Titus 1:11

After χάριν the cursive 109 inserts the gloss τὰ τέκνα οἱ τοὺς ἱδίους γονεῖς ὑβρίζοντες ἥ τύπτοντες ἐπιστόμιζε καὶ ἔλεγχε καὶ νουθέτει ὡς πατὴρ τέκνα, which has no apparent relation to the context. It was probably a gloss about the duties of children, originally appended to Titus 1:8 of the next chapter, as advice on the management of children would come in appropriately after the discussion of the duties of wives and before the consideration of the duties of slaves (as in Ephesians 5:6).

11. οὓς δεῖ ἐπιστομίζειν, whose mouths must be stopped, the felicitous translation of Tyndale, followed by A.V. and R.V. ἐπιστομίζειν does not occur elsewhere in the true text of the N.T. (or the LXX.), but it is the reading at Luke 11:53 of three cursive manuscripts (for ἀποστοματίζειν), and was the reading followed by Jerome at that place and rendered by him os eius opprimere.

οἴτινες, inasmuch as they, ‘quippe qui’; cp. 1 Timothy 1:4.

ὅλους οἴκους�, subvert whole households. For ἀνατρέπειν see on 2 Timothy 2:18, and for οἷκος used as equivalent to ‘household’ cp. 1 Timothy 3:4; 2 Timothy 2:16.

διδάσκοντες ἅ μὴ δεῖ, teaching things which they ought not. In the N.T. we generally have οὐ in relative sentences with the indicative, even where the classical language would require μή; this verse is an exception to the general rule[512].

[512] See Blass, Grammar of N. T. Greek, § 75. 3.

αἰσχροῦ κέρδους χάριν, for sake of base gains. Tyndale’s “filthy lucre,” which has been followed in all our English versions, does not seem to bring out the exact point here, which is not that money is a despicable thing in itself, but that to teach ἃ μὴ δεῖ for the sake of money is disgraceful and dishonourable, a prostitution of the high gifts of a teacher, and that all ‘gain’ so acquired is ‘base.’ See 1 Timothy 3:8 for αἰσχροκερδής.

In like manner the heretical teachers of 1 Timothy 6:5 ‘suppose that godliness is a way of gain’: and no doubt greed for his wages is a mark of the hireling shepherd always (John 10:12). But there may have been special reason for mentioning it in a letter to the Chief Pastor of Crete. Livy (XLIV. 45) speaks of “Cretenses spem pecuniae secuti,” and Plutarch (Paul. Aemil. 23) and Polybius (VI. 46) bear similar testimony to their love of money.