Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
Read Chapter 3
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Shut out the evil love of the world so that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel, but you are still full. Pour out what you have that you may receive what you have not…. It is good for us not to love the world in order that the sacraments may not remain in us for our damnation rather than as the mainstays of our salvation. The mainstay of salvation is to have the root of love, to have the power of godliness, not the external form alone. .
You heard just now, when that reading was read, that Simon Magus was baptized and yet did not lay aside his evil mind. He had the form of the sacrament, but the power of the sacrament he did not have. Listen to what the apostle says about the godless, “having,” he says, “the form of godliness, while refusing its power.” What is the form of godliness? The visible sacrament. What is the power of godliness? Invisible charity. .
Having an appearance indeed of piety, in some things, as we may see heretics affect to be thought more exact than the Catholics in some things, by which the devil more easily deceives souls, but denying by their lives the power, virtue, and force of piety. (Witham)
These avoid. St. Paul having in the preceding verses described the vices and enormities which were to reign in the world in the latter days, here warns Timothy, that already people given to such extravagancies were in the world, and that consequently in regard to Timothy, those days were already come. (St. Chrysostom; Theophylactus)
How many crimes are covered with the cloak of knowledge, and the exterior of piety, and what mischief arises to religion from such base and hypocritical conduct: it cannot be too severely attacked, as we see in Christ's comportment towards the Pharisees.
In the Epistle to the Romans, he says somewhat on this wise, Having the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law Romans 2:20, where he speaks in commendation of it: but here he speaks of this sin as an evil beyond all other defects. And why is this? Because he does not use the words in the same signification. For an image is often taken to signify a likeness; but sometimes a thing without life, and worthless. Thus he says himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians, A man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God. 1 Corinthians 11:7 But the Prophet says, Man walks in an image. Psalm 39:9, Septuagint And the Scripture sometimes takes a lion to represent royalty, as, He couched as a lion, and as a lion's cub, who shall raise him up? Genesis 49:9, Septuagint And sometimes to signify rapacity, as, a ravening and a roaring lion. Psalm 22:13 And we ourselves do the same. For as things are compounded and varied in themselves, they are fitly adduced for vari...
Faith without works is fitly called a mere form without power. For as a fair and ruddy body, when it has no strength, is like a painted figure, so is a right faith apart from works. For let us suppose anyone to be “covetous, a traitor, heady” and yet believes correctly. Of what advantage is it, if he lacks all the qualities fitting to a Christian, if he does not the works that characterize godliness but outdoes the Greeks in impiety? What good when he becomes a mischief to those with whom he associates or when he causes God to be blasphemed and the doctrine to be slandered by his evil deeds? Homilies on Timothy
Now for both parties-namely, for those who endure a famine of the word of God, and for bishops who endure straits, when they are installed in other cities for the common good -no small degree of mercy is shown. And they who deny this, although they have the form of godliness, do yet deny the power thereof.
