The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): JanuaryBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): January
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
Towards the close of the year 56, S. Paul sent Titus from Ephesus to
Corinth, with full commission to remedy several subjects of scandal, and
to allay the dissensions in that Church. He was there received with
great respect, and was satisfied with the penance and submission of the
offenders; but could not be prevailed upon to accept from them any
present, not even so much as his own maintenance. His love for that
Church was very great, and at the request of the Corinthians, he
interceded with S. Paul for the pardon of the incestuous man whom he had
excommunicated. He was sent the same year by the Apostle, a second time,
to Corinth, to bring the alms of that Church to Jerusalem, for the
relief of the necessity of the poor Christians there. All these
particulars we learn from S. Paul's two epistles to the Corinthians.
S. Paul, after his first imprisonment, returning from Rome into the
East, made some stay in the island of Crete, of which Rustilius, the
governor, was married to the sister of S. Titus. He consecrated his
beloved disciple, Titus, to be bishop of that island, and left him there
to finish the work he had begun.[22] "We may form a judgment," says S.
Chrysostom, "from the importance of the charge, how great was the esteem
of S. Paul for his disciple."[23] But the Apostle, on his return into
Europe the year after, finding the loss of such a companion too
material, ordered him to meet him at Nicopolis, in Epirus, where he
intended to pass the winter, as soon as Artemas or Tychicus, whom the
Apostle was about to send to him, to take the place of the bishop during
his absence, should arrive.[24] And when he came, he bade him assist
Zenas, the lawyer, and Apollos on their journey.[25] From this Zenas we
have certain incidents of the life of S. Titus, which have been
preserved in a fragmentary condition in the Greek Menaea.
Zenas relates the conversion of S. Titus thus:--Titus, living in the
island of Crete, was learned in Greek literature, having been studious
in youth. But the dreams of the poets and philosophers did not satisfy
the inward craving of his soul after truth. One day, when twenty years
old, he heard a voice say to him, "Titus, depart hence and save thy
soul, for the learning of the Greeks will not profit thee unto
salvation." Wondering in himself what this could mean, he was bidden by
the same voice to take up a Hebrew volume that he had long disregarded,
and open it. And the book was the Prophet Isaiah, and the place of the
Scriptures that his eye rested on was this, "Keep silence before me, O
islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near;
then let them speak,"[26] and what follows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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