Hermogenes

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

 2 Timothy 1:15; "all they which are (now) in Asia (When They Were In Rome, Or Else In Nicopolis Where They Had Escorted Him, And Where He Was Apprehended On His Way To Rome) turned away from me," "ashamed of my chain," unlike Onesiphorus, not standing by me but forsaking me;  2 Timothy 1:16. "of whom are Hermogenes and Phygellus," specified as persons from whom such unchristian cowardice was not to be expected; often probably spoken of in conversations between Paul and Timothy when together in Asia.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

HERMOGENES . A companion of St. Paul, who, with Phygelus and ‘all that are in Asia,’ deserted him (  2 Timothy 1:15 ). The defection may probably have occurred at a time long past when St. Paul wrote (note RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). The AV [Note: Authorized Version.] refers to a defection at Rome, perhaps of natives of the province Asia in the city; but the aorist is against this.

A. J. Maclean.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Christian in Asia who had 'turned away' from Paul.  2 Timothy 1:15 . He may not have been an apostate, but have turned from the heavenly character of the truth taught by Paul.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Hermog'enes. A person mentioned by St. Paul, in the latest of all his Epistles,  2 Timothy 1:15, when all in Asia had turned away from him. (A.D. 64).

Holman Bible Dictionary

 2 Timothy 1:15

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 2 Timothy 1:15

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

See Phygelus.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( ῾Ερμογένης , Merassry-Born), a disciple of Asia Minor, and probably companion in labor of the apostle Paul; mentioned, along with Phygellus, as having abandoned him during his second imprisonment at Rome, doubtless from alarm at the perils of the connection ( 2 Timothy 1:15). A.D. 64.' In the Roman Breviary (In Fest. S. Jac. Apost. Pars. Aestiva, p. 485, Milan, 1851) the conversion of Hermogenes is attributed to St. James the Great, and in the legendary history of Abdias, the so-called bishop of Babylon (Fabricius, Cod. Apocryph. N.T. p. 517 sq.), Hermogenes is represented as first practicing magic, and converted, with Philetus, by the same apostle. Grotius, apparently misled by the circumstance that the historian or geographer Hermogenes, mentioned by the scholiast of Apollonius Rhodius (2, 722, Frag. Hist. Graec. Didot. ed., 3:523), wrote on primitive history, and incidentally (?) speaks of Nannacus or Anacus- and may therefore probably be the same as the Hermogenes whom Josephus mentions as having treated on Jewish history (Apion, 1, 23) — suggests that he may be the person mentioned by the apostle Paul. This, however, is not likely. Nothing more is known of the Hermogenes in question, and* he cannot be identified either with Hermogenes of Tarsus, a historian of the time of Domitian, who was put to death by that emperor (Sueton. Domit. 10; Hoffman, Lex. Univ. s.v.; Alford on  2 Timothy 1:15), nor with Hermogenes the painter, against whom Tertullian wrote (Smith's Dict. of Class. Biography, s.v.), nor with the saints of the Byzantine Church, commemorated on Jan. 24 and Sept. I (Neale, Eastern Church, 2, 770, 781).

a heretic of the 2nd century. Our knowledge of him is chiefly derived from a treatise against him by Tertullian (adv. Hermogenen), and from an account in the newly-discovered MS. of Hippolytus. He was living, probably in Africa, when Tertullian wrote against him, and was a painter by profession. Tertullian charged that Hermogenes was a believer in the doctrines of the heathen philosophers, and especially in those of the Stoics, and especially that he taught the eternity of matter. Hermogenes argued that God must have made the world either out of his own substance, or out of nothing, or out of pre-existent matter. The first, he thought, was inconsistent with God's immutability; the second with the origin of evil; and therefore the third must be received as true. "He rejected both the Gnostic Emanation doctrine and the Church doctrine of Creation: the former contradicted the unchangeable nature of God, and necessitated attributing to him the origin of evil; the latter was contradicted by the nature of this world; for if the creation of the perfect God had been conditioned by nothing, a perfect world must have been the result. Hence he believed that creation supposed something conditioning, and this he thought must be the Hyle which he received from Platonism into connection with the Christian system. He did not think that he gave up the doctrine of the Μοναρχία as long as he admitted a ruling, all-powerful principle, and ascribed to God such a supremacy over the Hyle. He regarded the Hyle as altogether undetermined, predicateless, in which all the contrarieties that afterwards appeared in the world were as yet unseparated and undeveloped; neither motion nor rest, neither flowing nor standing still, but an inorganic confusion. It was the receptive, God alone the creative; his formative agency called forth from it determinate existence. But with this organization there was a residuum which withstood the divine formative power. Hence the defective and the offensive in nature; hence also evil. Had he been logical he must have admitted a creation without a beginning; he could not have regarded it as a single and transitive act of God, but as immanent, and resulting immediately from the relation of God to matter. He said God was always a ruler, consequently he must always have had dominion over matter" (Neander, Hist. of Dogmas, Ryland's transl., 1, 118). The account in Hippolytus, Κατὰ Πασῶν Αἱρέσεων (bk. 24), agrees, in the main, with that given above, and adds that Hermogenes taught that Christ, after his resurrection, when he "ascended to heaven, leaving his body in the sun, proceeded himself to his Father." See Augustine, De Haer. 41; Tertullian, Adv. Hermogenem, passim; Ritter, Geschichte D. Philosophie, 5, 178; Neander, Ch. Hist. (Torrey's), 1, 568; Mosheim, Comm. vol. 1; Lardner, Wornks, 2, 203; 8:579; Hagenbach, History Of Doctrines, vol. 1, § 47.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

hẽr - moj´e - nēz ( Ἑρμογένης , Hermogénēs , literally "born of Hermes," a Greek deity, called by the Romans, "Mercury,"   2 Timothy 1:15 ):

1. Where Did He "Turn Away"?

Hermogenes was a Christian, mentioned by Paul as having, along with Phygellus and "all that are in Asia," turned away from him. It is not clear when or where the defection of those Asiatic Christians from the apostle took place, whether it was at Rome at the time of Paul's second imprisonment there, and especially on the occasion of his being brought before the emperor's supreme court, to be tried on a charge now involving the death penalty, or whether it was at some previous time in Ephesus.

2. Was It in Ephesus?

If it was the latter, then the meaning is that Paul wishes to inform Timothy, or perhaps only to remind him, how in Ephesus, where Timothy was the presiding minister of the church, these persons, Phygellus and Hermogenes with many more, had turned away from him, that is, had refused to submit to his authority, and had rejected the Christian doctrine which he taught. This latter meaning, referring the "turning away" to some previous occasion in Ephesus, is thought by some expositors to be the probable signification, owing to the fact that the verb "they be turned away" is in the aorist tense, referring to a time long past when the apostle wrote.

3. Unlikelihood of It Being in Ephesus

On the other hand there is no evidence that there ever was a time when "all they which are in Asia" (the King James Version) turned away from obedience to Paul. Whatever may have been the disloyalty and disobedience of individuals - and this certainly existed; see, e.g.,  Acts 20:29 f - yet, certainly the New Testament does not show that all that were in Asia, the Christian community as a whole, in Ephesus and Miletus and Laodicea and Hierapolis and Colosse and other places, repudiated his apostolic authority.

4. Probalility of It Being in Rome

If the words "all they which are in Asia" refer to all the Christians from the proconsular province of Asia, who happened to be in Rome at the time of Paul's second imprisonment there, it can easily be understood that they should turn away from him at that testing time. It is impossible to say exactly what form their desertion of the apostle assumed. Their turning away would likely be caused by fear, lest if it were known that they were friends of the prisoner in the Mamertine, they would be involved in the same imprisonment as had overtaken him, and probably also in the same death penalty.

It is altogether in favor of a reference to Rome, that what is said about Phygellus and Hermogenes and their turning away from Paul is immediately followed by a reference to Onesiphorus, and to the great kindness which he showed, when he sought the apostle but very diligently in Rome. On the whole, therefore, a reference to Rome and to the manner in which these persons, named and unnamed, from Asia, had deserted Paul, seems most probable. See Phygellus .