The life and work of St. Paul

EPISTLE TO TITtrS. 661
final salutations, are among the many incidental circumstances which powerfully
strengthen the argument in favour of its authenticity.
The greeting with which the Apostle opens is somewhat obscure and
involved, owing to the uncertainty of the exact meaning of the various
prepositions employed. It differs from all other
"
salutations in the phrase a
slave of God," instead of a " a slave of Jesus Christ," and it is marked by the
prominence of the title Saviour, which is applied throughout this Epistle both
to God and to Christ. 1
" Paul, a slave of God, but an Apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of the elect
of God and the full knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, (based)
on the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before eternal
times, but manifested His word in His own seasons in the preaching with which I
was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Saviour to Titus, my
true son after the common faith, grace and peace, from God our Father, and the
Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour."
After this solemn greeting he proceeds at once to the many practical
directions which are the object of his writing. He left Titus in Crete to
finish all necessary regulations, and especially to ordain presbyters in every
city, who are to be men of irreproachable character, and well-ordered domestic
positions, for a " bishop " must be blameless as God's steward, not self-willed,
not passionate, and with the other positive and negative qualifications which
he has already mentioned in the Epistle to Timothy with the addition that
he is to love what is good, and to hold fast the faithful word according to the
instruction he has received that he may be able to exhort with healthy teaching
and to refute the gainsayers. 3
These opponents are described as being disorderly, prating, and self-
deceiving Jewish Christians, who for the sake of filthy lucre turn whole
families upside down. To these, as to the Cretans in general, St. Paul applies
the stinging line of their fellow-countryman Epimenides
"The Cretans are always liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons," '
for which reason they must be sharply rebuked, that they may be healthy
1 If the idea of God the Father as a Saviour had not occurred both in the Old
Testament and elsewhere in St. Paul, the expression might fairly have been
nn-Pauline. But the idea is distinctly found in 1 Cor. i. 21.
*
i. 59.
called
The line is an hexameter from the poem on "Oracles" by Epimenides, the Cretan
poet and philosopher. It was quoted by Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 8, and well known
in antiquity because it gave rise to the syllogistic catch known as "the Liar."
They were among the three very bad K's of antiquity.
Kp^Tts, KainraSoitai, KiAixet, tcoLirrra. Tpia xaxurra.
As for their lying, Kfn)Tlf*t.v meant " to tell lies ;" of their ferocity, gluttony, drunkenness,
and sensuality, and above all of their greed, ample testimonies are quoted
"CretenseB epem peooniae secuti" (Liv. xliv. 45); TOI xfnfM