Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
All Commentaries on 1 Timothy 1:20 Go To 1 Timothy 1
Tertullian of Carthage
AD 220
Plainly Paul states that he delivered to Satan Hymenaeus and Alexander, “that they learn not to blaspheme,” as he writes to Timothy. Nevertheless Paul himself says that a “thorn was given him, an angel of Satan,” by which he was to be buffeted, lest he should exalt himself. Weren’t these brothers delivered to Satan not for perdition but for giving them an opportunity to change? If so, what is the difference between blasphemy and incest and a soul entirely free from these? The free soul would be elated from no other source than the highest sanctity and all innocence. The elation of such a soul would be in the apostle’s case restrained by this buffeting, by means, some say, of pain in the ear or head. Incest, however, and blasphemy would have deserved a different punishment. The person would have been delivered over to Satan himself for a possession, not to an “angel” of his…. If you take the assumption that the crime of Hymenaeus and Alexander—blasphemy—is irremissible in this and in the future age, the apostle would not, in opposition to the clear directive of the Lord, have given to Satan, under a hope of pardon, men already irremediably sunken from the faith into blasphemy. Thus, he pronounced them “shipwrecked with regard to faith,” having no longer the solace of the ship, the church.
