Titus 3:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He commands us not to labor especially for their own benefit, because they cannot receive any profit for themselves, having once for all been corrupted in mind.

But if they begin to destroy others, then one must rise against them, contend with them, and refute them with great courage.

When you are placed under necessity and see others being corrupted, do not be silent. Stop the mouths of the corrupters, caring for those who are ready to perish.

In general, a labor-loving man who leads a proper life cannot give himself over to disputes.

Therefore act as I have said, because disputes about mere words arise from idleness and excessive speculation.

Indeed, speaking superfluously is very harmful when one must either teach, or pray, or give thanks.

We should not guard money more than words. On the contrary, we should guard words more than money, and not entrust ourselves to everyone indiscriminately.

In disputes, the matter ends in nothing. Thus the Apostle here means an incorrigible heretic.

Not to care for those who give hope of correction belongs to negligence. But to tend the incurably sick belongs to lack of discernment and extreme folly, because by this we only make them more shameless.

And again: "Reject a heretic after the first and second admonition" (Tit 3:10).

Therefore it is not the holy thing itself that arms the enemies of everything sacred against us. Rather, when they come to know it, they are brought to madness by being filled with pride.

This is why it is no small benefit for them to remain in ignorance. In that case they will not show contempt.

But if they learn, the harm is double. They themselves gain no profit from it, except perhaps greater harm, and they cause you countless troubles.

Let those hear this who shamelessly associate indiscriminately with everyone and make a matter of contempt out of what is worthy of all reverence.

For this reason, when we celebrate the mysteries, we close the doors and forbid entry to the unillumined. We do this not because we consider the mysteries being celebrated ineffective, but because many are not yet sufficiently prepared for them.

For this reason Christ Himself spoke many things to the Jews in parables, because seeing they did not see (Mt 13:13).

"Reject a heretic after the first and second admonition"? He says this about an incorrigible man, of whom it is known that he is incurably sick.

That the Apostle truly means a heretic hopeless for conversion is clear from the features by which he defines him in the following, eleventh verse.

He says: "Such a one is perverted," that is, he has as though lost the capacity to see the truth. "He sins," that is, he impiously persists in his error.

"And is self-condemned," that is, there is no longer any justification for him.

In such a case the court has no need to proceed to an investigation of the crime committed. By the very committing of it, the corresponding punishment has already come upon the offender. It remains only to establish the commission of the punishable act and the punishment. The judicial sentence in this case is only declaratory.

Corresponding to this difference in sentences, the relevant punishments also receive different names. With a sentence of condemnatory character, the punishment is called διχαστική ποινή, a judicial punishment. If the sentence is of declaratory character, the punishment is called, and is, νομική ποινή, a juridical or lawful punishment.

This latter occurs when the crime places the guilty person in such a position that the court has no need to judge him and punish him by deprivation of certain rights. The crime itself is bound up with their deprivation, and as soon as the crime is committed, the loss of rights follows of itself.

For certain grave crimes, especially those concerning church unity or the legal capacity of a given person to fulfill certain duties in the church order, such a punishment is imposed by ecclesiastical law itself.

For example, if a Christian has openly renounced the Christian faith and entered some non-Christian religious community, that person, by the very act of apostasy, has lost all rights belonging to him as a Christian. Consequently, a sentence of an ecclesiastical court declaring him deprived of these rights is superfluous.

Or if a member of the Church, for some punishable act of a secular character, is sentenced by the proper civil court to imprisonment or another similar punishment, then by that very fact this person is subjected to canonical infamy. In this case the ecclesiastical court has no need on its own part to impose this punishment specially.

In such and similar cases, punishment follows of itself as the immediate consequence of a certain punishable act. From this there developed in ecclesiastical law the concept of juridical or lawful punishment, as distinct from punishment imposed after proper judicial inquiry and declared by the proper ecclesiastical court.

The basis for this kind of punishment is found in Holy Scripture. The Apostle Paul, reminding Titus about a heretical man who does not wish to heed the exhortation to turn to the Orthodox faith, but remains stubborn in heresy, says that such a man is perverted, being self-condemned, και άμαρτάνει, ων αυτοκατάκριτος, Tit 3:10-11.

The same meaning is found in all the canons of the Council of Gangra that prescribe regarding as excommunicated from the Church all who have committed one of the crimes mentioned in those canons. The Gangran canons do not say that only an ecclesiastical court must declare the punishment for the crime. Rather, concerning each such offender, the relevant canon, like the Apostle Paul, says: ανάθεμα έστω. Such a stubborn sinner is already condemned.

All who dare to violate the decree of the holy and great Council held in Nicaea, in the presence of the most pious and God-beloved king Constantine, concerning the holy feast of saving Pascha, shall be excommunicated and rejected from the Church, if they continue contentiously to rise up against the good ordinance. This is said concerning laymen.

But if any of those who preside in the Church, whether bishop, presbyter, or deacon, after this decree dares, to the corruption of the people and disturbance of the churches, to separate himself and celebrate Pascha with the Jews, the holy Council henceforth judges such a one to be alien from the Church. He has become the cause not only of sin for himself, but also of the disorder and corruption of many.

The Council not only removes such men from sacred ministry, but also all who dare to be in communion with them after their deposition from the priesthood. Those deposed are also deprived of the external honor in which they had shared by the holy canon and the priesthood of God. Apostolic 7, 64, 70, 71; Second Ecumenical 7; Trullo 11; Laodicea 7, 37, 38; Carthage 34, 51, 73, 106.

Only two attempts at admonition are indicated, so that excessive pressure may not deepen obstinacy in the dissenter. At the same time, he must not be given occasion to learn evasions in defending his lie.

Ambrosiaster writes: "Heretics usually teach against Scripture while relying on the words of Scripture.

"By giving the words of Scripture their own meaning, they support the wrongful reasoning of their mind by the approving authority of Scripture.

"For impiety knows what great weight the authority of Scripture has. Under its name it composes a lie, so that an evil thing, unable to be accepted by itself under its own name, may seem acceptable under another's good name.

"The Apostle commands that such people be admonished once and twice, so that they may be without excuse, but no more.

"For if they are rebuked more often, they become still more excitable toward evil. Whoever reproves such a man often makes him more eager for the destruction of many.

"Therefore it is better to send them away, so that, weakened in their zeal to tempt others, they at least perish alone."

"Reject" means: say decisively, "You are not one of us. Go away from us." As a good shepherd, drive these wolves away from your flock.

This is equivalent to excommunication from the Church. But then by heretic one must understand someone belonging to the assembly of local believers.

Yet he may be a stranger, someone who has come from elsewhere. In that case, "reject" means: do not become involved with him. Admonish him once and twice, then leave him, turn away from him, and let him go his own way.

Blessed Theodoret writes: "When you have given proper teaching two and three times to those who undertake to teach the contrary, and then see that they remain with their wicked dogmas, do not enter into conversations with them any longer.

"For this is useless labor."

Saint Chrysostom says the same: "When someone has become so corrupt that he will by no means decide to change his opinion, why should you labor in vain, sowing seed on stone?

"That earnest labor can be used for your own people, conversing with them about mercy and the other virtues.

"One may care more for people who give hope of correction and merely offer resistance. But when someone holds to heresy plainly and openly before all, why dispute with him in vain? Why beat the air?"