Homilies on Titus 3.1–4.1

“One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.’ This testimony is true. For this reason [rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the] faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths.” Many questions arise here: first, who said this; second, why Paul made use of such people; third, that he brought forward a testimony that is not even correct. Come, then, let us add some other passages too, and so bring in the solution at the proper point. For when he was speaking to the Athenians, in the middle of his speech he says, “To an unknown god”; and again, “For we too are his offspring, as some of your own poets have said.” It is Epimenides, then, who said this, himself a Cretan; but from what motive he said it, I must tell you the occasion, which is as follows. The Cretans have a tomb of Zeus with this inscription: “Here lies Zan, whom they call Zeus.” Because of this inscription, then, the poet, mocking the Cretans as liars, goes on to add, to increase the mockery: “For a tomb, O lord, the Cretans built for you; but you did not die, for you are forever.” If, then, this testimony is true, see how great the danger is. For if the poet spoke truly when he said that they lied in saying Zeus had died, as the apostle says, the danger is great. Attend, beloved, with great care. The poet said that the Cretans lie when they say that Zeus has died; the apostle confirmed his testimony. Then, according to the apostle, Zeus is immortal; “for this testimony,” he says, “is true.” What, then, shall we say? Or rather, how can this be resolved? The apostle did not say this; he simply and plainly took the testimony with reference to their lying character. Why else did he not add, “For a tomb, O lord, the Cretans built for you”? So the apostle did not say this, but only that so-and-so said well that the Cretans are liars. And we do not rest our case that Zeus is not a god on this alone; one can demonstrate it clearly from many other places, by argument, and not from the testimony of the Cretans. Besides, he did not say that they lied in this matter—though it is likely that they lied in this too, for they also thought others to be gods. That is why the apostle called them liars. But the question is why he brings testimonies from Greek sources. Because we shame them most of all when we bring testimonies and accusations from their own house, when we set before them, as their accusers, the very people they admire. That is why he made use of this elsewhere too, saying, “To an unknown god.” For the Athenians did not receive all their gods from the beginning, but over time, and some foreign ones too, such as those from the Hyperboreans, such as the rites of Pan, such as the lesser and the greater mysteries, which they brought in later; guessing from these that there was likely another god as well, unknown to them, so that they might be covered in his case too, they inscribed, “To an unknown god,” as good as indicating, “if there is some unknown god.” So Paul said, “What you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you.” And “For we too are his offspring” was said of Zeus by Aratus; having begun by saying, “Full of Zeus are the streets, and full the sea,” he then added, “For we too are his offspring,” showing, I think, that he too held that we have come into being from God. How, then, did Paul draw what had been said of Zeus over to the God of all? He did not draw what was said of Zeus over to God; but what befits God, and was applied to Zeus neither truly nor properly, this he restores to God; just as the very name “God” belongs to him alone and is applied to the idols unlawfully. But from what source ought he to have reasoned with them? From the prophets? But they would not have believed. Indeed, even to Jews he says nothing from the gospels, but argues from the prophets; that is why he says, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, to those without the law as one without the law, to those under the law as one under the law.” God too does this. For instance, with the magi he does not lead them by an angel, nor by a prophet, nor by an apostle, nor by an evangelist, but how? By a star; for since their art was concerned with these things, he drew them by that means. Again, with the oxen and the ark: “If they go this way,” it says, “the anger of God is real,” as the diviners proposed. Do the diviners, then, tell the truth? Far from it; but he refutes them and astonishes them out of their own mouths. Again, with the medium: since Saul believed in her, God made him hear through her what was about to overtake him. Why, then, did Paul silence the demon who said, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation”? And why does Christ too forbid the demons to speak? In those cases with good reason, for the signs were already going forward; and here it was not a star, but Christ proclaimed himself; and the demons were not worshipped. For it was not an idol that spoke, that it should be forbidden. And he let Balaam too bless, and did not forbid him. So everywhere he condescends. And why do you wonder at this? He even lets wrong and unworthy opinions about himself stand for a time, for instance, that he was formerly a body, that he was visible; against this, at any rate, he says, “God is spirit.” Again, that he rejoices in sacrifices, which was foreign to him; and he utters words that do not accord with what is confessed of him, and so on. For nowhere does he look to his own dignity, but everywhere to what is useful to us. For if a father does not look to his own dignity, but lisps along with his little children, calling food and dishes and drinks not by their Greek names but in a childish, barbarous speech, much more does God. And he reproaches them in a condescending way through the prophet, saying, “Will the nations change their gods?” And everywhere what is in the Scriptures is condescension, both words and deeds. “For this reason,” he says, “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.” He says this because their character is reckless, deceitful and licentious. They have these countless evils. And when people lie readily and are deceitful and gluttonous and idle, a vehement and striking word is needed; for such a person would not be led by gentleness. “Rebuke them,” then. Here he means not outsiders but his own. “Sharply”: give them a deeper blow, he says. For one must not deal with everyone in one way, but differently and in various ways, according to the case. Nowhere here does he speak of exhorting. For as one who strikes the gentle and noble man destroys and ruins him, so one who flatters the man who needs vehemence corrupts him and does not let him rise. “That they may be sound,” he says, “in the faith.” So this is health: to bring in nothing spurious or foreign. And if those who are scrupulous about foods are not healthy but sick and weak—“Welcome the one who is weak in faith,” he says, “but not for disputes over opinions”—what would one say of those who keep the same fasts as they do, of those who keep the Sabbath, of those who go to the places they hold sacred? I mean the place at Daphne, the so-called cave of Matrona, and the place in Cilicia called the place of Kronos. How are these people healthy? So they need a sharper blow. Why, then, does he not do the same in the case of the Romans? Because their character was not of this kind, but they were nobler. “Not paying attention,” he says, “to Jewish myths.” The Jewish observances are myths in two ways: because they are counterfeited, and because the thing is out of season; for the teaching now becomes a myth. Consider: does not wine get its substance from dung? For as the vine draws moisture from the earth, so also from the dung laid beside it. In short, if we wished to be exact, everything is unclean. But if we did not wish to be exact, nothing is unclean, but all things are clean; God made nothing unclean. For nothing is unclean except sin alone; for it touches the soul and defiles it. The other is a human prejudice. “But to the defiled and unbelieving,” he says, “nothing is clean, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.” For how could you say that anything among clean things is unclean? One who has a weak soul defiles everything. If such a thought is sown in him, seeking out clean and unclean, he will touch nothing; for by their reasoning not even these things are clean—fish, I mean—and the rest (“Both their mind and their conscience,” he says, “are defiled”), but everything is defiled. But … becomes a myth. For when it need not be done, and when done it does harm, it is a myth, just as it is useless. As, then, one must not heed those myths, so neither these observances; for it is not possible to be healthy so. For if you trust in the faith, why do you bring in other things, as though faith were not sufficient to justify? Why do you enslave yourself and put yourself under the law? Do you not trust the thing? This belongs to one who is sick and does not believe; for it belongs to a believing mind not to doubt; but such a man doubts. “All things are clean,” he says, “to the clean.” Do you see that what is said is relative? “But to the defiled,” he says, “and unbelieving nothing is clean.”

So things are not clean or unclean by their own nature, but by the choice of those who partake of them. “But both their mind,” he says, “and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but deny him by their works, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.” Then the pig too is clean. Why, then, was it forbidden as unclean? It was not unclean by nature; for all things are clean; otherwise nothing is more unclean than a fish, which even feeds on human bodies; yet it was permitted and was thought to be clean. Again, nothing is more unclean than a bird, for it eats worms; nothing more than a deer, for they say it is called “elaphos” from its eating snakes; yet all these were eaten. Why, then, did he forbid the pig and some other such things? Not as unclean, but to cut back excess of luxury. But if he had said this, he would not have persuaded them; as it was, he restrained them by the fear of uncleanness. For what, tell me, is more unclean than wine, if these things must be examined? And what, tell me, more than water, with which they were purified above all? They did not touch dead bodies, and yet they were purified by means of a dead body; for the victim that was slain … He did not speak in this way; but how? He turned the whole charge back on them. For nothing is unclean, he says, except themselves, their mind and their conscience; nothing is more unclean than these. “They profess to know God, but deny him by their works, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work. But as for you, speak what befits sound teaching.” This is uncleanness; they themselves are unclean. But do not be silent because of them. Even if they do not receive it, he says, you do your part; even if they are not persuaded, you exhort and counsel. Here he censures them more severely. For madmen too think that nothing stands still; but this does not come from the things that are seen, but from the eyes that see them. Because they are unsteady and dizzy, they think the earth is spinning round them; but it does not spin, it stands firm; the delusion belongs to their sickness, not the sickness to the element. So too here: when the soul is unclean, it thinks everything unclean. So being scrupulous is not a mark of cleanness; venturing on everything is the mark of cleanness; for the one who is truly clean ventures on everything, but the defiled on nothing. This can be said to Marcion too. Do you see that he sets being above all defilement as the proof of cleanness, and touching nothing as the proof of uncleanness? So too with God: that he took flesh is a mark of cleanness; if he had not taken it out of fear, that would be a mark of defilement. The one who does not eat what are thought to be unclean things is the one who is unclean and weak; the one who eats is not. Let us not, then, call such people clean; they are the unclean; the one who ventures on everything is clean. This scrupulousness we must show about the things that defile the soul; for that is uncleanness, that is defilement; this is none of these things. For those whose sense of taste is corrupted also think that the food set before them is unclean; but this belongs to their disease. We must, then, know very well the nature of the clean and the unclean. What, then, is unclean? Sin, wickedness, greed … “Remove your wickedness from your souls.” “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” “Come out from their midst and be separate,” it says, “and touch nothing unclean”; for those observances too were symbols of purifications. “Do not touch a dead body,” it says. For such is sin: dead and stinking. “The leper,” it says, “is unclean.” For sin is varied and multiform. And that he hints at this is clear from what follows. For if the leprosy covers the whole body throughout, he is clean; but if it is in part, he is not. Do you see that what is varied and changeable is the unclean thing? Again, the man with a discharge is unclean in his soul: think of the man with a discharge as the one who casts away his seed. Again, the uncircumcised man is unclean. Do you see how these things are not allegory but types? It means the one who has not cut away the wickedness of his soul. The one who works on the Sabbath is stoned: that is, the one who is not always devoted to God perishes. Have you seen how many kinds of uncleanness there are? A woman after childbirth, it says, is unclean. Why, tell me? Did not God himself make seed and birth? Why, then, is the woman unclean, unless he was hinting at something else? And what is that? He instilled reverence in the soul; he led it far from sexual immorality. For if a woman who has given birth is unclean, much more one who commits sexual immorality; if coming together with one's own wife is not entirely clean, much more is uniting with another man's. One who comes from a funeral, it says, is unclean; much more one who comes from murder and war. And one could find many kinds of uncleanness, if one had to collect them all. But these are not now required of us; the whole has been transferred to the soul. For bodily things are nearer to us; that is why he led them on by this means; but not now, for one must not sit beside the types nor wait upon the shadows, but hold to the truth and lay hold of it. Sin is unclean: let us flee it, let us keep away from it. “If you approach it,” it says, “it will receive you.” Nothing is more unclean than greed. How is this clear? From the facts themselves. What does it not defile? The hands, the soul, the very house where the plunder is stored. To the Jews this seems to be nothing. And yet Moses carried the bones of Joseph, and Samson drank from an ass's jawbone and ate honey from a lion, and Elijah was fed by ravens and by a widow woman. And what, tell me—if one must be exact about these things—were not the skins of their books more polluted than anything? For they come from dead animals. So not only the man who uses prostitutes is unclean, but others more than he; and the adulterer is unclean. Both the one and the other are unclean, not because of the intercourse—for by that reasoning a man who comes together with his own wife would be unclean—but because of the injustice and the greed, because he has defrauded his brother in what is most essential. Do you see that wickedness is the unclean thing? And the man who had two wives was not unclean; and David, who had many, was not unclean; but when he took one unlawfully, he became unclean. Why? Because he did wrong, because he defrauded another. And the man who uses prostitutes is not unclean because of the intercourse, but because of the manner of it: because he wrongs the woman, and they wrong one another by making the woman common and overturning the laws of nature; for she ought to belong to one man. “Male and female,” it says, “he made them”; and he said, “The two shall become one flesh”: not the many, but “the two into one flesh.” So here too there is injustice, and that is why the thing is wicked. Anger again, when it exceeds measure, makes a man unclean, not because of the anger, but because of the manner; for this too is added: “whoever is angry,” not simply, but “without cause.” So everywhere the desire for more is unclean; for the thing is born of insatiability and greed. Let us be sober, then, I beg you; let us become clean with the true cleanness, so that we may be counted worthy to see God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be glory, might and honour to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

“[That older men be sober, dignified, self-control]led, sound in faith, in love, in endurance; that older women likewise be reverent in demeanour, not slanderers, not [enslaved] to much wine, [teaching what is good, so that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind,] submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” There are failings that old age has and youth does not; it has some of the failings of youth too, but besides it has sluggishness, slowness, forgetfulness, dullness and irritability. That is why he gives his exhortation about these things. For many are the things that keep people of that age from being sober; first, what I mentioned, being sluggish and moving with difficulty. That is why he adds, “dignified, self-controlled.” Here he means sensible; for self-control (σωφροσύνη) is so called as the safe keeping of the mind. For there are, there are among the aged too people who are out of their minds, some from wine, some from grief; for old age makes people faint-hearted. “Sound in faith, in love, in endurance.” And he said well, “in endurance”; for this especially suits the old. “That older women likewise be reverent in demeanour,” that is, showing decorum from their very dress and bearing. “Not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine.” For this is especially the failing of women and of old age; because their age has grown cold, a great desire for wine arises. Hence he makes his exhortation to them chiefly about this, cutting off drunkenness on every side, wishing them to be free of this disease and to escape the ridicule that comes from it. For the vapours from below rise more easily, and the membranes of the brain suffer harm because they have been worn with time; and that is above all how drunkenness comes about. This age needs wine more than any, for it is weak; but not much, just as the young women do not need much, though not for the same reason, but because the flame of desire is kindled very strongly in them. “Teaching what is good.” And yet you forbid women to teach: how, then, do you permit it here, when elsewhere you say, “I do not permit a woman to teach”? But hear what he added: “nor to have authority over a man.” For men have been permitted from the first to teach both men and women; but to women he permits the word of exhortation at home, while nowhere allowing them to preside, nor letting them speak at length. That is why he added, “nor to have authority over a man.” “So that …” Do you see how he binds the people together and unites them? How he puts the younger women under the older? For he is not speaking here of daughters, but simply by age: let each older woman, he says, train the younger. “To love their husbands.” This is the chief of the good things in a household: “a wife,” it says, “who agrees with her husband.” For when this is present, nothing unpleasant will happen. For when the head is in accord with the body and there is no dissension there, how will not all the rest be at peace? When the rulers are at peace, who will divide and cut the peace? Just as, when they are at odds, nothing in the household will be sound. Nothing, then, is greater than this; it is more profitable than money and noble birth and power and everything else. He did not simply say, to be at peace, but to love their husbands. For where there is love, nothing troublesome will slip in; for from it the other good things are born. “To love their children,” he says. Rightly; for she who loves the root will much more love the fruits. “Self-controlled, workers at home, good.” All these are born from that love; for women become good and workers at home through love and affection for their husbands. “Submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be blasphemed”; since a woman who despises her husband also neglects the house. And from loving comes great self-control, and loving removes every rivalry. Even if he is a Greek, he will quickly be persuaded; if he is a Christian, he will become better. Do you see Paul's condescension? He who does everything to draw us away from worldly affairs now takes great care about household matters. For when these are well managed, spiritual things too will have room; otherwise those are ruined too. For a woman who is a worker at home will be self-controlled too, a good keeper and manager of the house; she will not busy herself with luxury, nor with untimely outings, nor with anything else of that kind. “So that the word of God,” he says, “may not be blasphemed.” Do you see that his first concern is the preaching, not worldly affairs? For writing to Timothy too he says, “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and dignity”; and here, “so that the word of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed.” For if a believing wife living with an unbeliever were not virtuous, the blasphemy passes on to God from outside; but if she is orderly, the preaching reaps the glory from her and from what she achieves. Let the women hear, all who live with wicked or unbelieving husbands; let them hear and learn to lead them to godliness by their own ways of life. For even if you gain nothing else, and do not draw your husband to share in the right doctrines, you have stitched his mouth shut, not allowing Christianity to be blasphemed. And this is no small thing, but very great, that the doctrine is admired because of our conduct. “Likewise exhort the younger men to be self-controlled.” See how everywhere he urges keeping to what is fitting. The greater part of the teaching of women he gives to women, but the teaching of men he gives and assigns wholly to Titus. For nothing, nothing would be so difficult and hard for that age as overcoming unseemly pleasures. Neither love of money, nor desire for glory, nor anything else so troubles that age as the love of bodies. That is why, leaving everything else aside, he fixes his exhortation on what is most pressing. Yet he is not careless about the rest either; but what does he say? “In all things showing yourself a pattern of good works.” Let the older women teach the younger, he says, and you yourself exhort the younger men to be self-controlled. And let the splendour of your life be a common school and example of virtue for all, set before everyone like an archetypal image that has all good things in itself, providing examples with great ease to those who wish to copy something of the good things in it. “In your teaching [show integrity, dignity, sound speech that cannot be censured, so that the opponent may be put to shame,] having nothing evil to say about us.”