Fathers

2 Timothy 3

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But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also. For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith are rejected. But they will proceed no further. For their folly will be evident to all men, as theirs also came to be. But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, persecutions, and sufferings: those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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What the Fathers say

2 Timothy 3:7

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

They may be worthy of indulgence? By no means; on the contrary, they are all the more undeserving of it. Since they were mired in sins and lusts, their reason also became dulled, so that their inability to know the truth is not a natural deficiency, but a consequence of the wrong direction of their will.

Commentary on 2 Timothy ↗

Irenaeus

Those, therefore, who desert the preaching of the Church, call in question the knowledge of the holy presbyters, not taking into consideration of how much greater consequence is a religious man, even in a private station, than a blasphemous and impudent sophist. …

Against Heresies Book V ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Let us give our mind's best attention, and, with the Lord's help, seek after God. The language of the divine hymn is: "Seek God and your soul shall live." Let us search for that which needs to be discovered, and into that which has been discovered. He whom we need to discover is concealed, in order to be sought after; and when found, is infinite, in order still to be the object of our search. …

Tractates On John 63.1 ↗

Jerome

It is a good thing … to defer to one's betters, to obey those set over one, to learn not only from the Scriptures but from the example of others how one ought to order one's life, and not to follow that worst of teachers, one's own self-confidence. Of women who are thus presumptuous the apostle says that they "are carried about with every wind of doctrine," "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Letters 130.17 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

In regard to the fourth he says, ever learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. For curiosity is ever on the alert for news, and refuses to concentrate; hence he says, ever learning: a foolish woman and clamorous and full of allurements and knowing nothing at all (Prov 9:13). Yet his description, ever learning, can be applied to those who creep into houses.

Commentary on 2 Timothy ↗