palms, ashes, but also the holy oil, Chrism, and the water of
Baptism, that also which is the chief of all Priestly blessing of creatures, the bread and wine in the high
Sacrifice, be sanctified, for without sanctification, yea (as St. Augustine affirmeth tract. 118 in Ioan.)
without the sign of the Cross, none of these things can rightly be done. --Holy bread.-- ; ---August. ep.
31,34,35,36.--- ; ----The sign of the cross used in blessing.----
Can any man now marvel that the Church of God by this warrant of St. Paul's word expounded by so
long practice and tradition of the first Fathers of our religion, doth use diverse elements and blessed
them for mans use and the service of God, expelling by the invocation of Christ's name, the adversary
power from them, according to the authority given by Christ, Super omnia damonia, over all Devils:
and by prayer, which importeth as the Apostle here speaketh, desire of help, as it were by the virtue of
Christ in combat with the Devil, and so to expel him out of God's creatures, which is done by holy
exorcism, and ever beginneth, Adiutorium nostram in nomine Domini, as we see in the blessing of holy
water and the sanctification of elements. Which exorcisms, namely of children before they come to
Baptism, see in St. Augustine li. 6 cont. Iulian. c. 5 & de Ec. dogmat. c. 11; De nupt. & concupis. li. c.
20 and of holy water, that hath been used these 1400 years in the Church by the institution of Alexander
I, in all Christian countries, and of the force thereof against Devils, see a famous history in Theodoret
li. 5 c. 23 and in Epiphanius har. 30 Ebionaitum. See St. Gregory to St. Augustine our Apostle, of the
use thereof in hallowing the Idolatrous temples to be made in the Churches of Christ apud Bedam li. 1
c. 30 hist. Angl. Remember how the Prophet Eliseus applied salt to the healing and purifying of waters,
4 Reg. 27 how the Angel Raphael used the liver of the fish to drive away the Devil, Tob. 6:8: how
David's harp and Psalmody kept the evil spirit from Saul, 1 Reg. 16: how a piece of the holy earth
saved such a man's chamber from the infestation of Devils, August. de Civit. dei li. 22 c. 8: how Christ
himself, both in Sacraments, and out of them, occupied diverse sanctified elements, some for the health
of the body, some for the grace and remission of sins, and some to work miracles by. See in St. Jerome
against Vigilantius c. 2 how holy relics torment them. * In the history of Julianus the Apostate, how the
sign of the Cross in the Acts (cap. 19) how the name of JESUS yea and of Paul putteth them to flight. --
Luke 9 Theodoret li. 3 c. 3. ; James 5-- ; ---The Church's exorcisms.--- ; ----Holy water.---- ; ~The force
of sanctified creatures.~ ; ~~The holy land.~~ ; ~~~Relics.~~~ ; ~~~~The Cross.~~~~ ; -~The name of
JESUS.~-
Furnish yourselves with such examples and grounds of Scriptures and antiquity, and you shall
contemn the Adversaries cavilations and blasphemies against the Church's practice in such things, and
further also find, these sacred actions and creatures, not only by increase of faith, fervor, and devotion,
to purge the impurity of our souls, and procure remission of our daily infirmities, but that the chief
Ministers of Christ's Church, by their sovereign authority granted of our Lord, may join unto the same,
their blessing and remission of our venial sins or spiritual debts: as we see in St. James, remission of all
sins to be annexed to the unction with holy oil, which to the Catholics is a Sacrament. But to the
Protestants was but a temporary ceremony, and to some of them not of Christ's institution, but of the
Apostles only. In their own sense therefore they should not marvel that such spiritual effects should
proceed of the use of sanctified creatures, whereas venial trespasses be remitted many ways, though
mortal ordinarily by the Sacraments only. St. Gregory did commonly send his benediction and
remission of sins, in and with such holy tokens as were sanctified by his blessing and touching of the
Apostles bodies and Martyrs relics, as now his successors do in the like hallowed remembrances of
religion. See his 7th book, epistle 116: and 9th book, epistle 60. Thus therefore and to the effects
aforesaid the creatures of God be sanctified. --Remission of venial sins annexed to hallowed
creatures.-- ; ---St. Gregory.---
If any man object that this use of creatures is like conjuration in Necromancy, he must know the
difference is, that in the Church's sanctifications and exorcisms, the Devils be commanded, forced, and
tormented by Christ's word and by prayers: but in the other wicked practices, they be pleased, honored,
and covenanted withal: and therefore the first is godly and according to the Scriptures, but Necromancy
abominable and against the Scriptures. --The difference between the Church's exorcisms and other
conjurations.--