1. The Epistle is inscribed to Titus. Whose person is described.
Saint Paul wrote this Epistle Τίτῳ γνησίῳ τέκνῳ κατὰ κοινὴν πίστιν, to Titus, mine own son after the common faith, Titus 1:4. Titus was a Greek by birth, Galatians 2:3. His homeland and parents are obscure. Although some conjecture that he was a Corinthian from Acts 18:7, in which passage, in some Codices, in the place of Ἰούστου/Justus is read Τίτου/Titus,[1] just as also the Syrian Translator reads it, whose home was in the vicinity of Corinth. Paul went with him from Antioch to Jerusalem, where he, although converted, was not compelled to be circumcised, but retained his foreskin, with Paul thus ordaining that this be transmitted as an argument for Christian liberty unto all posterity.[2] With the Apostle as example, he, advancing them in faith and piety, caused it to be that he might be judged suited to be sent to diverse Churches for the gathering of alms, 2 Corinthians 8:6, 16. And him the Apostle calls, sometimes κοινωνὸν/ partner and συνεργὸν/fellow-helper, 2 Corinthians 8:23; sometimes ἀδελφόν/ brother, 2 Corinthians 2:13; but here τέκνον γνήσιον, mine own son. That he preached the Gospel at Crete and in the vicinity, and is buried there, Jerome relates in his Catalogo Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum. Paul himself here testifies, Titus 1:5, that Titus was left by him in Crete, that he might set in order the things that were wanting, and ordain elders town-by-town. But, that the subscript calls him τῶν Κρητῶν ἐκκλησίας πρῶτον ἐπίσκοπον χειροτονηθέντα,[3]the first elected Bishop of the Church of the Cretans, is of little trustworthiness. Certainly neither the Syriac nor the old Latin Translator read that. Neither in that age did that degree of Episcopal dignity obtain, distinct from the degrees of ordinary ministry.
[1] Against the overwhelming weight of the Byzantine tradition, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus read Τίτου/Titus. [2] Galatians 2:1-5. [3] See Acts 14:23: “And when they had ordained (χειροτονήσαντες) them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.”