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10. The adornment is to be διʼ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν. This is certainly the true construction; ὅ πρέπει … θεοσέβειαν is parenthetical. The stress laid on ‘good works’ all through the Pastoral Epistles is very remarkable; no other Epistles of St Paul lay at all the same emphasis on right living, as the index to right belief. It is possible that the particular forms of heresy with which the Churches of Ephesus and Crete were threatened rendered it necessary to expose the vanity of theological speculations without ethical background, and the impossibility of treating creed apart from life. Thus the heretics of Tit 1:16 while they ‘confess that they know God’ yet ‘deny Him by their works’; they are πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἀδόκιμοι. As here the best adornment of womanhood is found διʼ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν, so the test of a widow to be placed on the Church’s list is εἰ παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῳ ἐπηκολούθησεν (1Ti 5:10). The phrase, prepared (or ‘equipped’) for every good work occurs three times (2Ti 2:21; 2Ti 3:17; Tit 3:1).
There is nothing, of course, in all this inconsistent with St Paul’s previous teaching. Similar expressions occur, though with less frequency, in his earlier Epistles. ἵνα περισσεύητε εἰς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθόν was his hope for the Corinthians (2Co 9:8); ὑπομονὴ ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ is the spirit which shall be rewarded hereafter (Rom 2:7); he prays for the Colossians that they may be fruitful ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῷ (Col 1:10); and in another Epistle he explains that these ἔργα ἀγαθά are prepared of God that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10). And in the Pastoral Epistles themselves there are passages which bring out the complementary truth, that it is not by works that we are saved, with all the clearness and distinctness of the Epistle to the Romans. Thus in 2Ti 1:9 Paul speaks of God who saved us οὐ κατὰ τὰ ἕργα ἡμῶν ἀλλὰ κατὰ ἰδίαν πρόθεσιν; and again in Tit 3:5 οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων τῶν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ ἃ ἐποιήσαμεν ἡμεῖς ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ αὐτοῦ ἔλεος ἔσωσεν ἡμᾶς κ.τ.λ.
We have not yet, however, exhausted the references in the Pastorals to ‘good works.’ In eight other passages ἔργα καλά are spoken of, a phrase similar to though not identical with ἔργα ἀγαθά, and specially noteworthy because it is not found in any of the other letters of St Paul.
Something has already been said (see on 1Ti 1:8) of the distinction between ἀγαθός and καλός, and the usage of the phrase καλὰ ἔργα in the Gospels (Mat 5:16; Mar 14:6; Joh 10:32), in the Ep. to the Hebrews (Heb 10:24), and the First Ep. of St Peter (1Pe 2:12) corroborates the distinction there suggested. So in the Pastoral Epistles the phrase καλὰ ἔργα is used in reference to good works which are seen of men and which illustrate the beauty of the Christian life. If not πρόδηλα, notoriously evident, at all events they cannot remain always hidden (1Ti 5:25). The true riches are those of ἔργα καλά (1Ti 6:18); if a man desires a bishopric he desires a καλὸν ἔργον (1Ti 3:1); God’s chosen are a λαὸς περιούσιος, ζηλωτὴς καλῶν ἔργων (Tit 2:14); Titus is to be a τύπος καλῶν ἔργων (Tit 2:7); and he is to bid the people under his care καλῶν ἔργων προΐστασθαι (Tit 3:8; Tit 3:14).
It would, however, be unsafe to press the distinction between ἔργα καλά and ἔργα ἀγαθά in the Pastorals. The two phrases seem to be used interchangeably in 1Ti 5:9-10, and it is not impossible that they are renderings of an Aramaic phrase which had come into use. To speak of ἔργα καλά or of ἔργα ἀγαθά is quite foreign to Greek ethics.
ὃ πρέπει κ.τ.λ. Cp. Eph 5:3 καθὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις.
ἐπαγγελλομέναις θεοσέβειαν. I.e. professing religion. ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι in N.T. generally means ‘to promise’; but the meaning to profess, necessary for the sense here, is quite legitimate and is exemplified by the lexicons; cp. 1Ti 6:21. θεοσέβεια is a LXX. and classical word, occurring here only in N.T. It is used in a quasi-technical sense for ‘the religious life’; and θεοσεβής has something of the same ambiguity as our word ‘religious,’ which, rightly applicable to all God-fearing persons, is yet sometimes confined to members of a conventual or monastic order. The A.V. and R.V. make no distinction between θεοσέβεια and εὐσέβεια, rendering both words godliness. see on 1Ti 2:2 above.
Some Latin authorities (r and Cyprian) render θεοσέβειαν curiously by castitatem, and am has pudicitiam, but the usual Latin rendering is pietatem.