The head of Saint Titus is kept in a side chapel in the Basilica of Saint Titus in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today (15 January 2023), and this week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (14 January 2024). The Christmas lights came down on the High Street in Stony Stratfrd yesterday, and the crib in front of the altar has been taken down in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church. But Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
Before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer. My reflections each morning during the seven days of this week include:
1, A reflection on one of the seven people who give their names to epistles in the New Testament;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The Church of Saint Titus in Iraklion … Saint Paul placed Saint Titus in charge of organising the church in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
2, Saint Titus of Crete:
Although Saint Paul does not give his own name to any of his letters, seven people give their names to a total of eleven of the letters or epistles in the New Testament:
Timothy (I and II Timohty), Titus,
Philemon,
James,
Peter (I and II Peter),
John (I, II and III John), and
Jude.
Three of the Pauline letters are known as the Pastoral Letters: I Timothy, II Timothy and Titus. They are generally discussed as a group – sometimes along with the Letter to Philemon – and have been known as the pastoral letters since the 18th or 19th century because they address two individuals,
Timothy and Titus, who have pastoral oversight of local churches and discuss in pastoral ways issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership.
These letters are arranged in the New Testament in order of size, although this does not represent their chronological order.
Paul addressed his letters to Timothy and Titus who were left behind by Paul to preside in their respective churches during the author’s absence –
Timothy in Ephesus (I Timothy 1: 3) and Titus in Crete (Titus 1: 5).
They use similar terms to describe the desirable qualifications of hose they appoint to offices in the Church. Timothy and Titus are warned against the same prevailing corruptions, and in particular against the same misdirection of their cares and studies.
These three letters share similar phrases and expressions and similar greetings to the two recipients.
Saint Timothy and Saint Titus are named on 26 January in the calendars of many Anglican churches, including
Common Worship in the Church of England. But 25 August is the feast of Saint Titus in the Orthodox Church, and his head is the important relic in the Church of Saint Titus in Iraklion in Crete.
Titus (Τίτος, Títos) was a companion of Saint Paul and is mentioned in several of the Pauline epistles. He was with Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and accompanied them to the Council of Jerusalem, although he is not named in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15; 2; Galatians 2: 1-3).
Titus appears to have been a Gentile and Paul refuses to have him circumcised. Initially, he was engaged mainly in ministry among the Gentiles.
At a later period, Paul’s epistles place Titus with Paul and
Timothy at Ephesus. From Ephesus he is sent by Paul to Corinth to collect the contributions from the Church there to help the poor Christians in Jerusalem (II Corinthians 8: 6; 12: 18). He joined Paul again in Macedonia, and consoled or cheered him with the tidings he brought from Corinth (II Corinthians 7: 6-15).
After that, Titus is not mentioned again until after Saint Paul’s first imprisonment, when he was organising the church in Crete, where Paul had left him. According to tradition, Paul ordained Titus bishop of Gortys, 45 km south of Iraklion, on the south coast of Crete, and the early Church historian Eusebius says Titus was the first Bishop of Crete.
The last we hear of Titus is in II Timothy 4: 10, when he leaves Saint Paul in Rome in order to travel to Dalmatia, on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea.
His death is not mentioned in the New Testament, but Greek tradition says he died in the year 107, aged about 95. His only relic is his skull, which is kept in the Church of Saint Titus in Iraklion in Crete. It was removed to Venice during the Turkish Ottoman occupation of Crete, and was returned to Iraklion in 1966.
The Epistle to Titus was written after Paul’s visit to Crete (see Titus 1: 5), but this was hardly the same visit as the one in Acts 27: 7, when Paul was on his way to Rome as a prisoner, and where he remained a prisoner for two years. Traditional exegesis supposes that after his release Paul sailed from Rome to western Anatolia, passing through Crete on the way, and that there he left Titus ‘to set in order the things that were wanting.’
From Crete he would have gone to Ephesus, where he left
Timothy, and from Ephesus to Macedonia, where he wrote I Timothy. From there he travelled on to Nicopolis (modern Preveza) in Epirus, from where he wrote to Titus, about 66 or 67 CE.
This short letter is addressed to Titus in Crete, and is divided into three chapters. It includes advice on the character required of Church leaders (chapter 1), a structure and hierarchy for Christian teaching within the Church (chapter 2), and the kind of godly life and moral action required of Christians in response to God’s grace and gift of the Holy Spirit (chapter 3).
This letter deals with the character and qualifications of church officials such as elders, declaring that they are to be men of dignity, respectful, honourable, etc.
It includes the oft-quoted paradox which the author ascribes to a Cretan prophet: ‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, and lazy gluttons’ (Titus 1: 12).
Known as the ‘Epimenides Paradox,’ this proposition reveals a problem with self-reference in logic. The original statement is said to have been made by the Cretan philosopher, Epimenides of Knossos (
ca 600 BCE), who responded to the popular belief in Crete that Zeus was dead by saying: ‘All Cretans are liars.’ The paradox arises when we consider whether it is possible for Epimenides to have spoken the truth.
Epimenides is first identified as the ‘prophet’ in Titus 1: 12 by Clement of Alexandria (
Stromata 1, 14). Clement mentions that ‘some say’ Epimenides should be counted among the seven wisest philosophers. But he does not indicate that the concept of logical paradox is an issue.
Saint John Chrysostom (
Homily 3 on Titus) gives an alternative fragment:
For even a tomb, King, of you
They made, who never died, but ever shall be.
However, it is not clear when Epimenides became associated with the Epimenides paradox, a variation of the liar paradox. Saint Augustine restates the liar paradox in
Against the Academicians (III.13.29), but does so without mentioning Epimenides.
In the Middle Ages, many forms of the liar paradox were studied under the heading of
insolubilia, but they were not associated with Epimenides.
Paradoxically, I have to say I have found most if not all Cretans to be truthful and honest.
Many years ago, back in the 1980s, as I entrusted someone on the beach in Rethymnon with my wallet and valuables as I went for a swim, I was advised that it was tourists and foreigners I needed to be wary of.
Inside the Church of Saint Titus in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 2: 18-22 (NRSVA):
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ 19 Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
21 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’
The remains of the Palace at Knossos … Saint Paul borrows his paradoxical claim, ‘Cretans are always liars,’ from the Cretan philosopher, Epimenides of Knossos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 15 January 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Climate Justice from Bangladesh perspective’. This theme was introduced yesterday by the Right Revd Shourabh Pholia, Bishop of Barishal Diocese, Church of Bangladesh.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (15 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
Let us pray for strength and wisdom to adapt to changes and build resilient communities to withstand the climate challenges that lie ahead.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection (Timothy)
Continued tomorrow (Philemon)
Epimenides gives his name to a street in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://nrsvbibles.org
