Preface—Part 1 (Titus 1:1–4)

The salutation and greeting in this Epistle are somewhat more expansive than they are ordinarily in Paul’s other Epistles, just as is the case in the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans. They are akin to those Epistles both in thought and in expression. The reason it is done here as in those Epistles is that, given the importance of the Epistle’s subject, Saint Paul deemed it necessary to direct the minds of the readers toward it from the very first lines.

Tit. 1:1. Paul, a servant of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that accords with godliness.

In his other Epistles Saint Paul calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ, whereas here he calls himself a servant of God—thereby indicating that to say “servant of God” or “servant of Jesus Christ” is one and the same thing. For the Son of God, even having become incarnate, did not depart from the bosom of the Father, but remains unchangeably one with the Father and is God everlasting. Saint Chrysostom says: “Do you see how indifferently he employs these expressions, calling himself sometimes servant of God and Apostle of Christ, and at other times servant of Christ: ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 1:1)? Thus he made no distinction between the Father and the Son.” All our other commentators draw the same inference. Blessed Theodoret adds: “Paul indifferently calls himself a servant—sometimes of Christ, sometimes of God; for he knows that the lordship is common.” Let us continue this explanation with the words of blessed Jerome of Stridon: “The Father and the Son are one; and so whoever has believed in the Son believes also in the Father. And the servitude of the Apostle Paul is one, whether it be referred to the Father or to the Son.” As for the word “and” in the phrase “and an Apostle”—it does not denote any kind of contrast but stands in the sense of “also.”

“Servant of God” is an Old Testament designation for persons who are God-fearing and God-pleasing, who walk in the will of God and are unconcerned about themselves, who love truth and turn away from falsehood, and upon whom one can therefore fully rely in all things. By saying this, the Apostle invested both himself and Titus with great authority, and disposed his readers to submissive attentiveness to his word. It must be kept in mind that although the Epistle is addressed to Titus, it was intended to be read aloud to the entire Christian community in Crete.

“Apostle of Christ”—this is for Christians what the Prophet was for those of the Old Testament. The Prophets were sent to announce to men the salvation that was to come; the Apostles announced salvation already accomplished and granted in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed Jerome writes: “To say ‘Apostle of Jesus Christ’ seemed to me, for believers of that time, like saying in worldly terms: prefect of the praetorium of Augustus Caesar, or general of the emperor Tiberius. By saying this, Saint Paul bound the believers to obey him, receiving his word as the very word of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.”

“According to the faith of God’s elect.” The thought is not: inasmuch as I have believed as the elect believe, I was appointed an Apostle; but rather: I am an Apostle of Jesus Christ in the service of faith—sent by Jesus Christ to bring the elect to faith, to teach them the faith, and to keep them in the order which faith demands. “By this the Apostle indicated that he was appointed in order that those worthy of election should come to believe” (blessed Theodoret). “He declares that God’s elect have been entrusted to him… For their sake I became an Apostle, as he also says elsewhere: ‘all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos’ (1 Cor. 3:21–22)” (Saint Chrysostom).

But who is meant here by “the elect”? Ancient Israel was chosen as a people of God from among all the nations—that is, one nation from among all peoples, an entire nation in its corporate entirety. The new Israel is constituted differently: not by separating one nation from the rest, but by choosing, from all nations without excluding the Jews, worthy individuals one by one who, being united into one body, form this new Israel—“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession” (1 Pet. 2:9). Such persons are chosen through the call to faith. One who has received faith becomes one of the elect, is sanctified through the sacraments of grace, and receives the obligation to be holy and blameless, so as to “proclaim the excellencies” of Him Who “has called” him “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). In this sense, the elect are the same as the called—that is, all Christians who confess the true faith of Christ. All Christians are indeed meant to be such as Saint Peter describes them, so as to be a chosen people not in name only but in deed.

Yet just as within ancient Israel not all proved worthy of election—because neither in their deeds nor in their character did they measure up to what the nation had been chosen for—so too within the new Israel not all prove equal to what they have been called to: not all manifest in themselves the kind of persons that those called to faith in the Lord and Saviour and made partakers of grace in the sacraments ought to be. From this arose the distinction between the called and the elect. The elect are now only those who conduct themselves as those called to the Lord ought to conduct themselves; while those who do not so conduct themselves remain merely called. And the Saviour often said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt. 20:16, 22:14).

In what sense, then, does the Apostle use the word “elect” in the present passage? In both senses at once, without distinction. The Apostle called all to faith, but having called them, did not leave them to their own devices; on the contrary, he redoubled his care for them all the more, so that they might appear in all things worthy of their calling—truly children of faith and grace in every respect. I am, he says, an Apostle in order to call all to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but not merely to give them a name—rather, to show them forth as perfected also in the life according to the spirit of faith, not merely called but truly elect (blessed Jerome). In saying this, he had in mind to remind those who, as is evident from the Epistle, did nothing but invent various questions about matters of faith and thereby proliferated endless disputes and controversies—which contributed nothing to the building up of good morals but on the contrary disturbed the Christian community by sowing quarrels and divisions. Yet still more to this end is directed the following expression:

“And the knowledge of the truth that accords with godliness. — Knowledge,” επιγνωσιν,—the act of coming to know, of recognizing, of clearly perceiving, of experimentally being convinced. Just as in the phrase “according to the faith” what is meant is not the Apostle’s own faith but the faith of those to whom he proclaimed the Gospel—that is, the act of bringing to faith—so too in this phrase what is meant is not the Apostle’s own understanding of the truth, but that of those who followed the word of his preaching. I am, he says, an Apostle appointed by the proclamation of the Gospel to bring people to faith and, through faith, to the knowledge of the truth. Faith at first gives only a general outline of the truth; its more precise form, with its tangible features and application to particulars, is received and grasped afterwards in the course of a life lived in the spirit of faith. By faith, everything is taken on faith at the outset; and then through experience one comes to know that all is indeed as it was believed from the beginning. Jerome writes: “God’s elect does not immediately possess faith to the measure of his election, or knowledge of the truth to the measure of his faith. This is why the Saviour said to the Jews who had believed in him: ‘If you abide in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (Jn. 8:31–32). The Evangelist attests that the Lord said this to those who had believed but had not yet come to know the truth, which they could attain if they abided in his word.” — The same thought is found in Saint Chrysostom: “First we were known, and then we knew; first we were apprehended, and then we apprehended (1 Cor. 13:12; Phil. 3:12).” — It was toward this that the Apostolic preaching was directed, and it was to this that all the labours of the Apostles were bent. This is why Saint Paul did not say simply: I am appointed to bring about the knowledge of the truth, but added: “that accords with godliness.” Godliness encompasses all the labours and strivings of active service to God. With regard to faith, one can raise many questions and present solutions to them which, although not false, do not touch the substance of the matter of faith but merely occupy an idle curiosity, bringing no benefit to life in faith. The Apostle says: none of that do I concern myself with, nor am I appointed to concern myself with it; my task is to present the truths of faith and to instil them into your hearts through those aspects by which they are powerful to arouse, strengthen, and guide you toward godliness—that is, toward abiding in living union with God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit: for this is the substance of Christian godliness. Everything that is beside the point and foreign to such a direction is foreign also to me, by the very nature of my apostolic appointment and duty.

“There is truth that is not according to godliness—for example, knowledge of agriculture, knowledge of the arts, which is genuine knowledge; but the truth (which I proclaim) is truth according to godliness (that is, in the service of establishing godliness in hearts)” (Saint Chrysostom). “It may be asked: why, having said ‘according to the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth,’ did the Apostle add ‘that accords with godliness’? Is there some truth that is not according to godliness, so that he now speaks in distinction from it of the knowledge of ‘the truth that accords with godliness’? There is indeed a truth that has no direct relation to godliness: one who knows grammar or dialectic, so as to speak correctly and discern truth from falsehood with precision—that person possesses truth. Geometry with arithmetic and music likewise have truth in their field of knowledge. But all such kinds of knowledge are not knowledge according to godliness. The knowledge of ‘the truth that accords with godliness’ consists in knowing the Law, understanding the Prophets, believing the Gospel, and not being ignorant of the Apostles. And there are many who are very learned in the matter of godliness yet are wholly unacquainted with those other kinds of knowledge I have mentioned” (blessed Jerome).

Tit. 1:2. In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the ages of time.

This completes the content of the proclamation with which the Apostle has been entrusted and to which he has been appointed. Anyone who reads the Epistles of St. Paul will readily notice that in every Epistle he mentions eternal life repeatedly and in various ways—as the final end of the economy of salvation and the ultimate goal of those who have sought salvation in the Lord. And the hope of it, in his view, is so indispensable to the spiritual constitution of believers that he did not hesitate to declare: “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). “And if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable” (1 Cor. 15:19). So ordained the Saviour Himself, saying: “Where I am, there also shall my servant be” (Jn. 12:26). Christianity in spirit begins with a detachment from all that is temporal and an aspiration toward the eternal. It is through the hopeful contemplation of that eternity that the Christian is animated and sustained throughout the entire laborious course of his journey following Christ the Lord. The fortitude of martyrs and ascetics was founded primarily upon this. A foretaste of our true and essential good in following Christ the Saviour comes later; yet it does not displace the hope of an eternally blessed life, but elevates it, transferring the one who hopes wholly into that age to come. This is why the Apostle said επ’ ελπιδι — “in hope”—pointing in it to the foundation of both faith and life in the spirit of faith, that is, of godliness. I am, he says, an Apostle appointed precisely for this: to plant faith, to shape souls toward true godliness, drawing and animating them toward both by the hope of eternal—all-blessed—life. Blessed Theodoret sums up all of this briefly in the following words: “The Apostle says that he was set apart for this very purpose: that the worthy chosen ones might believe, come to know the truth of godliness, and receive the hope of eternal life.”

The hope of eternal life is so essential to the economy of salvation that St. Paul, though speaking of it as if in passing, did not consider it superfluous to confirm it with incontrovertible arguments—namely the truthfulness of God and the fact that this belongs to God’s eternal counsels—saying: “which God, who cannot lie, promised before the ages of time.” St. Chrysostom says: “If God is incapable of lying, then what He has promised will without doubt be fulfilled; if He cannot lie, one ought not to doubt it, even if it is fulfilled after death. — And with the words: ‘before the ages of time’—the Apostle also proves the certainty of the promise. Thus, he says, it was ordained from of old. Not now as a result of our repentance, but from of old was this ordained. The Apostle says the same in other passages, for example: ‘Whom He foreknew, them He also predestined’ (Rom. 8:29), indicating our nobility—the fact that not now, but from of old God has loved us; and to have been loved from of old and from the beginning is no small thing.” All of our commentators, under the words “before the ages of time,” understand the pre-eternal decree of God. Others prefer to understand by this the ages that preceded the coming of Christ, during which such a promise was proclaimed through the Prophets, beginning from the time of the fall of the first ancestors. But even those promises were not proclaimed anew; they were spoken because it had been so ordained before all time in the Eternal Counsels of God concerning the existence of creation. The material world has no end in itself. It is the arena and the place in which rational creatures are ordained to be formed for eternal life. For that life man was created; for it he is re-created in the Lord Jesus Christ. Such was the pre-eternal counsel of God. But the visible world is transient. It will pass away as a means, when that which it serves as means to has been achieved. When spiritual creatures shall have received their proper beauty, it too will be transfigured in correspondence with them, and will cast off its present, coarse, and corruptible state. Thus eternal life stands in the Counsels of God as the originating beginning and the final goal of the existence of all that is created. As it is impossible for the Eternal Counsel of God to lie, so it is impossible for the promise of eternal life to remain unfulfilled. Such is the strength of the foundation of our hope in it!

Tit. 1:3. But manifested His word in due time in preaching, which was entrusted to me according to the commandment of God our Saviour.

The promise of eternal life was sure and unchangeable, but for a time it lay hidden in God. The Prophets, though they proclaimed it, did so in a veiled manner, enabling those capable of perceiving it to glimpse it as through a shadow. But it could not remain forever in such concealment and obscurity, for it was meant to be received by clear faith and appropriated through the faithful fulfillment of the conditions for participation in it. Yet it had necessarily to remain in that form for a certain time, so that through God’s providential acts humanity might be sufficiently prepared to receive it. “Why such a delay?” St. Chrysostom asks, and answers: “Out of care for us and in order to make this (the revelation of what was hidden) timely. Which the Apostle expressed in the words: ‘He manifested in due time. In due time’—that is, at the fitting, proper, and appropriate moment—just as the Prophet also says: it is time for the Lord to act (Ps. 118:126).” With God everything has its appointed time. When the time came to reveal His hidden Counsels, He revealed them. But these times He holds in His own power (Acts 1:7), as also the course of events itself. And they have been ordained from eternity and are therefore God’s own.

“He manifested”—He proclaimed in clear, unveiled word, and by His very act arranged all that is required for participation in this promise. Therefore this word points to the entire economy of salvation accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is eternal life itself.