1 Timothy 1:10

πόρνοις, ἀρσενοκοίταις. Fornicators, sodomites; the most repulsive forms of the violation of the Seventh Commandment. Cp. 1 Corinthians 6:9.

ἀνδραποδισταῖς. Men-stealers. A man’s most precious possession is himself, and the worst form of thieving (condemned in the Eighth Commandment) is that practised by slave-dealers, whose booty is not things, but persons. Thus Philo (de Spec. Leg. IV. 4) has a section περὶ�, whom he explains to be the worst kind of thieves. This crime, again, was punishable with death according to the Pentateuchal Code (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7), though the word ἀνδραποδιστής is not found elsewhere in the Greek Bible.

ψεύσταις, ἐπιόρκοις. Liars, perjurers. To suppress the truth is a form of ‘false witness,’ but the worst form is a false charge made on oath. ἐπίορκος is not found again in the N.T.; but cp. Matthew 5:33.

καὶ εἴ τι ἕτερον κ.τ.λ. Only those sins have been enumerated of which human law can take cognisance, and so violations of the Tenth Commandment are not specified in this dreadful catalogue. The concluding phrase is very like Romans 13:9 καὶ εἴ τις ἑτέρα ἑντολή κ.τ.λ., and is quite in St Paul’s manner.

τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ. To sound doctrine. This remarkable metaphor, according to which the true doctrine is wholesome, and the false, diseased, is repeated again and again in the Pastoral Epistles. We have ὑγιαίνουσα διδασκαλία here; 2 Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9; Titus 2:1; ὑγιαίνοντες λόγοι 1 Timothy 6:3; 2 Timothy 1:13; ὑγιαίνειν τῇ πίστει 2 Timothy 1:13; Titus 2:2; λόγος ὑγιής Titus 2:8; and in 2 Timothy 2:17 the false λόγος is compared to a γάγγραινα. It has been suggested that this medical phraseology may be due to the influence of St Luke the physician. Again, it might be urged that such language only continues the metaphor by which in earlier letters of St Paul the Christian Society is compared to a body. When the Body of Christ is in a sound condition, the expression of its belief will be healthy; and if it be diseased, the false doctrine will be like a gangrene eating into its vitals. But in truth the comparison of the soundness of the moral and spiritual judgement to the health of the body is not so far-fetched or so novel as to need elaborate explanation. In Greek literature it is common. Clement of Alexandria, commenting on ch. 1 Timothy 6:3 (Strom, I. 8), quotes in illustration a line of Euripides (Phoen. 473) in which the ἄδικος λόγος is said to be νοσῶν ἐν αὑτῷ. Plato, in a famous passage (Republ. IV. 18), explains ἀρετὴ μὲν ἄρα, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὑγίειά τέ τις ἂν εἴη καὶ κάλλος καὶ εὐεξία ψυχῆς, κακία δὲ νόσος τε καὶ αἶσχος καὶ�. (Cp. also Plutarch Vir. mor. 2.) And so in the LXX. of Proverbs 31:8 (xxiv. 76) we have κρῖνε πάντας ὑγιῶς, as parallel to κρῖνε δικαίως. But we perhaps come nearest to the metaphor as used in the Pastorals in the Stoic idea that the πάθη were diseases, which the wise man should eradicate by every means in his power. So in Philo we have the very phrase of St Paul anticipated: ἔτι τῶν παθῶν καὶ νοσημάτων παρευημερούντων τοὺς ὑγιαίνοντας λόγους (de Abrah. 38), i.e. ‘the passions and diseases prevailing over the sound λόγοι.’ And with this well accords the language of the Collect for St Luke’s Day, where we pray that “by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed.”

The word διδασκαλία is used with peculiar frequency in the Pastorals, occurring 13 times in the sense of doctrine, as in Ephesians 4:14; Colossians 2:22. (Cp. Matthew 15:9.) It is found twice (1 Timothy 4:13, where see note, and 1 Timothy 5:17) in the sense of instruction or art of teaching, as in Romans 12:7; Romans 15:4. It was natural that, in the development of the Church’s life, the word for teaching should gradually come to be used for the content of the teaching, the doctrine taught. See note on 1 Timothy 4:13.