Men-stealer

Men-Stealer (ἀνδραποδιστής), one who kidnaps or decoys a free person into slavery, an act condemned by the apostle among the highest crimes (1Ti 1:10). The seizing or stealing of a free-born Israelite, either to treat him as a slave or sell him as a slave to others, was by the law of Moses punished with death (Ex 21:16; De 24:7), which the Jewish writers inform us was inflicted by strangling (see Wetstein, ad loc.). The practice was likewise forbidden among the Greeks (see Smith's Diet. of Class. Ant. s.v. Andrapodismou Graphe), and was condemned by law among the Romans (see Adams's Roman Antiq. p. 24). SEE SLAVE.