Titus
Titus names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Titus a companion of St
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a companion of St. Paul, though not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. He seems to have been converted by the apostle (Tit. i: 4), probably at Antioch A. D. 50 or 51, and in the same year accompanied him to Jerusalem, and was present at that first counas cil which recognized Gentile converts part of the Church, and exempted them from the burden of the Mosaic ritual (cf. Acts xv. 1-35 with Gal. ii: 1-3). Paul soon afterward practically carried out the liberty thus accorded by refusing to require Titus, who by birth was a Greek, to be circumcised (Gal. ii: 3-5). Titus was subsequently with Paul at Ephesus (A. D. 56), whence the former was sent on a special mission to the Corinthians, perhaps carrying with him Paul's second epistle to that Church (II Cor. viii: 6, 22, 23, xii: 18). When Titus returned (A. D. 57) he found the apostle in Macedonia (II Cor. vii: 5-6, 13-15). Subsequently (probably A. D. 65 or 66) he was left in Crete to arrange the affairs of the Church and "ordain elders in every city" (Tit. i: 5). Returning thence to Rome he was dispatched by Paul (A. D. 66 or 67) to Dalmatia (II Tim. iv: 10). According to tradition Titus returned to his work in Crete, and died a natural death at an advanced age, The Epistle of Paul to Titus, the third of St. Paul's pastoral epistles. It was written to give Titus directions respecting the organization of the Cretan Church. There is a considerable resemblance between some passages in Titus and others in the Epistles to Timothy. The external evidence in favor of the epistle to Titus is somewhat stronger than for those to Timothy. The three together are called the pastoral epistles.
Titus the Roman prænomen but the usual name for the 11th of the 12 Cæsars
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the Roman prænomen but the usual name for the 11th of the 12 Cæsars, Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, the eldest son of Vespasian and Flavia Domitilla; born in Rome, Dec. 30, A. D. 40. He was brought up at the court of Nero along with Britannicus, and early served with credit as tribune in Germany and Britain, and in Judæa under his father. On Vespasian's elevation to the throne Titus was left to prosecute the Jewish war, which he brought to a close by the capture of Jerusalem after a long siege (70). Both father and son enjoyed a joint triumph in 71. About this time Titus received the title of Cæsar, and took a share in the work of government. He gave himself up to pleasure, and his attachment to Berenice, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I., grievously offended the Romans. But no sooner had Titus assumed the weight of undivided power (79) than his whole character became changed. He assumed the office of Pontifex Maximus in order to keep his hands free from blood. He completed the Colosseum and built the baths which bear his name, and lavished his beneficence on the sufferers from the great eruptions of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii (79), and the great three days' fire at Rome, followed by pestilence the year after. Titus was now the idol of his subjects. He loved to give. But unhappily he died suddenly at his patrimonial villa in the Sabine country, Sept. 13, 81, not without the suspicion that he had been poisoned by his younger brother Domitian.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative of the emperor Titus that Collier's gave in 1921 — the siege of Jerusalem in 70, the joint triumph, the completion of the Colosseum, the relief sent to the towns buried by Vesuvius, the sudden death in September 81 — still stands, since it rests on Suetonius, Tacitus and Dio, and no new literary source has appeared. What has moved is the archaeology and the dating: excavation at Herculaneum in the 1980s uncovered several hundred victims sheltering in the boat sheds by the shore, and a charcoal inscription found at Pompeii and published in 2018 has led many scholars to place the eruption in the autumn of 79 rather than on the traditional 24 August. On the other Titus, Paul's Greek companion, the biblical facts are unchanged but the framework has shifted: Collier's treated the Epistle to Titus as straightforwardly Paul's and thought its external evidence "somewhat stronger" than that for the letters to Timothy, whereas most critical scholars now regard all three Pastoral Epistles as written in Paul's name by a later hand, which unsettles the confident dates of 65–67 for the Cretan mission.
Written for this edition, 2026.