As I exhorted you to stay at Ephesus when I was going into Macedonia, that you might charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine,
"Some see in this [strange] teaching the influence of Gentile gnostic philosophy with its speculative views of religious beliefs and practices. Such incipient gnostic elements did circulate in Asia during the latter half of the first century and may have been present here. But that the false teaching combatted [sic] in the Pastorals had already become Gnostic in character is doubtful. The Jewish character of the teaching here denounced is obvious." [Note: Hiebert, p. 30. Cf. Titus 1:14.] 