1 Timothy 6:4

ἔρις. So אAKP, Egyptian and Peshito Syriac Vss; but D2GL the Latins and the Harclean Syriac support ἔρεις. D2* also has φθόνοι for φθόνος, which suggests that the singular has in both cases been corrected into the plural in conformity with βλασφημίαι &c. which follow.

4. τετύφωται, he is beclouded; see on 1 Timothy 3:6. The Vulgate rendering is superbus est, and the older Latin versions have inflatus est, but this is to change the metaphor.

μηδὲν ἐπιστάμενος, knowing nothing; compare the similar words at 1 Timothy 1:7. ἐπίστασθαι is not found again in the Pauline Epp.; but cp. Acts 20:18; Acts 22:19; Acts 24:10; Acts 26:26.

ἀλλὰ νοσῶν περὶ κ.τ.λ., but doting about &c. νοσεῖν is ἄπ. λεγ. in the N.T., but it is a common LXX. word; when followed by περί with the acc., it suggests the idea of morbid movement round a central point. For the metaphor of sickness and health as applied to the spiritual state see note on 1 Timothy 1:10. The heretical teachers are regarded more as ‘ill-conditioned,’ than as teaching falsehood.

ζητήσεις καὶ λογομαχίας, questionings and disputes of words; compare 1 Timothy 1:4-6. λογομαχία does not occur elsewhere in the Greek Bible (we have λογομαχεῖν in 2 Timothy 2:14); it is a late Greek word, and seems to mean here not ‘a dispute about words,’ but ‘a dispute in which words are the weapons,’ and so is almost equivalent to controversy. The fruits of such controversy are now enumerated.

φθόνος, ἔρις, envy, strife. These are also associated by St Paul at Romans 1:29; Galatians 5:21 (see crit. note).

βλασφημίαι, evil speakings, sc. not against God, but (as at Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8) against one another.

ὑπόνοιαι πονηραί. We have ὑπόνοια πονηρά also in Sir 3:24; ὑπόνοια does not occur, save in these two places, in the Greek Bible; it is a surmise, or evil suspicion.