_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 distin... [ Continue Reading ]
_Who [1] lieth not, or who cannot lie, being truth itself. --- Hath promised; that is, decreed to give life everlasting to his faithful servants. --- Before the times of the world. [2] Literally, before secular times. (Witham)_ [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Qui non mentitur, _Greek: o apseudes._ [BIBLIOGRAPHY]... [ Continue Reading ]
_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)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_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 edi... [ Continue Reading ]
That thou shouldst, [4] &c. The sense cannot be, that he was to change any thing St. Paul had ordered, but to settle things which St. Paul had not time to do; for example, to establish priests [5] in the cities, that is to say, bishops, as the same are called bishops ver. 7; and, as St. John Chrysos... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
_Not proud. [6] The Greek word is of an extensive signification, which the Protestants have translated self-willed. The Latin interpreter (2 Peter ii. 10.) for the same Greek word has put, pleasing themselves; as it were never pleased with others, the unhappy disposition of a proud man. (Witham)_ ... [ Continue Reading ]
_Continent: [7] though both the Latin and Greek word signify in general, one that hath abstained, or contained, and overcome himself: yet it is particularly used for such as contain themselves from carnal pleasures. (Witham)_ [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Continentem, _Greek: egkrate. The Protestant translate th... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whole houses. [8]]_ [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Universas domos, _Greek: olous oikous._... [ Continue Reading ]
_One of them, a prophet of their own. [9] He does not mean a true prophet, but as the pretended prophets of Baal were called prophets. St. Paul understands Epimenides, a poet of Crete, who by some pagan authors was thought to know things to come; but Aristotle says, he knew only things past, not to... [ Continue Reading ]
_This testimony, or character, says the apostle, is true, by public fame of them, and therefore they must be rebuked sharply, [10] their condition and dispositions requiring it; which, therefore, is not contrary to the admonition he gave to Timothy, to be gentle towards all. (2 Timothy ii. 24.) (Wit... [ Continue Reading ]
_ 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... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
_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)_... [ Continue Reading ]