50–65) was an early Christian mentioned by Paul, who warns Timothy against him as well as against his associate in error, Hymenaeus.
It would also overthrow Christian faith altogether, for if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ risen from the dead, and "ye are yet in your sins"[2] The denial of the resurrection of the body, whether of mankind generally or of Christ, is the overthrow of the faith.
The apostle proceeds to say that teaching of this kind "eats as doth a gangrene," and that it increases unto more ungodliness.
Paul is careful to say, more than once, that the teaching which denies that there will be a resurrection of the dead leads inevitably to "ungodliness" and to "iniquity."
Hymenaeus and Philetus may have believed in a nascent form of the Christian heresy of Gnosticism.