Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TITUS, EPISTLE OF

A pseudepigraphal text, attested in a single manuscript, composed in unrefined Latin and dating to the 8th century c.e. The author, purporting to be the Titus to whom the third of the Pastoral Epistles was addressed, composed a vehemently pro-ascetic address to a celibate Christian congregation, a theme ironically opposing the antiascetic tone of the Pastoral Epistles. The Epistle of Titus demands a chaste life-style from a group of male and female ascetics, some of whom have strayed from the ascetic ideal. To rectify the situation, the author adduces exemplars and allegorizing references to spiritual marriage from the OT, NT, and most notably, the apocryphal acts. The presumed authority of the apocryphal acts suggests that the Epistle of Titus functioned in a setting where asceticism was common and the apocryphal acts enjoyed popularity, perhaps the Priscillianist movement in 5th-century Spain.

Bibliography. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Chicago, 1987), 410-11.

Melissa M. Aubin

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TITUS, EPISTLE OF

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)