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

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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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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Dilecto filio, Greek: gnesio tekno.

Verse 5

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Ut corrigas, Greek: epidiorthose, ut supercorrigas.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

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

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

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

Verse 8

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

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

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Universas domos, Greek: olous oikous.

Verse 12

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

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

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

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)