1 Timothy 2:12

διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικί. γυναικὶ δὲ διδάσκειν is the order in KL and most cursives; text אAD2GP.

12. διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω. A woman is to learn; she is not permitted to teach in the public assembly of Christians. The renewal of the prohibition at the Fourth Council of Carthage in 398 seems to shew, as Ellicott observes, that a neglect of this Apostolic ordinance had crept into the African Church. Women were, however, expressly permitted to teach others of their own sex; and we have not to go outside the Pastoral Epistles for a recognition of the value of their private teaching of the young. See 2 Timothy 3:14; and Titus 2:3, where it is recommended that the πρεσβύτιδες should be καλοδιδάσκαλοι.

The construction οὐ … οὐδέ, which occurs in this verse, is thoroughly Pauline; see Romans 2:28; Romans 9:7; Romans 9:16.

αὐθεντεῖν. This is a ἅπ. λεγ. in the Greek Bible, although we have αὐθέντης and αὐθεντία in Wis 12:6 and 3Ma 2:29. The αὐθέντης is the perpetrator of a crime, as distinguished from an accomplice, and the word was especially applied to a murderer. From this it came to mean one who does anything with his own hand,—‘the responsible person,’ and so ‘a ruler’; and thence we have the verb in the sense ‘to lord it over.’

ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ. The repetition of this word at the end of the sentence is emphatic. It is a favourite word with St Paul, in reference to the Christian life. See, e.g., ch. 1 Timothy 2:2 and 2 Thessalonians 3:12.