Who forbids marriage? What is meant by 1 Timothy 4: 1-5

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  1. Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions
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    through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences.
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    They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
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    For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving,
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    for it is made holy by the invocation of God in prayer.*
Why would anyone forbid marriage? Source: http://www.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/4
 
This passage is speaking to cults; there are those who want to control their followers to the point of forbidding marriage (it happened a decade of so ago some Oriental guru had hundreds/thousands of his followers commit to a communal wedding… then there are those of the past who subscribed to man’s sinfulness to the point that even having children was viewed as a sin; hence, sex/marriage was forbidden.

Maran atha!

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And some of those cults/sects around at the time of the apostles - some of the Gnostics.
Other sects developed also. Eg.Marcionites, Manichaens.
You can google to get more information about them. Below is a sample from the online Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Manichaeism.
St. Augustine (especially “De Moribus Manich.”) strongly inveighs against the Manichæan’s repudiation of marriage. They regarded it as an evil in itself because the propagation of the human race meant the continual imprisonment of the light-substance in matter and a retarding of the blissful consummation of all things; maternity was a calamity and a sin and Manichæans delighted to tell of the seduction of Adam by Eve and her final punishment in eternal damnation.
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…The life of these ascetics was a hard one. They were forbidden to have property, to eat meat or drink wine, to gratify any sexual desire, …Animal food roused the demon of Darkness within man, hence only vegetables were allowed to the perfect. …
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Sometimes non-Catholics say the 1 Timothy 4 passage applies to the Catholic Church (presumably because priests in the Roman Rite are to be celibate; and because we abstain one day a week, Friday, from meat). Any Catholic knows the Church does not forbid marriage – she so venerates it that it is one of our 7 sacraments! And neither are we required to eliminate meat or any other food from our diet!
 
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There are still two Shakers left in America, and they forbid marriage.
 
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