By this “perhaps,” the faith is already shaken and its soundness weakened. If such a state continues, and crooked interpretations are repeated several times, it is no wonder if these latter views are judged more attractive than the propositions of faith. Here is the disease.
This disease will be prevented if they do not attend to anything foreign to the faith. Do not attend, and you will be sound in the faith. Chrysostom says: “Soundness consists in introducing nothing false and nothing foreign.”
The Apostle defines this foreign thing by the words “Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.” What Saint Paul meant by this was clearly known to Saint Titus and the Cretans. For us it is difficult to guess.
There were many Jewish fables and many human errors. Yet we suffer no loss from this. Those Jewish fables and those human errors have already passed away, and we have no need to fear them.
For us, only the apostolic command remains: not to attend to anything foreign to the faith. And did Saint Paul not have this very aim when he left undefined for us, though not for those to whom he wrote, what not to attend to? He did so to teach us generally not to attend to anything we see to be inconsistent with the faith, however attractive it may appear.
By Jewish fables one should not understand the legal ordinances or the structure of religious life under the law, but either a crooked interpretation of these ordinances and their meaning, or everything later invented in addition to them by the Jews themselves.
Blessed Theodoret writes: “The Apostle called Jewish fables not the law, but the interpretation of the law proposed by the Jews.” Blessed Theophylact adds: “The holy books of the Old Testament, rightly understood, are not fables. How could this be, when from them we learn the truth of the Gospel? But wrong interpretations and additions are fables.”
What exactly were they? Every Jewish sect had its own crooked interpretations and additions: the Essenes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees. Among the Jews there were also philosophical speculators and mystical dreamers, who invented the Kabbalah. Are not all these fables?
There were also generally Jewish fables, for example, about the Messiah as an earthly king, and about His kingdom as sensual and worldly. Among Christians from the Jews, the fable long persisted that the legal ordinances were obligatory for all believers in the Lord and Savior. This especially concerned circumcision, the Sabbath, and kinds of food permitted and forbidden.
It is not evident which of all these Saint Paul meant. Yet it is beyond doubt that something of this entered the teaching of the vain talkers who tempted the Cretans. For, as it seems, that teaching was a mixture of different doctrines, in which Jewish fables had their share, though we cannot say precisely which.
What are “commandments of men who turn away from the truth”? This is either the same as Jewish fables, or something besides them, invented by human speculation, specifically pagan speculation.
In the first case, the words “commandments of men” will be defined by what one understands under Jewish fables. Blessed Theophylact, Oecumenius, and partly Chrysostom understand them as Jewish legal customs. In themselves, by origin and purpose, these customs were not fables. Yet they became fables when regarded as obligatory after they had lost their force.
In that case, they cease to be commandments of God and begin to be commandments of men. Ambrosiaster, however, understands by human commandments those Jewish ordinances later added to the law by the Jews themselves.
In the second case, commandments of men will mean pagan speculations and customs. Chrysostom partly takes it this way. It comes to mind that this understanding may be closer to the truth.
From the course of the speech it is evident that the speculations of the vain talkers who tempted the Cretans were a mixture of Judaism and paganism. Therefore, when the Apostle commanded them not to attend to what was foreign to the faith and could make faith unsound, he certainly had both sides of those seductive speculations in view.
Having designated what was Jewish in them as Jewish fables, he probably designated by the words “commandments of men” what was pagan in them. This is also confirmed by the quality of these men, namely, that they turn away from the truth.
It was just to consider Jews who opposed the Gospel as turning away from the truth. Yet this judgment applies more fully to pagans, who were wholly sunk in falsehood.
Chrysostom sees in the Apostle’s words an exhortation not to attend, not to some supposed Jewish and pagan false teachings, but to Judaism and paganism as they then stood before the eyes. He says:
“If those who observe rules concerning foods are not sound, but sick, for of such the Apostle says, ‘Receive the one who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions’ (cf. Rom 14:1), then what shall we say of those who fast and observe the Sabbath with the Jews? What shall we say of those who go to places considered sacred among the pagans, for example, the place in Daphne, the so-called cave of Matrona, or the place in Cilicia called that of Cronus?
“Can they be sound? Therefore one must obey neither pagans nor Jews, for this means not being sound. If you preserve the faith, why do you introduce something else, as though faith were insufficient for justification? Why do you subject and enslave yourself to the law?
“Or do you not hope in faith? This belongs to one who is sick and unbelieving. Such a person doubts, but it is not proper for a believing soul to doubt.”
Perhaps in fact there were no new teachings among the Cretans, mixed from Judaism and paganism. Perhaps former Jewish and pagan superstitions and customs remained, to which some attached great importance and tried to hold others in them.
In our time one may see here an exhortation to beware of falling under the influence of the Jewish and pagan spirit. By the first, one may understand contentment with the merely factual and practical side of life. By the second, one may understand casting off every yoke from the mind, the senses and desires, and outward action.
THEOSIS