[73] χρηστὰ ὁμιλίαι instead of χρησθ’ ὁμιλίαι.
[74] Lightfoot on “Seneca and St. Paul,” in Philippians, pp. 288, 300.
[75] J. H. Newman, The Scope and Nature of University Education, pp. 336–342. The whole discourse, “The Church and Liberal Education,” is an eloquent and noble vindication of the claims of literature.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MEANING AND VALUE OF SOBERMINDEDNESS.—THE USE AND ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.
“But speak thou the things which befit the sound doctrine: that aged men be temperate, grave, soberminded, sound in faith, in love, in patience, that aged women likewise be reverent in demeanour, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good; that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be soberminded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed: the younger men likewise exhort to be soberminded.”—Titus ii. 1–6.
In marked contrast to the seducing teachers who are described in the concluding verses of the first chapter, Titus is charged to teach that which is right. “But speak thou the things which befit the sound doctrine.” What they taught was to the last degree unwholesome, full of senseless frivolities and baseless distinctions respecting meats and drinks, times and seasons. Such things were fatal alike to sound and robust faith and to all moral earnestness. Belief was frittered away in a credulous attention to “Jewish fables,” and character was depraved by a weak punctiliousness about fanciful details. As in the Pharisees, whom Jesus Christ denounced, scrupulosity about trifles led to neglect of “the weightier matters of the law.” But in these “vain talkers and deceivers,” whom Titus had to oppose, the trifles by which they distracted their hearers from matters of the highest importance were not even the minor duties enjoined by the Law or the Gospel: they were mere “commandments of men.” In opposition to calamitous teaching of this kind, Titus is to insist upon what is healthy and sound.
All classes are to be attended to, and the exhortations specially needed are to be given to each: to the older men and older women, the younger women and the younger men, to whom Titus is to show himself an example: and finally to slaves, for salvation is offered to all men, and is for no privileged class.