Aquinas: Commentary on Titus

Prologue

Luke 12:39

But know this, that if the householder knew at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open.

1. By householder is signified a prelate of the Church on account of the three duties he must perform: first, he must engender the faith in others; second, instruct them for salvation; third, guard them securely. He must do the first because, just as bodily life depends on the soul, so spiritual life depends on faith: the righteous shall live by his faith (Hab 2:4); and just as one is engendered into physical life by the emission of bodily seed, so into spiritual life by the emission of a spiritual seed, which is the word of God: I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel (1 Cor 4:15). Second, he must teach; do you have children? Instruct them (Sir 7:23); I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit (Isa 48:17). Third, he must guard his flock with care: he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye (Deut 32:10). For every prelate is entrusted with the care of his subjects: keep this man; if by any means he be missing, your life shall be for his life (1 Kgs 20:39); they are keeping watch, as men who will have to give account for your souls (Heb 13:17).

But this engendering requires knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me (Hos 4:6). Hence he says, if the householder knew; for he is supposed to know.

Again, besides being erudite, it is required that he be careful: he who rules, with carefulness (Rom 12:8); and in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night (Luke 2:8). In a sentry, fortitude is required, if the camp is to be protected; he girded on his armor of war as a giant and waged battles, protecting the host by his sword (1 Macc 3:3). Hence it is said, he would not suffer his house, i.e., the Church, to be broken open: that you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God (1 Tim 3:15). This house belongs to God as to its Lord, and to prelates as to servants: now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant . . . but Christ as a Son in his own house (Heb 3:5). This is broken open by the thief, i.e., by the heretic; if thieves came to you, if plunderers by night – how you have been destroyed! (Obad 1:5) The heretic is called a thief, because he walks stealthily in the darkness; hence, a thief is so called from his obscureness as the heretic from his obscure dogmas: stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant (Prov 9:17); and from his perverse intention, which is to kill: the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10); and from his mode of entry, because he does not enter by the door: and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already (1 John 4:3).

2. So it is easy to gather from the foregoing that the aim of this letter is to instruct Titus how to govern his church.