1 Timothy 1:6

1 Timothy 1:6. Having swerved. The missing of the mark, the losing of the way, that comes, not from taking aim and failing, but from making no effort to reach the mark the temper, i.e., which is the exact opposite of that which St. Paul describes as his own in 1 Corinthians 9:26; Philippians 3:13. In such cases heresy had its root in ethical evil rather than in intellectual error.

Vain jangling. The Greek word was possibly a word coined for the occasion. The history of the English word is not without interest. From the Latin joculator, the teller of jests and good stories, came the French jongleur, and the English ‘juggler' or ‘jangler.' The word is defined by Chaucer in the Parson's Tale: ‘Jangelying is when a man speketh to moche beforn folk, and clappeth as a mille, and taketh no keep what he saith.' Its application to ‘sweet bells jangled out of tune' was of later date.