“Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.”
They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and have come to know the truth — the false teachers' asceticism (forbidding gamelia, requiring apechesthai) rejects God's good creation (ktisma theou). The proper response to God's gifts is eucharistia (thanksgiving), not rejection.
Church Fathers on 1 Timothy 4:3
As those who adhere to the faith are fixed on a safe anchor, so those who fall from the faith can nowhere rest; but after many wanderings to and fro, they are borne at last into the very gulf of perdition. And this he had shown before, saying, that some had “already made shipwreck concerning the faith,” and now he says, “Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.” This is said of the Manichæans,…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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