Bible Commentaries
Titus 1

Verse 1

According to the faith of the elect of God; that is, of the Christians, now the elect people of God. --- Truth, which is according to piety: because there may be truth also in things that regard not piety. By truth, St. John Chrysostom here understands the truth of the Christian religion, as distinguished from the Jewish worship, which consisted in a great measure in the figures and types of truth. (Witham)

Verse 2

Who [1] lieth not, or who cannot lie, being truth itself. --- Hath promised; that is, decreed to give life everlasting to his faithful servants. --- Before the times of the world.[2] Literally, before secular times. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Qui non mentitur, Greek: o apseudes.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Ante tempora sæcularia, Greek: pro chronon aionion.

Verse 3

Manifested his word. St. Jerome understands the word incarnate; others, the word of God preached, which St. Paul says, was committed to him, &c. See St. John Chrysostom, p. 383. (Witham)

Verse 4

To Titus, my beloved, (in the Greek, my true and[3] genuine son,...grace and peace. In the present ordinary Greek copies is added mercy, which the Protestant translators followed; but it is judiciously omitted by Dr. Wells, as not found in the best manuscripts nor in St. John Chrysostom’s Greek edition, nor in the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers. (Witham)

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Dilecto filio, Greek: gnesio tekno.

Verse 5

That thou shouldst,[4] &c. The sense cannot be, that he was to change any thing St. Paul had ordered, but to settle things which St. Paul had not time to do; for example, to establish priests [5] in the cities, that is to say, bishops, as the same are called bishops ver. 7; and, as St. John Chrysostom and others observe, it is evident from this very place, that the word presbyter was then used to signify either priests or bishops. If St. Jerome here meant that bishops were only placed over priests by ecclesiastical and not by divine institution, as some have expounded his words, his singular opinion against so many others is not to be followed. (Witham) --- That the ordaining of priests belongs only to bishops, is evident from the Acts and from St. Paul’s epistles to Timothy and Titus. It is true, St. Jerome seems to express himself as if in the primitive Church there was no great difference between priests and bishops, yet he constantly excepts giving holy orders, (ep. 85) as also confirming the baptized, by giving them the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands and holy chrism; (dial. cont. Lucif. chap. iv.) which pre-eminence he attributes to bishops only. To assert that there is no distinction between a priest and bishop is an old heresy, condemned as such by the Church. See St. Epiphanius, hær. 75.; St Augustine, hær 53.

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Ut corrigas, Greek: epidiorthose, ut supercorrigas.

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Per civitates presbyteros, Greek: presbuterous. St. John Chrysostom, (p. 387) Greek: tous episkopous.

Verse 6

Without crime. See the like qualifications, 1 Timothy iii. (Witham) --- These words if taken in their strictest meaning, do not seem to have all the force St. Paul meant them to have. For it is not sufficient that a bishop be free from great crimes; he ought, moreover to lead such a life as to draw others by his example to the practice of virtue. (Calmet) --- If we consult all antiquity we shall find, that if in the early infancy of the Church some who had been once married were ordained to the ministry, we shall find that after their ordination they abstained from the use of marriage. See St. Epiphanius, lib. iii. cont. hær. and lib. iii. hæres. 59.

Verse 7

Not proud.[6] The Greek word is of an extensive signification, which the Protestants have translated self-willed. The Latin interpreter (2 Peter ii. 10.) for the same Greek word has put, pleasing themselves; as it were never pleased with others, the unhappy disposition of a proud man. (Witham)

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Non superbum. St. Jerome says, non tumidum, Greek: me authade. See Cornelius a Lapide and Legh’s Critica. (2 Peter ii. 10.)

Verse 8

Continent:[7] though both the Latin and Greek word signify in general, one that hath abstained, or contained, and overcome himself: yet it is particularly used for such as contain themselves from carnal pleasures. (Witham)

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Continentem, Greek: egkrate. The Protestant translate the verb, (1 Corinthians vii. 9.) If they cannot contain, let them marry.

Verse 10

For there are also many. St. Paul here alludes principally to the Jews, who were of the circumcision, from whom St. Paul suffered much during the greater part of his life. They constantly enforced the necessity of the new converted Gentiles observing the law of Moses, and of their being circumcised, if they wished to be saved. There were many Jews of this description in Crete; to resist whom, St. Paul here tells Titus he ought to appoint bishops remarkable for their zeal and learning. (Josephus; Socrates, lib. ii. chap. 38. Hist. Eccles.) --- Especially they who are of the circumcision; which shews who were chiefly the false teachers. (Witham)

Verse 11

Whole houses.[8]]

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Universas domos, Greek: olous oikous.

Verse 12

One of them, a prophet of their own.[9] He does not mean a true prophet, but as the pretended prophets of Baal were called prophets. St. Paul understands Epimenides, a poet of Crete, who by some pagan authors was thought to know things to come; but Aristotle says, he knew only things past, not to come. The ill character he gave of the Cretians was, that they were always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies, addicted to idleness and sensual pleasures. (Witham)

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Propheta, Greek: prophetes. Cretenses, semper mendaces, malæ bestiæ, ventres pigri; Greek: Kretes, aei pseustai, kaka theria, gasteres argai. Aristotle, lib. iii. Rhetor. chap. xvii. Epimenides ille de futuris non vaticinabatur: Greek: peri ton esomenon ouk emanteueto, alla peri ton gegonoton. --- Greek: Kretixeiin was proverbially used for uttering falsehood, and it was a received adage, and very illiberal on the inhabitants of Crete, Cappadocia, and Cilicia. Greek: Kretes, Kappodokes, Kilikes, tria Kappa Kakista.

Verse 13

This testimony, or character, says the apostle, is true, by public fame of them, and therefore they must be rebuked sharply,[10] their condition and dispositions requiring it; which, therefore, is not contrary to the admonition he gave to Timothy, to be gentle towards all. (2 Timothy ii. 24.) (Witham)

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Dure, Greek: apotomos; a metaphor from surgeons cutting.

Verse 14

Jewish fables, and commandments of men. False traditions of the Jewish doctors, which were multiplied at that time. Calvin pretended from hence, that holydays and fasting days, and all ordinances of the Catholic Church were to be rejected as null, because they are the precepts of men. By the same argument must be rejected all laws and commands of princes and civil magistrates, as being the precepts of men. Fine doctrine! He might have remembered what St. Paul taught, (Romans xiii.) that all power is from God; and what Christ said, (Luke x. 16,) "He that hears you, hears me," &c. He might have observed that the men the apostle here speaks of, had turned [11] away themselves from the Christian faith. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Adversantium se a veritate, Greek: apostrephomenon.

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Verse 15

All things are clean to the clean. That is, no creature is evil of its own nature; and the distinction of animals, clean and unclean, is now out of date, as are the other ceremonies of the Jewish law. And that to these unfaithful, defiled men, nothing is clean, because their consciences are defiled when they make use of them against their conscience. (Witham) --- St. Paul here tells Titus, to be particularly on his guard against those who wished to introduce among Christians a distinction of meats, and to preach up the necessity of divers purifications prescribed by the Mosaic law. All kinds of meats, he says, are clean to those who preserve their hearts free from sin; it is not what enters into the body defiles a man. But to eat with unwashed hands; to eat swine’s flesh, or meat that has been offered to idols: these things in themselves are indifferent actions, though particular circumstances may make them criminal. (1 Corinthians viii. 4, 5, 6, &c.) (Calmet) --- But to the defiled, &c. On the contrary, the man whose soul is defiled with sin, or who lives in infidelity, never can possess purity of heart; whatever legal washings or purifications, whatever sacrifices or ceremonies of the law he may make use of, all these cannot wash away the stains of the soul. (Estius, Menochius, Tirinus)

Verse 16

They confess that they know God. He speaks not therefore of those who were properly infidels, without the knowledge of the true God; so that it is foolish to pretend from hence, that every action of an infidel must be a sin. (Witham)