Bible Commentaries
Titus 2

Verse 1

Chapter II

Ver. 1. In contrast to the false teachers mentioned in the preceding verses, and the pernicious results of their teaching, the apostle now urges, and with reference to all ranks and classes in the church, the sound practical teaching of the gospel. But speak thou the things which become the sound instruction of the gospel: sound, or wholesome, because it does not run out upon fables and frivolous prescriptions of human invention, but bears throughout with practical energy upon the duties of everyday life. Christianity is primarily, indeed, a doctrine, but only that it may be in the true sense a life; and the two can never be kept apart from each other in the public teaching of the church without imminent peril to both.

Verse 2

Ver. 2. In accordance with the rule, that after verbs of saying, thinking, and such like, the infinitive sometimes expresses, not what, according to the speaker’s assertion, is, but what ought to be (since those verbs involve the notion of advising, requiring, or commanding, Winer, Gr. § 44, 3, b), we have now in a series of accusations with the infinitive the substance of the general order to speak the things becoming sound doctrine. The more advanced believers are taken first: that the aged men ( πρεσβύτας , not πρεσβυτέρος , which might have been understood only of persons in office: the word is found again at Philemon 1:9, and Luke 1:18) be sober ( νηφαλίους , 1 Timothy 3:2), grave, discreet (1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 3:8), sound (healthy) in their faith, their love, their patience. It seems quite necessary to take these three latter terms in the subjective sense: love and patience must certainly be so taken, and this seems to fix down the meaning in like manner of the first. The article, therefore, prefixed to each of the terms, points to the individuals supposed to be addressed: the faith, etc., namely, of those individuals = their faith, etc. The exhortation is, that they should not only possess those Christian graces, but have them in a healthy condition, so that the exercise of them might be free, natural, regular, and consistent such every way as might be expected from persons living under a felt apprehension of the great realities of salvation. The various things mentioned in the exhortation are peculiarly appropriate for persons in advanced life; they are the qualities in which it behoves them in an eminent degree to adorn the Christian faith.

Verse 3

Ver. 3. In like manner the aged women, that they demean themselves as becomes holiness (lit. that in demeanour they be holy, beseeming, ἐν καταστήματι ἱεροπρεπεῖς ). The expression καταστ . is of comprehensive import, and has respect to everything in appearance and bearing which is indicative of the state of feeling within; and the design of the exhortation is, as Jerome explains, that “their very walk and motion, their countenance, speech, silence, may present a certain dignity of holy propriety.” We get the exact idea when, assuming them to be possessed of a devout and reverent frame of mind, their entire manner and deportment are in suitable keeping therewith, the appropriate aspect and clothing of a mind rightly attempered toward things sacred and divine. The passage 1 Timothy 2:10 is nearly parallel, only that the exhortation there has a more specific reference to becoming fitness and modesty of dress. Not slanderers μὴ διαβόλους given to do the work of him who is emphatically the accuser of the brethren. Old women, who usually have little to do, and with the garrulity, are not unfrequently visited with the querulousness, of advanced age, have special need to be warned against this tendency; it is a fine exhibition of Christian love and contentment when they can rise above it, even though there may be many things in their circumstances which are fitted to nourish it. Not enslaved to much wine μὴ οἴνῳ πολλῷ δεδουλωμένοις a very moderate demand in this respect certainly, but probably indicating by that very moderation, that a slavish addictedness to the evil was not uncommon among the female population of Crete, and that even a rational freedom from such slavery would be no small or unimportant testimony to the power of the gospel. Both of these exhortations are in substance pressed, though in different terms, at 1 Timothy 3:8, 1 Timothy 3:11, the first on females, the second on deacons. Teachers of what is good, not, of course, in public, but by private converse, and personal example in their proper sphere.

Verses 4-5

Vers. 4, 5. The apostle goes on to specify what more especially should be taught by the elderly female members of the church to the younger sisterhood, not intending thereby to supersede instructions of the same sort by the pastors of the church (comp. 1 Timothy 5:2), but coming in aid of them, and giving them a point and application which could scarcely be done in public. That they school (The r eading σωφρονίζουσι, present indicative (after ἵνα), instead of the regular and grammatical (σωφρονίζωσι, is plainly the best supported, being found in א , A, F, G, H, P; while for the other there are C, D, E, K, L. Two other almost undoubted instances of the same usage with ἵνα in St. Paul’s writings occur in Galatians 4:7, 1 Corinthians 4:6; also in John 17:3. Various modes of explanation have been offered; but perhaps the most probable is, that it is the adoption in a few cases of a faulty construction, which is know n to have become somewhat common in later Greek (Winer, Gr. xli. b. 1).) the young women to be lovers of their husbands, lovers of their children; ver. 5, discreet, chaste, workers at home, good, submitting themselves to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. The verb σωφρονίζειν , which rules all that follows, does not precisely correspond to the Authorized Version’s teach to be sober, or the Vulgate’s prudentiam doceant, otherwise there would plainly have been no propriety in the term σώφρονας being afterwards included among the special characteristics. The word, though originally signifying to make discreet or prudent, came often to be used in the more general sense of schooling, or admonishing, with a view to the possession of certain things; and the reason, probably, why the apostle here used it, instead of some word expressive simply of teaching or instructing, was, that on account of the youth of the parties in question, he contemplated the necessity of a kind of authoritative disciplinary treatment from the older to the younger Christian females. The teaching recommended was to be of the more severe and urgent kind. (Hence the distinction made by means of this and another verb in Dio Cassius, p. 4:560: δεῖ τοὺς μὲν λόγους νουτωτεῖν , τοὺς δὲ ἀπειλαῖς σωφρονίζειν .) In the epithets themselves, which mark the different characteristics that were to be the objects of the schooling, there is no proper difficulty; they are all such as especially became young women who were disposed to bring their Christianity to bear on the regulation of their conduct in daily life, and through this reflect honour on their Saviour. In regard to one of them, there is a difference of reading: instead of οἰκουρούς , keepers at home, a number of the best mss. ( א , A, C, D, E, F, G) have οἰκουργούς , which means, workers at home, active housewives undoubtedly a good sense; and the reading is preferred by Lachmann, Tisch., and Alford. Having such support, I hesitate to reject it, though the ancient versions, Ital., Vulg., Syriac, also Chrys., follow the other reading; while Theophyl. and Œcum. join the term οἰκουρούς to the ἀγαθάς , so as to make good housekeepers, economical housewives. This conjunction of epithets, apparently independent, is not to be justified; and the latter expression ( ἀγαθάς ) must be regarded as indicative of goodness generally, not with reference simply to household management = kindly, benignant. The last characteristic, submitting themselves to their own husbands, naturally winds up the description as by a sort of climax; for a heady and high-minded behaviour here would inevitably spoil the effect of all other qualities; it were utterly inconsistent with a proper conjugal bearing; and so with it as the immediate antecedent, is coupled the great end (negatively expressed) to be aimed at: that the word of God may not be blasphemed. In a measure, however, this must be carried back over the whole description; for in any one respect a behaviour contrary to that recommended would more or less have the effect of bringing reproach on God’s word.

Verse 6

Ver. 6. The younger men, in like manner, exhort to be sober-minded σωφρονεῖν , to accustom themselves to that becoming, prudent self-restraint, which is not inaptly expressed by being sober-minded see at 1 Timothy 2:9 a habit of mind which, when really formed, saves the young from many a vicious indulgence and foolish extravagance.

Verse 7

Ver. 7. Not only teach and exhort so, but having respect to Titus, as himself comparatively a young man showing thyself (the σεαυτὸν used with the middle voice, though it might have been dispensed with, for the sake of greater distinctness and emphasis; see Winer, Gr. § 38, 6, who points to a similar instance, with the same verb, in Xen. Cyr. viii. 1, 39, παράδειγμα τοιόνδε ἑαυτο ̀̀ ν παρείχετο ) in all things a pattern of good works ( τύπον used here only with the genitive of the thing) in your teaching [showing] incorruption, gravity? (The correct text here evidently is ἀφθορίαν, σεμνότητα. L and certain cursives insert ἀφθορίαν after the two; and instead of ἀφθορίαν, ἀδιαφθορι ́ αν is the reading of L and some others.) The latter of these two expressions must plainly be referred to the manner, not to the matter, of the teaching; and this renders it natural that we should also regard the other in the same light should understand it subjectively of the teacher, not of what was taught by him. This is confirmed also by the circumstance, that the verse which follows has respect to the substance or matter of the teaching. By requiring Titus to show a spirit of incorruption, as well as gravity, in his teaching, the apostle appears to have meant, that in his very mode of communicating divine truth, he should give unmistakeable evidence of a mind freed from all corrupt tendencies and prurient imaginations a mind in full accord with the sublime realities and holy aims of the gospel of Christ.

Verse 8

Ver. 8. And now comes the character of the instruction itself: sound discourse that cannot be condemned, in order that he who is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of us. ( ἡμῶν is the reading of א , C, D, E, F, G, K, L, Ital., Vulg., Syr., by much the best supported.) The same peculiar aspect is here given to true evangelical teaching, which is of such frequent occurrence in these Pastoral epistles; it was to be sound ( ὑγιῆ ), or healthy, as opposed to everything fitted to nourish a sickly and distempered pietism. Being such, it could not, of course, be condemned by any competent judge; and, what was more, those who had the will would find they lacked any proper ground to speak reproachfully against the doctrine taught, and for shame sake might be reduced to silence. Although the party contemplated as ready to assume a hostile position is spoken of in the singular, “he who is of the contrary part,” yet this is plainly but an individualizing mode of representing a class, and both the connection and the form of expression employed forbid us to suppose any other than human adversaries, heathen or Jewish, to have been in view. May have nothing bad or foul to say μηδὲν , having reference to the subjective condition of the adversary: however desirous, he could get hold of no ground of blame.

Verse 9

Ver. 9. The slave portion of the Christian community naturally presents itself for separate counsel: Bondmen [exhort, supplied from Titus 2:7 ] to be in subjection to their own masters, in all things to be well-pleasing (viz. to their masters; so that, written in full, it would be εὐαρέστους εἶναι δεσπόταις the rendering of the Authorized Version, “to please them well in all things,” gives the correct sense); not gainsaying (or contradicting; Vulg. contradicentes; the “answering again” of the Authorized Version is too weak); not purloining ( νοσφιζομένους , setting apart for oneself, self-appropriating; comp. Acts 5:2-3), but showing all good fidelity ( πᾶσαν πίστιν ἀγαθήν , good faith of every sort, a thoroughly trustworthy spirit); in order that in all things they may adorn the doctrine of our Saviour God. Here, again, as at Titus 2:5, also at Titus 2:8, the high spiritual aim of the gospel, in what it teaches of doctrine and exacts of obedience, comes prominently out. The glory of God’s name and character among men is involved in it. And it is noticeable that the strongest expression given to this, in connection with the different classes of believers, is precisely here where the lowest in social position are concerned: previously it was that God’s word might not be blasphemed, or that nothing morally bad might be found in those who appeared as His peculiar representatives; but now it is that the conduct of the poor bondmen who avowed themselves believers might adorn the doctrine which is of God. “God thinks it meet” (to use the words of Calvin) “to receive an ornament from bondmen, whose condition was so mean and wretched that they were scarcely reckoned among men. For servants are not meant as such are now in use, but slaves, who were bought with money, and were possessed as oxen or horses. But if their life (he justly adds) is an ornament of the Christian name, all the more should they who are in honour see to it that they do not mar it by their base behaviour.”

Verses 11-14

Vers. 11-14. Taking occasion from what he had just said of the connection between the conduct of Christians and the doctrine they professed to have received, and the connection of both with the glory of God, the apostle proceeds in these verses to ground the whole of his exhortations respecting the behaviour of Christians in the essentially moral nature and design of the grace of God as now manifested in the gospel: For the grace of God, having salvation for all men, was manifested, disciplining us, etc. Two grammatical points call for remark here. One is whether the all men ( πᾶσιν ἀνθ .) should be connected with the verb ( ἐπεφάνη ) or with the adjective ( σωτήριος ). Our translators expressed the former construction in the text (“hath appeared unto all men”), but placed the other on the margin (“bringeth salvation to all men”). The earlier English versions followed the other mode (Tyndale, Cov., Cran., Genev.); and that is the construction which is now generally approved by scholars, and which certainly, from the position of the words, is the most natural. The import of the verb, also, is complete without the “all men,” since manifestation, or shining forth, involves of itself the idea of an unrestricted exhibition. The other point has respect to the exact relation and bearing of the adjectival clause, σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρ ., which might be taken as a distinct predicate: “the grace of God was manifested as bringing salvation.” But this, as Ellicott remarks, “would subjoin a secondary reference that would mar the simplicity of the context, παιδεύουσα clearly involving the principal thought.” The clause, therefore, must be held to be merely explanatory, defining more exactly the nature of the subject before speaking of its practical operation and results among men; it is the grace of God in its saving design and properties toward men “that grace of God (as Bishop Beveridge puts it) whereby alone it is possible for mankind to be saved,” which also, it may be added, presents and offers salvation to all, and in that sense brings it. The article is not used in connection with πᾶσιν , so that “the notion of all is merely general, neither signifying expressly the whole class, nor all the parts of a class” (Jelf, Gr. § 454, 1). In a word, the salvation-bringing grace of God is without respect of persons; it is unfolded to men indiscriminately, or to sinners of every name, simply as such. The apostle says of this grace, it was manifested ( ἐπεφάνη ) not simply “appeared,” but shone forth, came openly to view; referring doubtless to what had taken place in Christ, yet not merely, as some would understand it, to the Epiphany, or the incarnation of Deity in His person, but to everything connected with His appearance and work among men. It was this in its totality which brought, as it were, to the light of noon-day that grace which had previously remained comparatively hid in the bosom of God: now, emphatically, the darkness was past, the clear light shone (John 2:8; comp. also John 1:18, Matthew 11:27).

Appendix C Page 232. The Treatment of Slavery in New Testament Scripture (1 Timothy 6:2 ; Titus 2:10 )

This subject, in its relation to the spirit and teaching of Christianity, naturally falls into three closely-related parts: first, the direct instructions it gave to those standing to each other in the relation of slave and slave-owner; second, the principles it unfolded tending indirectly, yet most materially, to bear on the relation; and third, the practical measures which, under the influence of one or the other of these, came to be adopted with a view to the improvement of the existing order of things.

1. As regards the first of these points, it is to be borne in mind that the original heralds of Christianity had to do with slavery as not only an existing, but a time-honoured and widely-ramified institution, with a recognised place in the laws and usages of the empire, and of such gigantic proportions that in the gospel age a slave for every freeman has been thought a moderate computation for the provinces of the empire at large. (This is Gibbon’s estimate.) In particular districts the proportion was much greater, though in others probably somewhat less. It was such, indeed, that in the more populous parts of the empire nearly all menial employments must have been discharged by servile hands, as well as much besides that belonged to the category of skilled labour. Now, with this vast system of legalized property in human flesh, the evangelists and apostles of our Lord came into contact chiefly as it bore on the class, not of owners, but of owned of bondmen, not of those who held them in bondage; for the gospel drew at first the great body of its adherents from the lower grades of society, and those who ranked immediately above them. Of the first generation of believers in Christ, an extremely small proportion, it may be confidently assumed, would be owners of slaves; but not a few, in all probability, of the slaves themselves, whose depressed and suffering condition would naturally dispose them to hail a religion which looked so benignly on the afflicted, and held out such elevating prospects to all who sincerely embraced it. We thus quite readily account for the circumstance that the prescriptions in New Testament Scripture bearing on the relation in question are most numerous and pointed with respect to the slaves; and that sometimes, when charges are given as to the behaviour becoming them, none are delivered on the correlative duties of masters. It was not that the one class required the word of counsel or admonition more than the other; but because there were as yet scarcely any of the higher class who professed subjection to Christ, while there were many of the lower.

Having, therefore, mainly to do with those who occupied the lower place in this relationship, the authorized ambassadors of Christ naturally regarded them as peculiar objects both of pity and concern. They found them in an abject and humiliating condition, which they had no power, however they might have wished it, to alter or amend, a condition which, in all its essential features, was fixed and regulated by the legislation of the empire. While the gospel of Christ could not break the chains which outwardly lay upon them, it could, and did also, in a moral and spiritual respect, mightily relieve and benefit their state; and, in return, it justly called them to prize the better things which it brought within their reach, and to show their profiting therein by discharging in another manner than before the duty of service exacted of them to eye, in all they did, the divine rather than the human authority under which they stood: that so they might honour and commend to others the Master whom now it was their delight and glory to serve. They were thus, by their very calling as Christians, elevated within their own sphere to the high rank of witnesses of Christ, and instruments in His hand for diffusing abroad that saving light and truth by which alone the greater disorders of society could be rectified, and the troubles of the more afflicted portions of mankind effectually removed. By taking the line of conduct prescribed, also, they would pursue the course which was almost sure to react beneficially on their social position. They necessarily became patterns of active virtue; and such were the encouragements given under the system of Roman slavery for obtaining freedom as the reward of good conduct, that Christian slaves, who in their daily procedure exhibited the spirit of the gospel, might be said to be on the high road toward manumission.

So much did the apostles set by conformity in this respect to the mind of Christ, and so confidently did they reckon upon other desirable ends being thus in due time attained, that they scarcely ever touched on the civil aspect of the question on the acquirement of liberty. Incidentally the subject comes up in the Epistle to Philemon, with respect to Onesimus, his runaway slave; and yet it is so considerately and delicately handled by the apostle, that, while he shows distinctly enough his appreciation of a brotherly as contrasted with a servile relation, he would not have the former in any case acquired by fraud would not even have it wrung from the legal owner by a reluctant concession; yet, if frankly conferred, would esteem it a most worthy expression of enlightened and sanctified feeling. In another place a passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians the subject is also briefly treated in connection with a more general question, namely, how the reception of the gospel should be regarded as affecting people’s family and social relationships? Were they still to continue in these after they had become Christians? Or were they to find in their Christianity a reason for abandoning them? The apostle’s direction is: Abide as you are, and where you are, if you can do so consistently with Christian principle; and in so far as anything in your existing relations may be trying and irksome, instead of hastily ridding yourselves of it by a self-chosen method of escape, seek rather by your meek, patient, noble Christian bearing, to rise above the disadvantages of your outward position, and in the interests of godliness triumph over them. This is the general principle of action enunciated; and when applied to those who, on becoming Christians, found themselves oppressed by the yoke of slavery, it meant that they were not to use any power or opportunity they might have to break the yoke violently asunder; that they were rather to regard this as a part of the burden which, meanwhile, they had to bear for the sake of Christ; and that, while it was not good to be in slavery to man, it was possible even in this to be Christ’s freeman: and to be such was so noble and blessed a thing, that their civil disabilities might be borne, while they lasted, with comparative indifference. This seems plainly the gist and bearing of the apostle’s treatment of the subject, however we interpret the particular expressions. (It is only in respect to chap. 7:21 that any diversity of interpretation prevails. See at the close of this Dissertation, p. 448.) It did not, when fairly considered, betoken any insensibility in the apostle’s mind to the evils of slavery, taken by themselves. It is impossible, indeed, that he and the other heralds of the cross should have thought lightly of them, seeing they were in themselves so numerous and flagrant, and so contrary to the spirit of philanthropy which breathed in the gospel of Christ, and which was also exemplified so finely in the conduct of its divinely-commissioned teachers. But these men of God knew that the promptings of nature were likely to furnish a sufficient stimulus in that direction, and were not forgetful also of the effect which the new wine of the kingdom might have in the same direction fermenting, as it would naturally do, in the minds of Christian slaves, with thoughts and aspirations in ill accord with their depressed and abject condition. It was therefore the part of Christian wisdom to throw the fence mainly on the more exposed side, and urge them, as their main concern, to the cultivation of those graces and habits which tended to elevate them as rational and immortal beings.

On this side of the question, then, wisdom was manifestly justified of her children; but was it equally so in the reserve practised, on the other side, toward the masters? If the apostles were right in plying the oppressed class with exhortations to virtue and obedience, why should they not have pressed those who had the power to let the oppressed go free? They certainly did not do this. The considerations chiefly urged upon the masters are, that they should remember they had to do with One who is no respecter of persons; who stood to them in the relation of a Master, as they to their fellow-creatures; and that they should consequently forbear, not the use of the lash merely, but even threatening, and should give to all under their control what is just and equal. Such injunctions, if properly carried out, would at least secure practical freedom to the slave such freedom as would enable him to serve God faithfully in the humble duties of his station. But we can scarcely say apostolical precept, in its direct and explicit requirements of the slave-owner, goes further; especially as, when the supposition is made of believing servants under the yoke having also believing masters (1 Timothy 6:2), the latter are spoken of as still retaining their proprietary rights, and the former are enjoined to do their work of service all the more cheerfully that they were under believing masters. If, however, we take into account not the letter merely, but the spirit also of the exhortations given, we shall doubtless see that something further is required of the parties in question, and that they could not have intelligently and cordially done so much without feeling impelled in ordinary circumstances to do more. For if the master consented, as he was expressly required, to treat his bondmen as rational beings, capable of the same exalted privileges and hopes as himself, how could he desire to have them kept in a position which exposed them to treatment of another kind, treatment from which his own spiritual nature must have recoiled? Plainly he could not with hearty good-will take the one part of a Christian behaviour, without feeling drawn to do something also in respect to the other. And that the Apostle Paul thought persons in that situation should have so felt and acted, is evident from the style of address in his letter to Philemon respecting Onesimus, in which, as already indicated, he did not indeed claim strictly as a right, or demand as by divine authority, yet besought with powerful suasion, the reception of Onesimus, not merely as a forgiven bondman who had wronged his master, but in a higher character “above a slave (as he expressed himself), a brother beloved.” To yield to this affectionate entreaty, and yet re-assert over Onesimus his proprietary rights as a slaveholder, had been impossible; the very attempt to do so would have been justly branded as a pitiful evasion.

But if such were the mind of the apostles, and the certain tendency of their instructions, might it not have been better to go straight to the point, and lay upon every Christian slave-owner the authoritative injunction to enfranchise his slaves? So some have, even in our time, been bold enough to assert. But had the course in question been taken, how many enfranchisements might have been expected through its operation? Or what progress was Christianity likely to have made in ameliorating the social evils of the Empire? With this startling demand among its requirements, in the very front, we may say, of these requirements (for it was sure to be the first that should ever meet the eye of the slave-owner), persons of this class would with one consent have denounced Christianity as the opponent of their legal interests and hereditary rights; they would have everywhere met it with their determined opposition would have put it, in fact, under the ban of the Empire, as a system that, under the guise of religion, aimed at unsettling the foundations of society, and kindling the flames of a servile war. It was at once the wiser and the more humane course to make the direct prescriptions of the gospel bear only on the just and equitable treatment of the slave, so that the moment he was placed under the dominion of a believing master he should become practically free to move within the ordinary sphere of Christian duty; and in addition to this, to place the master as well as the slave under motives and considerations of a higher kind, which, in proportion as they were realized and acted on, necessarily led to the readjustment or removal of whatever in their mutual relationship was at variance with the essential principles of rectitude and goodness.

2. This touches, however, upon the second point the higher influences brought by the gospel to bear on the hearts of slave-owners, and tending indirectly to loose the bonds of slavery. The whole spirit and tendency of the religion of the gospel must have wrought in this direction.

The view given in Scripture of the common origin and natural relationships of mankind even this, which is implied in the revelations of the gospel, rather than directly announced could not, if thoughtfully pondered, be without effect in this particular line. That all should be the offspring of one parent, inheritors of one blood, and partakers of the same rational and immortal nature, and yet that they should make merchandise of one another, as if some belonged to a different world, or a different order of creation from the rest; who that justly considers the one can find it in his heart to do the other? How especially could he do so, if he coupled with men’s brotherly relation to himself their filial relation to God, though he should only think of that relation as it exists in nature, implying the formation of all alike in God’s image, and their calling as such to occupy the earth, and use its means and opportunities of good for Him? To treat a human being so formed, so constituted and destined by the hand of his Maker, as from the mere accidents of position bereft of freedom of will and independent action, were virtually to disown and shamefully dishonour the claims and interests of such a natural relationship.

Yet this is but the preliminary ground or implied basis of Christianity, not its proper substance; and its influence in this direction becomes much greater when its grand central doctrine of the incarnation and death of the Son of God for the salvation of mankind is brought distinctly into view. This, when rightly known and considered by men, could not but be felt to be like the letting in of a new light upon the world, tending by a moral necessity to raise the common platform of humanity to a higher than its former level. It is from hence, most of all, that has sprung the idea of the brotherhood of mankind of their original equality in God’s sight, and of the honour and blessedness of ministering to their wellbeing, apart from all the outward and artificial distinctions which in the heathen world entered so largely into men’s estimation of their fellow-men, and threw something like an impassable gulf between race and race, and one condition of life and another. The infinite condescension and glorious example of Christ virtually established for all a claim to the highest offices of kindness, and, wherever practically known, gave such an impulse to the more generous feelings of the heart, and the more active charities of life, that everything like cruel neglect or lordly oppression toward even the humblest grades of society could not fail to be regarded otherwise than as an outrage on humanity.

Then, regard to the interests of salvation must have wrought in the same direction. From the moment that any one became a genuine believer, it was part of his obligations to see that everything of a proper and fitting kind was done to bring all under his influence or control to partake with him in the blessings of salvation. But how could the slave-owner commend to others about him the offers of a love, of which it was but too clear he had not yet received the full impression in his own bosom? How could he desire in earnest to see them rising to the possession and enjoyment of the liberties of God’s dear children? The attainment of such a standing in spiritual things, with its high privileges and endowments, he could not but see, would only render them the more deeply conscious of the ignoble chains which rested on their bodily condition; for how could they possess the rank of sons in God’s house, and realize their title to the glorious inheritance of the saints in light, without feeling the incongruity and the dishonour of being denied the place of citizens of earth, or of being allowed to take an independent part in the ordinary concerns of a present life? It was obviously impossible that the intelligent Christian slave should have felt otherwise than is now represented; and if not absolutely impossible, at least not very natural or easy, for his master to become a sincere convert to the gospel, and still keep the yoke of bondage riveted on the neck of a Christian brother.

Of the force of these considerations the history of the subject has yielded two very instructive and convincing illustrations. The first is the reluctance commonly exhibited by slave-owners to let those under their sway enjoy the full benefit of Christian instruction and privilege. How far this was the case in ancient times we can only infer from what has happened among the modern representatives of the class; but inthe particular point under consideration, it is likely to have been worse rather than better in the earlier as compared with the later ages. Yet, as regards these later ages, no one in the least acquainted with the history of slavery can be ignorant how commonly slave-owners have been jealous of the diffusion of Christian knowledge and instruction among their slaves what restraints they have generally laid upon it how often even they have expressly and by severe penalties interdicted it. Viewed as a whole, it is not too much to say of their conduct, that it has betrayed an unmistakeable conviction that the light and liberties of the gospel carry along with them a certain danger to their proprietary interests, and involve views of truth and duty materially different from their own. The other confirmatory fact consists in the grounds and reasons which have most commonly induced believing slave-owners to grant liberation to their bondmen. It appears that in the actual progress of events the spirit of the gospel, imperfectly as it was too often understood and imbibed, played an important part. While the work of emancipation made slow advances compared with the progressive advancement of an external Christianity, it still was always proceeding, and generally did so within the professing church as a response to the undeserved mercy of Heaven an act of becoming tenderness and compassion in the recipients of divine grace and blessing. This may be seen by referring to the ancient charters of that description given by Du Cange, or even from the specimens selected out of them by Dr. Robertson ( Charles V., note 20). We find there grants of freedom made by sundry persons in favour of their slaves made “for the love of God,” “for the benefit of the soul” of the grantor, or something to that effect. When Pope Gregory the Great bestowed liberty on some slaves that had become his property, he prefaced the deed thus: “The Redeemer made Himself a propitiation to free men from the yoke of bondage, and restore them to their pristine condition; whence it well became men to restore those whom the law of nations, not nature, had brought into servitude, to the freedom which originally and properly belonged to them.” Hence also a large number of manumissions appear to have been granted by persons on their death-beds, when their near approach to the judgment-seat rendered their consciences more alive to the great realities of the gospel, and the corresponding obligations: they granted the boon, it is commonly stated, “for the redemption of their soul.” And hence also occasions of special favour and blessing were not unfrequently seized for conferring the grant; the benefit received on the one side being naturally felt to call for the bestowal of a like benefit on the other.

Indeed, it is difficult to understand how any one, if he could only divest himself of the perverting bias of habit, or the still more perverting bias of worldly interest, and would calmly look at the matter in the light of gospel truth, could come to another conclusion than that of either abandoning his right of property in his fellow-men, or of disclaiming allegiance to the authority of Christ. I do not see how, even with the kindest and most considerate treatment of his slaves, he could feel that he had discharged his obligations according to the requirements of the gospel without releasing them from their bondage. By one of these requirements he is called to be an imitator of Christ in that very walk of love wherein Christ has at once set so illustrious an example and given so costly a sacrifice. By another, he is enjoined to do to others whatsoever he would that they should do to him. By a third, he is urged to do good to all around him, as he has opportunity to do it beyond the measure of the heathen, and for the promotion especially of the higher interests of mankind. But, on the supposition of his continuing to be a slave-owner, what honour do such precepts receive at his hands? He deliberately prefers holding men subject to bondage, while it was the special glory of his Master to deliver them from it; he practises upon them a wrong; and if he does not personally inflict, he leaves them in a position in which they may have inflicted upon them, insults and injuries, pains and cruelties, which no man of sane mind would wish another to have the power of inflicting upon himself. And instead of using his opportunities to do the part of a wise benefactor and moral regenerator of the world, he lazily and selfishly contributes to the maintenance of one of the foulest stains on the brotherhood of mankind; he lends his countenance and support to a system of which, as a whole, and as regards its inherent tendency, it has been not more eloquently than justly said: “It darkens and depraves the intellect; it paralyzes the hand of industry; it is the nourisher of agonizing fears and of sullen revenge; it crushes the spirit of the bold; it is the tempter, the murderer, and the tomb of virtue; and either blasts the felicity of those over whom it domineers, or forces them to seek for relief from their sorrows in the gratifications, and the mirth, and the madness of the passing hour.” (Speech of Dr. Andrew Thomson, Edinburgh.)

It is proper to add, however, that there may have been persons in ancient times, as there are known to have been some in later, who were not insensible to the considerations now noticed, and yet refrained from granting liberation to their slaves, out of regard chiefly to the present temporal comfort of the slaves themselves. In those States where slavery has become a widely-extended and compact system, the manners and usages of society so adapt themselves to it, that emancipation in individual cases, or on isolated properties, might have the effect of throwing the emancipated out of one class without being able to secure their introduction into another, better, or even so well, situated for employment and comfort as the one they had. They might, in consequence, if enfranchised, become exposed to neglect and want. There can be no doubt that such was the case, about the gospel era and before it, with many freedmen in certain districts of Italy, where, from the general employment of slaves in the cultivation of the soil, the free part of the population often fell into a very depressed and pitiable condition. The same may have happened, and doubtless did happen, in other provinces of the empire, of which we have less specific information; and it is also known to have happened in particular portions of what but lately were the slave states of the West Indies and of America. So that it would not always be simply from the power of the gospel not being felt, or from a deliberate disregard of its claims in this particular direction, that the bondmen of Christian masters did not regain their freedom. A benevolent regard to their present wellbeing, even though possibly a somewhat mistaken or undue regard, may have often contributed to the result.

3. We turn now, lastly, to the practical measures in which, so far as we know, the early teachers and representatives of the gospel gave effect to the direct instructions, and the indirect, the higher considerations under which, in this respect, they were placed by their belief of the truth.

On this point our means of information are very limited and fragmentary, and there is much we should like to know of the earlier periods of church action of which we must be content to be ignorant. Undoubtedly the process of relief within the church would have been quick and satisfactory, compared with what we have reason to believe it was, if all in the position of slave-owners, who professed obedience to the gospel, had risen at once to the proper height of knowledge and attainment in this branch of their calling. But we are not at liberty to suppose that; the pleading alone in the Epistle to Philemon, shows plainly enough how slowly the very best of the early converts grasped here the full results and consequences of their faith. There would doubtless be many who at once felt it their duty to give hearty obedience to the precepts of the gospel, in so far as these required a kind and considerate treatment of their dependants, who yet, from the force of habit or other influences, would never think of bringing the system itself of slavery to the test of the great principles of the gospel. The case of John Newton, in modern times, may be cited in proof, since, after undergoing one of the most remarkable conversions on record, he continued for a time not only insensible to the common evils of slavery, but even actively engaged in the inhuman transactions of the slave-trade, conceiving all his obligations in the matter to be discharged if only he looked after the bodily comfort of the unhappy victims who fell into his hands. The utterly antichristian character of the traffic disclosed itself but gradually to his mind. A bequest may also be noticed in the same connection, which was left by an American gentleman of last century to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel “a plantation stocked with slaves.” “An odd legacy,” says Warburton, in the sermon preached by him for the Society of the same year; “an odd legacy to the promulgators of the law of liberty, but intended, perhaps, as a kind of compensation for these violations of it.” Custom had in all probability rendered the individual entirely unconscious of the inconsistence.

It should not therefore surprise us to learn that, in the church of the apostolic and immediately subsequent age, there were Christian slave-owners as well as Christian slaves in her communion, with a relaxation no doubt of the bond, and a tendency begun toward its dissolution, yet still no general movement made for its formal extinction. Slaves and masters alike, on their professing Christianity, came under the discipline of the church, and were amenable to it for their actual behaviour. This was of itself a great security against all harsh treatment, considering what discipline was in those early times how impartial and how stringent; and it is probably the main reason why so little is said on the subject of slavery in the more ancient Patristic writings, although doubtless the ascetic tendency which so early began to tell on leading men in the church exercised, to some extent, an unfavourable influence also here. The so-called Apostolic Fathers Justin Martyr, also Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian very rarely refer to the subject of slavery in any way, and give no special instructions concerning it. Even in the voluminous writings of Augustine, we shall scarcely find a more explicit or pointed testimony than the following: “A Christian should not possess a slave after the same manner that he does a horse or a piece of silver” ( De Serm. Dom. In Monte, L. i. § 590). And when giving a summary of what the church, as the true mother of all Christians, enjoins upon her children, the whole he says in her behalf as to the relation of master and servant is: “Thou teachest servants to cleave to their masters, not so much from the necessity of their condition, as from delight in the duties of their calling. Thou makest masters placable toward their servants, from regard to the great God, their common Lord, and more ready to give counsel than to practise coercion” ( De Mor. Eccl. Cath. § 63). Chrysostom failed even more than Augustine to bring out on this point the true spirit of the gospel; and his continuous commentaries on the epistles of the New Testament furnished him also with better opportunities. In his exposition of Philemon, while he speaks strongly enough of the scandal brought on Christianity by slaves running away from their masters, and of Christians abetting and aiding them in their attempts to do so, he does not say a single word on the duty of Christian masters to grant liberty to their slaves; he speaks also quite familiarly of our custom of purchasing slaves with money, and of its being esteemed the glory of a master to have many of them. He is somewhat better at Ephesians 6:9, where masters are enjoined to do the same things toward their slaves that the slaves themselves were exhorted to do, and to forbear threatening, as knowing that they had a Master in heaven, with whom there is no respect of persons. Here Chrysostom presses the consideration that masters shall assuredly have their measure meted back to them; that they must do as they hope to be done to; and that they should teach their slaves to be pious and godly, and then all would go well. But emancipation is not once hinted at.

Notwithstanding such comparative failures, however, on the part of the standard-bearers of the church, the mild, beneficent, love-embracing spirit of the gospel made way, first lightening the yoke, and then subverting the existence of slavery. This appears especially in the efforts put forth from time to time to obtain the freedom of Christians who by misfortune had been reduced to slavery, and the fresh facilities that were given to slave emancipation by legal enactment. The barbarous treatment of the servile class was openly condemned by the ministers and councils of the church. Clement of Alexandria absolutely prohibited the acceptance of any oblations from cruel and sanguinary masters; and several councils appointed temporary excommunications to be pronounced against those who, without any judicial sentence, put their slaves to death. Acacius, bishop of Amida, had the gold and silver vessels of his church melted to redeem 7000 captives, whom the Romans had brought from Persia, and sent them back free. Ambrose did something of the same sort at Milan. Cases are even mentioned of persons who sold their whole property to purchase the freedom of their fellow-Christians. One Melania is said to have liberated so many as 8000 slaves; Obidius, a Gaulish Christian, 5000, etc. And so congenial did the work of manumission seem to the spirit of the gospel, that Constantine, while suspending ordinary work on the Lord’s day, expressly allowed the manumission of slaves, as having in itself the essential characteristics of a pious and charitable action. (Guizot, Hist. of Civil. in France, ii. p. 128; Bingham, Ant. B. xx. c. 2, 5.)

In another respect, also, the ancient church did good service: she guarded the chastity of female slaves, and servile birth formed no disqualification for the sacred offices of the priesthood. The legal statutes, for a considerable time, embarrassed her operations, and made the progress of the work more difficult. The Code of Justinian recognised, indeed, the original equality of mankind, but it admitted the forfeiture of this equality by the casualties which use and wont had allowed to entail the loss of freedom. Still, what was not removed was in several respects alleviated. Masters were forbidden to abandon their slaves when sick or enfeebled with age they were obliged to have them privately cared for, or sent to the hospitals. In heathen times, slaves could not properly marry; their union was merely concubinage; and for a free person to marry a slave was even held a capital offence. The Christian church struggled long and stedfastly against such things, and at last succeeded in getting legal sanction to the marriage of slaves, and gave to marriages of this kind, as well as others, her benediction. The tendency of the imperial legislation became increasingly favourable to the interests of the slave; and Gibbon says of Justinian’s Code, that “the spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic servitude.” But the extinction was much retarded, especially by two causes.

The first of these was the growing worldliness and corruption of the church. The salt, to a very large extent, had lost its savour. In process of time, churches themselves came to hold property in slaves, and even had their property in this respect guarded by special enactments. While churches were constituted asylums for runaway slaves, slaves that belonged to ecclesiastics or sacred foundations, if they became runaways, were denied all right of protection; any one who harboured them became liable to pay a triple fine (Milman’s Lat. Christianity, i. 365). The other circumstance was the enormous multiplication of slaves consequent upon the irruption of the northern nations. This increased the evil to such an extent that, by its very excess, it helped to work out the remedy. Slaves ceased in a manner to be saleable; they became serfs labourers attached to the soil; and by this appropriation they had conceded to them a measure of security against the caprice and despotism of the masters. In this state one could not be sold, save as part and parcel of the ground on which he resided; and while thus bound to a kind of hereditary serfdom, his position was regulated by law guarded, though still but imperfectly, from the freaks of arbitrary violence and oppression. Other changes, mainly effected by trade and commerce, came in to ameliorate their condition; and after centuries of delay, and a step-to-step progress, serfdom itself passed, throughout the different countries of Europe, into personal and social freedom.

Broken, therefore, and chequered as the history is, interrupted by many haltings and even temporary reverses, it has still been an advancement Christianity has vindicated her title to the character of a friend of the captive and the bond. She would have done so, it is true, far more speedily and extensively if she had herself remained free from the corruptions of the world, and if her grand aims for the good of mankind had been properly carried out. But, as matters actually stood, a gradual rectification took place; a milder and better tone was diffused throughout society; a standard of generosity and loving-kindness was everywhere raised, which might be said to frown on the intolerance and cruelty of slavery, and prepared the world for giving practical effect to the feeling of a common brotherhood. Nothing, indeed, can be more certain, from the struggles and triumphs of the past, than that this horrid institution, which is alike dishonouring to God and injurious to the best interests of society, cannot stand with a healthful and robust Christianity: as the one lives and thrives, the other of necessity gives way; and were there a gospel everywhere triumphant, there would infallibly be a free as well as a righteous and a blessed world.

NOTE to p. 435, On 1 Corinthians 7:21

In illustration of the general principle that people, on becoming Christians, should abide in the calling wherein they were called, the apostle refers, along with some other cases, to that of bondmen: “Wast thou called, being a slave? Care not for it. But if also (or indeed) thou art able to become free, use it rather.” “That is,” says Chrysostom, “rather be a slave. And why, then, does he bid him, who had it in his power to become free, to continue a slave? He did it to show that slavery no way injures, but rather profits ( ὅτι ὀυδεν βλάπτει ἡ δουλεία , ἀλλὰ καὶ ὠφελεί ).” Rather Strange doctrine, surely, to ascribe to one who in his own case valued so highly, not merely his common liberty, but his special freedom as a Roman citizen, that he would not allow its rights to be trampled on; and who, in respect to his convert Onesimus, showed how well he could distinguish between the disadvantages of a slave’s place and the honourable position of a brother! Chrysostom adds that he was aware there were some who understood the use recommended of liberty: if you are able to become free, embrace freedom rather. But he rejects this view as against the connection, which (he thinks) requires that even if a believing slave had the option of becoming free, he should prefer his slavery. And the same view is taken by Theodoret, Theophylact, also by various modern commentators of note, in particular by Estius, Wolf, Bengel, Meyer, Alford. Several of them hold it to be the only view grammatically tenable; for when καὶ succeeds εἰ , it does not belong to εἰ , but to the following clause, which it is spread over and qualifies; so that the meaning (it is alleged) can only be: But if even thou canst be free, use it namely, slavery rather. Dean Stanley hesitates between the two modes of explanation. Whether freedom or slavery is to be supplied to the verb use, he conceives to be “one of the most evenly balanced questions in the interpretation of the New Testament.” And he goes on to state, with his wonted dexterity, the considerations that appear to make for the two views respectively, but commences with the strange assertion that the verb χρῆσαι “may either be choose, or make use of, although it leans rather to the former, and thus favours the first interpretation” that, namely, which would couple it with slavery. He does not, however, produce any passage in the New Testament in support of the sense of choosing; nor can a single one be produced. In the two Epistles to the Corinthians it occurs, besides the present passage, six times ( 1Co 7:31 , 1 Corinthians 9:12, 1 Corinthians 9:15; 2Co 1:17 , 1 Corinthians 3:12, 1 Corinthians 13:10), but never in the sense of choosing always in that of using, making use of. And retaining this as the only allowable meaning, how could the apostle exhort any Christian slave, who had the opportunity of becoming free, to use slavery rather? Slavery is not a gift or talent to be used, but a restraint, a hardship to be borne or submitted to if necessary but no more. And with all its tendency to asceticism, and to a foolish self-imposition of outward restraints, the ancient church still had common sense enough, and native instincts remaining, to dispose her members generally so to regard it. The well-known practice of Christians in freely spending of their means to liberate their brethren from servitude, when by some calamity reduced to it, was a virtual protest against the inflated oratory of Chrysostom, and his false exegesis.

As to the grammatical canon, very formally propounded by Alford, that καὶ after εἰ qualifies the succeeding clause, so as to mark a gradation upward if even, one has only to look at the passages in which the particles occur to see how far it will carry us. Sometimes, no doubt, the ascensive force is plain enough, as at Philippians 2:17, “But if I even be offered ( ἀλλὰ εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι ); “to which may be added 1 Peter 3:14. But take other examples such as 2 Corinthians 11:15, where, speaking of Satan and his instruments of working, the apostle says, “No great wonder, therefore, if also ( εἰ καὶ ) his ministers are transformed as ministers of righteousness.” Here the particles indicate merely an additional and subordinate fact if progress at all, a progress downward, not upward. So also at 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What hast thou, that thou didst not receive? But if also (or indeed) thou didst receive it εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔλαβες ” (also 2 Corinthians 5:16, 2 Corinthians 7:8); on which Alford is himself obliged to let go the ascensive force. It does not appear that for the New Testament usage one can go further with a grammatical principle in the matter than as stated by Winer: “In general, εἰ καὶ signifies although, si etiam, quanquam, indicating something as an actual fact; “or, as Mr. Moulton puts it in a note, indicating either that what the sentence expresses is, in the writer’s belief, an actual fact, or a concession on his part that the supposition is correct ( Gr. § 53, 7, Clark’s ed.). Mr. Moulton, however, himself adopts the ascensive force in the passage before us.

The difficulty, as appears to me, in giving a natural and proper explanation of the passage has been aggravated by supposing that either ἐλευθερία , freedom, or δουλεία , bondage, must be supplied for the verb χρῆσαι . The more natural construction is to supply the noun involved in the preceding verb; the stress lies on it on δύνασαι . “Wast thou called, being a slave? Care not for it. But if also thou art able ( δύνασαι ) to become free, use it (the δύναμις , ability) rather;” having the power, turn it rather to account. It is not properly the use of the freedom which the apostle advises (in which case we should certainly, as Alford remarks, have judged ἐλευθερία to be the proper word to be supplied to χρῆσαι ), but the use of the power to obtain freedom; and either this, or the whole clause, power to become free, is the thing to be supplied. Thus viewed, two suppositions are made in the verse: first, slavery without the power of escaping from it in which case the principle of abiding in one’s station holds without any qualification, and under the elevating influence of the gospel a noble indifference is recommended; second, the power of acquiring freedom, with an advice to take advantage of the opportunity. Then, in the following verse, a twofold consideration is introduced by γὰρ , suited to the two suppositions going before: the bondman, even though remaining such, is the Lord’s freeman, and the freeman is the Lord’s bondman. Either way a qualifying circumstance in the one case tending to abate the natural evil, in the other to circumscribe and regulate the natural good. But to leave no doubt that the apostle was not insensible to the superiority of a free over an enslaved condition, and regarded the former as alone properly suited to the place of a believer, he adds, 1 Corinthians 7:24, “Ye were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” Seeing how great a price has been given to raise you into the glorious liberty of the gospel, do not act an unseemly part by becoming bondmen to your fellow-creatures. And of course, if they should not voluntarily become such, neither should they voluntarily continue such, when it was in their power to escape from the anomalous position.

Interpreted in this manner, the exhortation of the apostle is throughout reasonable and consistent. His general direction is that people, on becoming Christians, should continue in the relations which they at the time occupied the married (though to a heathen spouse) in wedlock, the uncircumcised in uncircumcision, the slave in bondage. But where a change to the better might be found practicable, let it be adopted the Christian wife drawing over to the faith her unbelieving husband, or, failing in that, and finding domestic peace impracticable, retiring into privacy; the slave having the power to become free, using that power; but the free on no account bartering their freedom for a state of bondage, since that would be unsuitable to their high calling as the redeemed children of God in Christ.

Verse 12

Ver. 12. In this verse we have the main point presented to us of the apostle’s testimony respecting God’s grace the particular aspect under which he here presses it on our regard; and this, it must be remembered, takes quite naturally its hue from the preceding context, in which the Christian life, in its habitual resistance to sin and diligent practising of all moral excellencies, was the great theme. Hence, the saving grace of God comes into consideration as the paedagogic or moulding power, by means of which our naturally wayward and corrupt souls are formed to that higher scheme of life: disciplining us to the end that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we might live soberly, justly, and godlily in this present world. We have no word that exactly corresponds to the παιδεύουσα of the apostle. With classical writers it bore the sense simply of instructing or educating; in which sense, as elsewhere noted (1 Timothy 1:20), the word occurs, once at least, in the New Testament (Acts 7:22). But a deeper meaning came to be infused into the verb and the cognate noun ( παιδεία ) by the more profound and earnest spirit of the gospel; for, as Trench well remarks, the sacred writers “felt and understood that all effectual instruction for the sinful children of men includes and implies chastening, or, as we are accustomed to say, out of a sense of the same truth, correction.” The expression here, therefore, bears respect to the native tendency of the human heart, as requiring to be chastened and subdued, that it may be delivered from its inherent superfluity of naughtiness, and formed to the pure, upright, and benignant character which becomes the gospel of Christ. And this corrective influence, or internal discipline, is what the grace of God in Christ Jesus comes to effect; but does so, of course, according to its proper nature, less by imposing any conscious restraint, than by infusing and nourishing the desires which breathe after conformity to the will of God. Herein lies the difference between the law and the gospel; yet their common end, the moral aim of the disciplining in question, is expressed first in the negative, then in the positive form: in the former respect it shows itself in a denial of ungodliness and worldly ( κοσμικὰς , only occurring once again in New Testament Scripture, Hebrews 9:1) lusts; that is, in a disrelishing and avoiding of those things which tend to dishonour God, and pamper desires and appetites which are of a merely terrene nature. It is impossible, of course, in such things to draw on every side a sharp boundary line between what is allowable and forbidden, for the one will often seem, in actual life, to approach very near to the other; while still, in every real child of grace, and the more always that grace is living and active in his experience, there will never fail to be such a shrinking from the corruptions, and such a reserve even in regard to the common pleasures of the world, as to render his course easily distinguishable from that of those whose “portion is in this life.” We have the same thought as to the renunciation of worldly lusts expressed, and somewhat more strongly, in 1 John 2:15-17.

A positive, however, must go along with this negative; for an active following after the good is the necessary counterpart and complement to a renunciation of the evil; and this the apostle describes as a life marked by three prominent characteristics: that we might live soberly, justly, and godlily, in this present world. We may not say, perhaps, that in these words the apostle intended to mark a threefold distinction of moral duty; but commentators have not unnaturally observed, that they do in fact admit of special application to oneself, one’s neighbour, and God. Soberly expresses the self-command and restraint which the Christian should always exercise over his thoughts and actions; justly, the integrity that should regulate all his dealings towards his fellow-men; while godlily or piously indicates the state of mind and conduct he should maintain in his relation toward God. And all these are given as distinctive features of the life he should lead, he should be ever living (for the aorist ζήσωμεν sums it up into one ideal whole), in this present world, notwithstanding that there is so much in it to tempt to a contrary course. Through grace the believer must triumph over all; as the apostle says of himself elsewhere, “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me” (Philippians 4:13).

Verse 13

Ver. 13. Looking for the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. This statement, expressing the attitude of believers with reference to the future, can scarcely be regarded as included in the disciplinary action of the grace of God as now revealed in Christ; it comes in rather as an appendage or fitting sequel to the other, and for the purpose of showing how the past manifestation of the grace of God in Christ, when it works its proper effect upon the heart of the believer, naturally leads on to the expectation of another manifestation a manifestation in glory. Such an expectation will doubtless help the disciplinary process, by bringing to bear on the higher principles and desires of the soul the potent influence of an elevating hope; but it does not itself possess a disciplinary character. When believers are said to look for the hope, it is clear that hope is, if not altogether, yet mainly, viewed in an objective light identified with the object hoped for; yet, being said to be looked for, there is here also an exercise of hope in the same direction. There is the same apparent anomaly in what St. Paul says of the Jews respecting the resurrection at Acts 24:5: “Having hope toward God, which [hope] they also themselves look for” ( προσδέχοντι , the same word as here), “that there shall be a resurrection:” a hope possessed, and at the same time looked forward to as still in the future (see also Galatians 5:5, Colossians 1:5). The apostle seems to have been in the habit of contemplating the hope of coming glory so much in connection with its actual realization, that it sometimes presented itself to his mind as a kind of substantive thing, standing outside the believer, although still the believer’s existing position was conceived of by him as one of hope; and at other times he represents him as being peculiarly influenced by the power of hope (see Romans 8:24, Colossians 1:27, Titus 1:2). The hope, considered with respect to its realization, is here called blessed, because of the happy results with which it shall be associated in the experience of all to whom it properly belongs. But the hope itself is more closely defined by what follows the manifestation of the glory: so, certainly, should ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης be rendered, not by hendyadis, as in the Authorized Version, “glorious appearing,” for the manifestation of the glory as a thing to come stands here in a kind of antithesis to the manifestation of the grace which has already taken place. But the chief difficulty in connection with this latter portion of ver. 13 lies in determining whether the manifestation of glory spoken of is to be connected both with God and with Christ, or simply with Christ as at once God and Saviour. If the latter view were adopted, then the proper way to avoid all ambiguity would be to render, with Ellicott and many others, “the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ;” while, if with the Vulgate, Syr., and all the English translations, except the Genevan, we render, “of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” we naturally think of God and Christ as distinguished from each other. A decision has been sought in favour of the former view, by Middleton and many others, on the grammatical principle, that the article τοῦ , standing simply before μεγ . θεοῦ , and omitted before σωτῆρος , covers the two expressions as attributives of one and the same person. On the ground of this principle, Middleton says: “It is impossible to understand θεοῦ and σωτῆρος otherwise than of one person.” Had two been meant, the article must have been repeated before σωτῆρος . Ellicott, however, frankly admits that “it is very doubtful whether the interpretation of the passage can be fully settled on this principle.” And Winer, while he allows that “ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν may be regarded as a second predicate, jointly depending on the article τοῦ still holds to the other interpretation, and considers “the article to have been omitted before σωτῆρος , because this word is defined by the genitive ἡμῶν , and because the apposition precedes the proper name: of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ ” ( Gr. § xix. 5). Alford is of the same opinion, and thinks that σωτη ́ ρ was one of those words which gradually dropt the article and became a quasi proper name referring in proof to 1 Timothy 2:1, 1 Timothy 4:10 the article here also being the less needed on account of the pronoun ἡμῶν . Both writers, however, as also Huther, De Wette, and several others, confess themselves to be chiefly influenced by a regard to St. Paul’s usual style of representation, especially in the Pastoral epistles, in which the relation of God to salvation is not identified with, but distinguished from Christ’s: 1 Timothy 1:1, 1 Timothy 2:3-5; Titus 3:4-6; also Jude 1:24. There is, undoubtedly, something in this consideration; and it can scarcely be maintained that there is any quite parallel passage in St. Paul’s writings, if he should here be held to have designated Jesus Christ at once “the great God and our Saviour.”

On the other hand, there are especially two considerations which must be allowed to have considerable weight in the opposite direction. One is, that the notion expressed by ἐπιφανεία is in New Testament Scripture specially applied to the Son, not to the Father ( 2Ti 1:10 ; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 1Ti 6:14 ; 2 Timothy 4:1, 2 Timothy 4:8); the nearest approach to it in connection with the Father is at Matthew 16:27, where it is said that Christ shall appear in the glory of His Father, though still the appearing or manifestation itself is Christ’s. The other consideration is, that nearly all the Fathers Greek, as well as Latin who refer to this passage, understood it simply of Christ. Thus Chrysostom, after quoting the words, says: “Where are they who speak of the Son as less than the Father? Of the great God, he says, and Saviour. When he couples great with God, he does not say great in respect to what, but great absolutely, since there is nothing great after Him.” So Jerome: “Where is the serpent Arius? Where the snake Eunomius? Jesus Christ, the Saviour, is called the great God. Not as the first-begotten of every creature, not as the Word or Wisdom of God, is He so called, but as Jesus Christ names which belong to Him as having assumed humanity.” Quotations to the same effect have been produced from Clemens Alex., Hippolytus, Basil, Gregory Nys., Epiphanius, Aug. (see Waterland, Works, ii. p. 135). This striking unanimity as to such being indisputably the meaning of the passage, must be held conclusive to this extent, that -the application of the epithets “great God” and “our Saviour” to Jesus Christ, appeared to persons conversant with the Greek as a living tongue, not only a competent, but by much the most natural interpretation. So that no one who takes this view can be charged with doing violence to the passage, considered by itself. The only question that seems open is, whether the other view, which distinguishes between God and Christ, is not in somewhat better accord with the usual language of the apostle. In a doctrinal point of view, it is of little moment which interpretation is adopted; for, while I see no reason for saying, with Alford, that this latter interpretation “even more strikingly asserts Christ’s equality in glory with the Father,” than that which directly ascribes to Him the designation of the great God, it is inconceivable that the name of Christ as Saviour should be associated equally with the Father in that manifestation of glory which is the culminating hope of the church, unless He had been essentially divine unless, indeed, the peculiar glory of the Father had been that also of the Son. I am disposed, with Calvin, rather to press this aspect of the matter, as being, on the whole, the more sure and satisfactory. Feeling some doubt whether the epithets should be applied solely to Christ, or disjunctively to the Father and the Son, and having referred to the mode in which the orthodox Fathers sought to confute the Arians from the passage, Calvin characteristically adds: “More briefly and certainly may the Arians be refuted thus, since Paul, when speaking of the revelation of the glory of the great God, presently conjoined Christ, so that we might know that that revelation of glory was to be made in His person; as if he said, when Christ shall have appeared, then shall be disclosed to us the magnitude of the divine glory.”

Verse 14

Ver. 14. In this verse we have an expansion of the term Saviour applied to Christ, so presented as to bring out a fresh exhibition of the grand moral aim contemplated in the grace of the gospel: Who gave Himself for us Himself, ἑαυτὸν , as contradistinguished from any inferior gift, and that for us, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν , not exactly in our room or stead (which ἀντὶ ἡμῶν would have expressed), but in our behalf It was altogether in our interest that the great self-sacrificing deed was done; and in what respect is immediately stated: in order that He might redeem λυτρώσηται , by the paying of a ransom free us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. It is what may be called the redemptive, not the atoning or propitiatory aspect of Christ’s work, which is here brought into view, though the two are very closely interconnected, and the one now under consideration presupposes and is founded upon the other; for it is only by virtue of the reconciliation with God, effected through the propitiatory death of Christ, that there is attained by the sinner such a participation in the life of Christ, and such renewing and strengthening aid from the Spirit of grace, as may enable him to break the bonds of his spiritual captivity, and rise into the pure and glorious liberty of God’s children. Having through His obedience unto death paid the costly ransom through which this happy change is accomplished, Christ is therefore said to have redeemed from iniquity those who share in His salvation, and purified them to Himself as a peculiar people λαὸν περιούσιον , a people over and above, occupying a position separate and peculiar, like one’s peculium or special treasure. The expression, as used here, is taken from Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 14:2, where the Sept. gives it as the equivalent of the Heb. segullah ( סְגֻלָּה ), treasure, or peculiar possession. In meaning, it substantially coincides with the λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν of 1 Peter 2:9, a people for doing about, preparing, and fashioning for one’s special use, hence peculiar ( οἰκεῖον , Theodoret). Jerome, with substantial correctness, and on the ground of those Old Testament passages having explained the phrase, adds: “Rightly, therefore, Christ Jesus, our Great God and Saviour, redeemed us by His blood, in order that He might make a Christian people peculiar to Himself, who should then indeed be peculiar, if they proved to be zealous of good works.” So that while the direct subject of the passage is sanctification, this is here, as in New Testament Scripture generally, made to spring out of that which is primarily the ground of our justification and peace with God.

Verse 15

Ver. 15. These things speak, and exhort, and reprove with all authority. A short retrospective utterance, for the purpose of impressing upon the mind of Titus the importance of the things which had just been declared respecting the salvation of God in Christ, and of his bringing them to bear in every possible way upon the understandings and hearts of the people. They were, therefore, first to be spoken, or taught in plain and intelligible language; then they were to be made the subject of exhortation, that is, pressed as matters of obligation upon the conscience; and finally, when these failed to secure the requisite attention and compliance, reproof was to be added and this with all authority, μετὰ πάσης ἐπιταγῆς with every sort of imperative earnestness, as of one speaking under authority, having a right to enjoin as well as to teach and exhort. The word ἐπιταγὴ is used only by Paul, and always in much the same sense an authoritative order or command (Romans 16:26; 1Co 7:6 ; 1 Timothy 1:1; Titus 1:3). Let no man despise thee; that is, maintain your place as a delegated ambassador and servant of Christ, and act in such a manner that others shall see your determination to secure what in this respect is due to your office. Admonitions of this kind, given more than once to Timothy (comp. 1 Timothy 4:11-12, 1 Timothy 5:21, 1 Timothy 6:13-14, 2 Timothy 4:1-2), seem to imply that his weak point lay here, and that he required to be stimulated to the display of firmness and resolution in standing to the rights and duties of his office.