together with the impossibility of placing the epistles later than the
first ten or twenty years of the 2nd century, render it impracticable
to detect anything except incipient phases of syncretistic gnosticism
behind the polemical allusions. It was a gnosticism fluctuating
not only in its relation to the Church but in its emphasis upon certain
ethical and theosophical ideas. One definite trait is its Jewish
character (Titus i. 10; 2 Tim. iii. 16; 1 Tim. i. 7, &c.). The errorists
developed speculations and practical theories on the basis of the
Old Testament law, which proved extremely seductive to many
Christians. But it is difficult to find any homogeneity in the repeated
descriptions of this semi-gnostic phase, although now and then
(e.g. in 1 Tim. i. 7 seq.; Titus i. 14, iii. 9) there are suggestions of the
legalism which Cerinthus advocated. The Ophites are said to have
not only used myths but forbidden marriage and held that the
resurrection was purely spiritual (Lightfoot); this, however, is
probably no more than an interesting coincidence, and all attempts
to identify the errorists definitely must be abandoned.[1] The early
Fathers often indeed identify them with later types of gnosticism,
but this cannot be taken as any sure clue to the author’s meaning.
They naturally found in his prophetic words the anticipation of
heresies current in their own age.
Sometimes, as in the cases of the resurrection being allegorized[2] and marriage repudiated[3] it is feasible to detect distortions or exaggerations of Paul’s own teaching, against which the Paulinist of the pastorals puts in a caveat and a corrective. But these somewhat “indiscriminate denunciations are certainly not what we expect from a man like Paul, who was an uncommonly clear-headed dialectician” (McGiffert). They partake of the nature of a pastoral manifesto, which does not trouble to draw any fine distinctions between the principles or motives of its opponents. The method resembles that of the First Epistle of John, for although the errorists attacked in the latter manifesto are not those of the pastorals, and although the one writer eschews entirely the inner authority of the Spirit which the other posits, the same anti-gnostic emphasis on practical religion and stereotyped doctrine is felt in both.
Literature.—Special monographs on Titus have been written by Jerome, Casper Cruciger (Expositio brevis et familiaris, 1542), Mosheim (Erklärung des Briefs an Tit., 1779), and Kuinoel (Explicatio epist. Pauli ad Titum, 1812). Commonly, however, the epistle has been edited and criticized along with the epistles of Timothy. The ablest recent editions are by B. Weiss (in Meyer’s Commentar, 7th ed., 1902; full and exact), Wohlenberg (in Zahn’s Commentar, 1906), and J. E. Belser, the Roman Catholic savant (1907), with which may be ranked Wace’s (Speaker’s Commentary, 1886) and J. H. Bernard’s (Cambridge Greek Testament, 1899) editions. All these present the conservative position. On the other side, Von Soden’s Hand-Commentar (2nd ed., 1893) and Franz Koehler’s popular commentaries Die Schriften des N. T. (1906) are most notable. Brief English notes are furnished by Horton (Century Bible, 1901, from Zahn’s standpoint) and P. Lilley (Edinburgh, 1901). Of the older editions, the most valuable are Heydenreich’s (Die Pastoralbriefe, 1826–1828), Alford’s (3rd ed., 1862), Huther’s (3rd ed., Göttingen, 1866), Bisping’s (1866), P. Fairbairn’s (Edinburgh, 1874), Ellicott’s (5th ed., 1883, strong in exegesis) and Knoke’s (in Lange’s Bibel-Werk, 4th ed., 1894), with Riggenbach’s (in the Strack-Zöckler Commentar, 1897). Editions. in English have recently been undertaken in the International Critical Commentary (by W. Lock), in the Expositor’s Greek Testament (by N. J. D. White), and by Sir W. M. Ramsay. For the patristic literature see Wohlenberg (op. cit. p. 76).
For the view that a Paulinist was the author, see Schleiermacher, Über den sogen. ersten Brief des Paulus an den Tim. (1807), which really opened the modern phase of criticism on all three epistles; Baur, Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostels Paulus (1835); H. J. Holtzmann, Die Pastoralbriefe kritisch u. exegetisch behandelt (1880), an exhaustive treatment; Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für die wiss. Theologie (1897), 49 seq., 61 seq., 79 seq.; E. Y. Hincks, Journal of Bibl. Literature (1897), 94–117; and Renan, S. Paul xxiii.–liii., L’Eglise chrétienne, ch. v. The conservative position is maintained with varying confidence by C. W. Otto, Die geschichtlichen Verhältnisse der Pastoralbriefe (1860); Bertrand, Essai critique sur l’authenticité des ép. pastorales (1888); G. G. Findlay, appendix to Eng. trans. of Sabatier’s L’Apôtre Paul, pp. 341 seq.; W. E. Bowen, Dates of Pastoral Letters (1900); T. C. Laughlin, The Pastoral Epp. in the Light of one Roman Imprisonment (California, 1905); and J. D. James, The genuineness and Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles (1906). For general studies, see Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon, iv. 393–402; Sabatier’s article in Ency. des sciences religieuses, x. 250–259; J. R. Boise, The Epp. of Paul written after he became a Prisoner (New York, 1887); Plummer, Expositor’s Bible (1888); Bourquin, Étude critique sur les past. épîtres (1890); Harnack, Die Chronologie, 480 seq., 710–711; Moffatt, Ency. Bib., 5079–5096, and W. Lock (Hastings’s Dict. Bible, vol. iv.). (J. Mt.)
TITUS, FLAVIUS SABINUS VESPASIANUS, Roman emperor
from A.D. 79–81, son of the emperor Vespasian, was born on the
30th of December A.D. 40 (or 41). He was educated in the
imperial court, and thoroughly accomplished: he could speak
Greek fluently and compose verses; he was a proficient in music;
he could write shorthand, and imitate handwriting so skilfully
that he used to say that he might have been a most successful
forger. He was handsome and commanding, and had a vigorous
frame, well trained in all the exercises of a soldier. As a young
man he served with credit in Germany and in Britain. Soon he
had the command of a legion, and joined his father in Syria,
where he took an active part in the Jewish War. In 68 he was
sent by his father to congratulate the newly proclaimed emperor,
Galba; but, hearing of Galba’s death and of the general confusion
in the Roman world, he returned to Palestine, having in the meantime
consulted the oracle of the Paphian Venus and received a
favourable answer. In the following year Vespasian, having
been proclaimed emperor, returned to Italy, and left Titus to
carry on the siege of Jerusalem, which was captured on the 8th of
September 70. On his return to Rome, Titus and his father
celebrated a magnificent triumph, which has been immortalized
by the so-called Arch of Titus. He was now formally associated
with his father in the government, with the title of Caesar, and
during the nine remaining years of Vespasian’s reign he was in
fact emperor. He was anything but popular; he had the character
of being profligate and cruel. His connexion with Berenice,
the sister of the Agrippa of the Acts of the Apostles, also created a
scandal; both brother and sister followed Titus to Rome, and
were allowed to reside in the imperial palace. Public opinion
was outraged, and Titus, though he had promised Berenice
marriage, felt obliged to send her back to the East. Vespasian
died in 79, leaving his son a safe throne and a well-filled treasury.
The forebodings of the people were agreeably disappointed, for
Titus put an end to prosecutions for high treason, and the
delatores (informers) were scourged and expelled from the city.
He assumed the office of pontifex maximus, in order that he
might keep his hands free from blood. He forgave his brother
Domitian, who more than once plotted against his life, and having
let a day pass without bestowing a present, he exclaimed,
“I have lost a day.”
Titus, like his father, spent money in adding to the magnificence of Rome. The Flavian amphitheatre (later called the Colosseum) was completed and dedicated in his reign, with combats of gladiators, shows of wild beasts, and representations of some of the great Greek naval battles. He gave the city splendid baths, which surpassed those of Agrippa and of Nero, and supplied the mob with every kind of luxury.
During his reign, in 79, occurred the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. The emperor visited the scenes and contributed liberally to the relief of the distressed inhabitants. During his absence a fire raged for three days at Rome, in which the new temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the library of Augustus, and other public buildings were burnt; then followed a pestilence, and Titus again assisted freely with his purse. Italy and the Roman world were peaceful during his reign. The only fighting was in Britain under Agricola, who in the year 80 carried the Roman arms as far as the Tay. Titus died on the 13th of September 81. The verdict of history is favourable to him, but the general feeling throughout the Roman world was that he had been fortunate in the briefness of his reign.
See Suetonius, Titus: Dio Cassius lxvi. 18–26; C. Beulé, Titus et sa dynastie (1870); L. Double, L’Empereur Titus (1877); Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire (ch. 60); H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. pt. 2.
TITUS TATIUS, in Roman legend, the Sabine king of Cures, who waged war upon the Romans to avenge the rape of the Sabine women (see Romulus). After various indecisive conflicts
- ↑ Clemen (Paulus i. 148) distinguishes broadly between the errorists of 2 Tim. and those controverted in the other two epistles. The former, he argues, are in the last resort libertinists and antinomians; the latter must be regarded as ascetic Judaists.
- ↑ 2 Tim. ii. 18. Paul’s teaching about the believer being already risen with Christ gave a welcome handle to the later Gnostics. The passage in John v. 28–29 seems a correction of the possible inferences which might be drawn from such teaching in Paul and in the Fourth Gospel itself.
- ↑ Cf. Von Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church (pp. 261 seq.).
