PHILETUS

(beloved) was possibly a disciple of Hymenaeus, with whom he is associated in (2 Timothy 2:17) and who is named without him in an earlier epistle. (1 Timothy 1:20) (A.D. 68-64) Thep appear to have been persons who believed the Scripture of the Old Testament, but misinterpreted them, allegorizing away the doctrine of the resurrection and resolving it all into figure and metaphor. The delivering over unto Satan. seems to have been a form of excommunication declaring the person reduced to the state of a heathen; and in the apostolic age it was accompanied with supernatural or miraculous effects upon the bodies of the persons so delivered.