CHAPTER XXIV: THE DUTY OF OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY, WITH ITS LIMITS; THE DUTY OF COURTESY

THE DUTY OF OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY, WITH ITS LIMITS; THE DUTY OF COURTESY WITHOUT LIMITS.

"Put them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready unto every good work, to speak evil of no man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness toward all men. For we also were aforetime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another"--Titus iii. 1-3.

St. Paul, having in the previous chapter sketched the special duties which Titus is to inculcate upon different classes of Christians,--aged men and aged women, young women, young men, and slaves,--now passes on to point out what must be impressed upon all Christians alike, especially as regards their conduct towards those who are in authority and who are not Christians.

Here he is on delicate ground. The Cretans are said to have been a turbulent race, or rather a group of turbulent races; neither peaceable among themselves, nor very patient of foreign dominion: and the Roman rule had been established there for less than a century and a half. Previous to their conquest by Metellus in B.C. 67, they had been accustomed to democratic forms of government, and therefore would be likely to feel the change to the Roman yoke all the more acutely. As our own experiences in a neighbouring island have taught us, people who have been allowed to misgovern themselves, and to fight among themselves, for many generations, do not readily give a welcome to a power which deprives them of these liberties, even when it offers in exchange for them the solid but prosaic advantages of peace and security. Besides this, there was in Crete a strong mixture of Jews, whose rebellious propensities seemed to be unquenchable. Nor was this all. Within the Church itself the spirit of anarchy had displayed itself: partly because, as in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, the characteristic faults of the people still continued to show themselves after the acceptance of Christianity; partly because, as everywhere in the Churches of that age, the contests between Jewish and Gentile converts were always producing disorder. This appears in the first