The life and work of St. Paul

THE EPISTLE TO TITOS. 663
reciprocal hatred. "But when" and here follows anotne* concentrated
summary of Pauline doctrine unparalleled for beauty and completeness
" But when tha kindness and lore towards man of God our Saviour was manifested,
not in aonsequence of works of righteousness which we did, but according to
His mercy He saved us, by means of the laver of regeneration, and renewal by the
Holy Ghost, which He poured upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
that being justified by His grace we might become heirs, according to hope, of
eternal life."
Faithful is the saying 1 and in accordance with it he desires Titus to
teach with due insistence, that all who have believed may live up to their profession.
This teaching is fair and beneficent, but foolish speculations and
discussions, 2 and genealogies and legalist disputes are vain and useless. But
if, after one or two admonitions, a man would not give up his own depraved
and wilful perversities, then Titus is to have nothing more to say to him. 3
The brief letter closes with a few personal messages. Titus may soon expect
the arrival of Artemas or Tychicus, 4 and on the arrival of either, to take up
his work, he is with all speed to join Paul at Nicopolis for the winter. He is
also asked to do anything he can to further the journey and meet the requirements
of Zenas the jurist, 6 and Apollos. And St. Paul hopes that all our
5 7 ? Will any one produce from Clemens, or Hennas, or Justin Martyr, or Ignatius,
or Polycarp, or Irenseus will any one even produce from Tertullian, or Chrysostom, or
Basil, or Gregory of Nyssa any single passage comparable for terseness, insight, and
mastery to either of these ? Only the inspired wisdom of the greatest of the Apostles
could have traced so divine a summary with so unfaltering a hand. If the single chorus
of Sophokles was sufficient to acquit him of senility if the thin unerring line attested
the presence of Apelles if the flawless circle of Giotto, drawn with one single sweep of
his hand, was sufficient to authenticate his workmanship and prove his power surely
such passages as these ought to be more than adequate to defend the Pastoral Epistles
from the charge of vapidity. Would it not be somewhat strange if all the great
Christian Fathers of three centuries were so far surpassed in power and eloquence by the
supposed falsarii who wrote the Epistles of the First and Second Captivity of St. Paul?
1 n. o Xdyos here refers to what has gone before, and it is remarkable that this favourite
formula is generally applied, as here, to expressions which have something solemn and
almost rhythmic in the form of their expression (1 Tim. i. 15 iii. 1 2 ; ; Tim. ii. 11
the analogous 1 Tim. iii. 16). Were the quotations from Lymus ? The contrast between the
regenerate present and the unregenerate past is common in St. Paul (1 Cor. vi. 11 ; Gal.
iv. 3 ; Eph. ii. &o.). If any one were asked to fix on two passages which contained the
essence of all Pauline theology he would surely select Bom. iii. 21 26 and Tit. iii. 5
7 ; and the latter, though less polemical, is in some respects more complete. Again I
ask, Would it not be strange if the briefest yet fullest statement of his complete message
should come from a spurious Epistle ?
2 St. Paul stigmatises these sophistic discussions as both KCVOI and ULo.rm.oi i.e., empty
in their nature, and void of all results.
3
aipVis only occurs in 1 Cor. xi. 19 ; Gal. v. 20, and means, not "heresies," but
1 '
ecclesiastical divisions. "
4 "Artemas or Tychicus." Who was Artemas, or Artemidorus ? That he, like Trophimus
and Tychicus (Acts xx. 4 ; xxi. 29), was an Ephesian, we may perhaps conjecture
from his name, and Paul may have met with him in his recent visit to Ephesus ; but
what could possibly have induced a forger to insert a totally unknown name like that of
Artemas ? or to imagine any uncertainty in the mind of Paul as to which of the two he
should send ? (On Tychicus, see Col. iv. 7 ; Eph. vi. 21.)
s "
Does this mean a lawyer " in the same sense as vojuoStSaoxaAoe in Luke v. 17 ? Was
he a Jewish scribe, or a Greek or Roman legist ? It is quite impossible to say ; and who
was this Zenas, or Zenodorus ? What should put such a name and such an allusion into
a forger's mind ?