Titus 2:1-10. In the face of this immoral teaching, do you constantly impress the moral duties of the Gospel on your people of every age and class. There is an ideal of conduct appropriate to old men and old women respectively—the latter have moreover special duties in the training of the young women—and young men. Enforce your words by personal example. Slaves, too, must be taught that they share in responsibility for the good name of the Gospel.

Titus 2:1. σὺ δὲ: See reff., and note on 1 Timothy 6:11. Titus is to be as active in teaching positive truth as the heretics were in teaching evil.

λάλει: emphasises the importance of oral teaching.

τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ: See on 1 Timothy 1:10.

Titus 2:2. The heads of moral instruction which begin here are more unmistakably intended for the laity than are the similar passages in Tim. That it should devolve on the apostle’s legate to give popular moral instruction is perhaps another indication of the less-developed state of the Church in Crete than in Ephesus and its neighbourhood.

πρεσβύτας: senes; sc. παρακάλει (Titus 2:6).

νηφαλίους: sober, sobrii; temperate (R.V.) in respect of their use of strong drink. Chrys. explains it to be vigilant, as does the Syriac, and A.V. m.; but the homely warning seems more appropriate. See note on 1 Timothy 3:2.

σεμνούς: see note on 1 Timothy 3:8.

σώφρονας: see notes on 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Timothy 3:2. For ὑγιαίνειν followed by dat. see Titus 1:13. πίστις, ἀγάπη, ὑπομονή are constantly grouped together (See on 1 Timothy 6:11); and this suggests that πίστις here is subjective, not objective, as in the similar phrase Titus 1:13. See note on 1 Timothy 1:10.

Titus 2:3. πρεσβύτιδας: correlative to πρεσβύτας, as πρεσβυτέρας is to πρεσβυτέρῳ in 1 Timothy 5:1-2.

ὡσαύτως: See on 1 Timothy 2:9.

ἐν καταστήματι ἱεροπρεπεῖς: reverent in demeanour, R.V. καταστολή in 1 Timothy 2:9 has an almost exclusive reference to dress. Demeanour (R.V.) is better than behaviour (A.V.), which has a wide reference to conduct, in all respects and on all occasions. Deportment, which includes a slight reference to dress, would be the best rendering, only that the word has become depreciated.

ἱεροπρεπεῖς perhaps = ὃ πρέπει γυναιξὶν ἐπαγγελλομέναις θεοσέβειαν (1 Timothy 2:10); but in itself the word does not guarantee more than the appearance of reverence. Wetstein gives, among other illustrations, one from Josephus (Ant. xi. 8, 5), describing how Jaddua, the high priest, went out in procession from Jerusalem to meet Alexander the Great, ἱεροπρεπῆ καὶ διαφέρουσαν τῶν ἄλλων ἐθνῶν ποιούμενος τὴν ὑπάντησιν.

μὴ διαβόλους: See on 1 Timothy 3:11, and 2 Timothy 3:3.

δεδουλωμένας: The A.V., not given to much wine, makes no difference between this and προσέχοντας, which is the verb in the corresponding phrase, in the list of moral qualifications of deacons, 1 Timothy 3:8. It is proved by experience that the reclamation of a woman drunkard is almost impossible. The best parallel to this use of δουλόω is 2 Peter 2:19, ᾧ γάρ τις ἥττηται, τούτῳ δεδούλωται. Cf. also the other reff.

καλοδιδασκάλους: Not only “by discourse at home,” as Chrys. explains, but by example.

Titus 2:4. σωφρονίζουσιν. The only other examples of ἵνα with a pres. indic. in Paul are 1 Corinthians 4:6 (φυσιοῦσθε) and Galatians 4:17 (ζηλοῦτε). These may be cases of an unusual formation of the subj., both being verbs in -όω. γινώσκομεν, 1 John 5:20, is another instance. Train is the excellent rendering of the R.V. The A.V., teach … to be sober, although an adequate rendering elsewhere, leaves φιλάνδρους εἶναι disconnected. Timothy is bidden (1 Timothy 5:2) παρακαλεῖν … νεωτέρας himself; but this refers to pastoral public monitions, not to private training in domestic virtues and duties, as here.

τὰς νέας: There is no other instance in the Greek Bible of νέος, in the positive, being applied to a young person; though it is common in secular literature. There is possibly a certain fitness in the word as applied here to recently married women, whom the apostle has perhaps exclusively in view.

φιλάνδρους: “This is the chief point of all that is good in a household” (Chrys.). One of the three things in which Wisdom “was beautified” is “a woman and her husband that walk together in agreement” (Sir 25:1).

φιλοτέκνους: “She who loves the root will much more love the fruit” (Chrys.). φιλάνδρῳ καὶ φιλοτέκνῳ is cited from an “epitaph from Pergamum about the time of Hadrian” by Deissmann, who gives other references to secular literature. (Bible Studies, trans. p. 255 sq.).

Titus 2:5. οἰκουργούς: workers at home. Field says that “the only authority for this word is Soranus of Ephesus, a medical writer, not earlier than the second century,” οἰκουργὸν καὶ καθέδριον διάγειν βίον; but the verb is found in Clem. Rom., ad Cor. i. 1, γυναιξίν … τὰ κατὰ τὸν οἶκον σεμνῶς οἰκουργεῖν ἐδιδάσκετε. οἰκουρούς, keepers at home, domum custodientes ([316] [317]81) domus curam habentes (Vulg.), though constantly found in descriptions of virtuous women, is a less obviously stimulating epithet. Mothers who work at home usually find it a more absorbing pleasure than “going about from house to house” (1 Timothy 5:13). But the “worker at home” is under a temptation to be as unsparing of her household as of herself; and so St. Paul adds ἀγαθάς, benignas, kind (R.V.), rather than good (A.V.). For this force of ἀγαθός, see reff.

[316] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[317] Speculum

ἰδίοις: ἴδιος (See on 1 Timothy 3:4) is not emphatic: it is simply, their husbands. The ἴδιος merely differentiates husband from man.

ἵνα μὴ ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ βλασφημῆται: For λόγος, as used here, the more usual word is ὄνομα (from Isaiah 52:5). See reff. on 1 Timothy 6:1; and also Jam 2:7, Revelation 13:6; Revelation 16:9. ἡ ὁδὸς τῆς ἀληθείας, in 2 Peter 2:2, is equivalent to ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ here. The practical worth of a religion is not unfairly estimated by its effects on the lives of those who profess it. If the observed effect of the Gospel were to make women worse wives, it would not commend it to the heathen; “for the Greeks judge not of doctrines by the doctrine itself, but they make the life and conduct the test of the doctrines” (Chrys.). See note on 1 Timothy 5:14.

Titus 2:6. ὡσαύτως: See on 1 Timothy 2:9.

Titus 2:7. περὶ πάντα is joined with the preceding words by Jerome and Lucifer (ut pudici [sobrii] sint in omnibus), followed by Tischendorf and von Soden. For this use of περί, See on 1 Timothy 1:19. St. Paul’s usual phrase is ἐν παντί (fifteen times in all; ten times in 2 Cor.; not in Pastorals), or ἐν πᾶσιν (ten times, five of which are in the Pastorals: 1 Timothy 3:11; 2 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 4:5; Titus 2:9-10); also εἰς πάντα, 2 Corinthians 2:9; κατὰ πάντα, Colossians 3:20; Colossians 3:22.

σεαυτὸν παρεχόμενος τύπον: The middle is appropriate with σεαυτὸν; see reff. given by Deissmann, Bible Studies, trans. p. 254; but with ἀφθορίαν, etc., the active would seem more natural, as in reff. For τύπον, see 1 Timothy 4:12, and for καλὰ ἔργα, see 1 Timothy 3:1. This exhortation, following νεωτέρους κ.τ.λ., and also Titus 2:15, suggest that Titus was comparatively young.

διδασκαλία here is not doctrine (A.V.), but teaching; thy doctrine (R.V.), including the person of the teacher as well as what he says. See note on 1 Timothy 1:10.

ἀφθορίαν, σεμνότητα, sincerity … impressiveness, integritatem … gravitatem. See on 1 Timothy 2:2. These refer respectively to the principles and the manner of the teacher, while λόγον, κ.τ.λ., describes the matter of his teaching.

Titus 2:8. ἀκατάγνωστον: to which no exception can be taken. See Deissmann, Bible Studies, Trans. p. 200. ὑγιῆ implies the conformity of the doctrine taught with the Church’s standard (see note on 1 Timothy 1:10), while ἀκατάγνωστον has reference to the manner of its presentation to the hearer.

ὁ ἐξ ἐναντίας: The heathen opponent, official or unofficial, ὁ ἀντικείμενος (1 Timothy 5:14), οἱ ἀντιδιατιθέμενοι (2 Timothy 2:25), not the Devil himself (Chrys.).

ἐντραπῇ: vercatur (Vulg.); but confundatur, as in 2 Thessalonians 3:14, would be a better rendering here. An antagonist who finds that he has no case “looks foolish,” as we say.

φαῦλον: usually applied to actions. See reff. The clause means having nothing evil to report concerning us: not, as the English versions, having no evil thing to say, which might be explained as, “being unable to abuse us”.

Titus 2:9. δούλους: sc. παρακάλει, Titus 2:6. For the general topic, and the term δεσπότης, cf. 1 Timothy 6:1.

ἐν πᾶσιν: joined as in text by Jerome, Ambrosiaster and [318]93 with ὑποτάσσ. It is in favour of this that ἐν πᾶσιν elsewhere in the Pastorals (see note on Titus 2:7) is at the end of a clause; also that in similar contexts we have ἐν παντί (Ephesians 5:24) and κατὰ πάντα (Colossians 3:22) joined with ὑποτάσσω and ὑπακούω.

[318] Speculum

εὐαρέστους: A Pauline word. Alf. notes that it is a servant’s phrase, like the English “to give satisfaction”. This acute remark brings the present passage into harmony with St. Paul’s usage in the reff., in which it is used of persons, of men in their relation to God. εὐάρεστον is used of a sacrifice, “acceptable,” in Romans 12:1, Php 4:18; cf. Hebrews 12:28; τὸ εὐάρεστον, “that which is well pleasing,” in Romans 12:2, Ephesians 5:10, Colossians 3:20, Hebrews 13:21. Jerome’s view that εὐαρ. is passive, “contented with their lot,” is not satisfactory.

μὴ ἀντιλέγοντας; non contradicentes (Vulg.). Ell. thinks that more is implied than pert answers (A.V. answering again); rather “thwarting their masters’ plans, wishes, or orders”. See ch. Titus 1:9. This is the connotation of gainsaying (R.V., A.V.m.).

Titus 2:10. μὴ νοσφιζομένους: non fraudantes (Vulg.), not purloining. The particular form of theft implied is the abstraction or retention for oneself, of a part of something entrusted to one’s care.

πᾶσαν πίστιν ἐνδεικνυμένους ἀγαθήν: displaying the utmost trustworthiness. There is a similar phrase in ch. Titus 3:2, πᾶσαν ἐνδεικ. πραΰτητα. See note on 2 Timothy 4:14. On this use of πᾶς, See on 1 Timothy 1:15. πίστιν has a qualifying adj. elsewhere, e.g., ἀνυπόκριτος (1 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:5. Cf. ch. Titus 1:4. 2 Peter 1; Judges 1:20), but the addition of another adj. after πᾶς is unusual. In Clem. Rom. 1 Cor. 26 πίστις ἀγαθή is rendered by Lightfoot honest faith; but honest fidelity would be an odd expression. Von Soden would give ἀγαθή here the sense of kind, wishing well, as in Titus 2:5, and as a contrast to ἀντιλεγ., as πιστιν is to νοσφ. W.H. suggest that the original reading here was πᾶσαν ἐνδεικνυμένους ἀγάπην. See apparat. crit.

διδασκαλίαν: See note on 1 Timothy 1:10.

Θεοῦ refers to God the Father. See Titus 1:3. Von Soden takes it here as objective genitive; the διδασκαλία being set forth in Titus 2:11-14.

κοσμῶσιν: cf. 1 Timothy 2:9, κοσμεῖν ἑαυτάς … διʼ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν. The διδασκαλία, though really practical, can be plausibly alleged to be mere theory; it must then, by good works, be rendered attractive to them that are without. Cf. Matthew 5:16, Php 2:15.

Titus 2:11-15. The justification of this insistence on the universal necessity for right conduct is the all-embracing scope of the saving grace of God, which has visibly appeared as a call to repentance, a help to amendment of life, and a stimulus to hope. Christ’s gift of Himself for us constrains us to give ourselves wholly to Him. Insist on these things, as authoritatively as possible, in every department of your teaching.

Titus 2:11. The emphatic word is πᾶσιν. The connexion is with what has immediately preceded. No rank or class or type of mankind is outside the saving influence of God’s grace. Chrys. concludes a striking picture of the adverse moral environment of slaves with, “It is a difficult and surprising thing that there should ever be a good slave”.

ἐπεφάνη: See note on 1 Timothy 6:14. The grace of God (also Titus 3:7) is His kindness and love of man (Titus 3:4). It appeared (Titus 3:4) (a) as a revelation, in the Incarnation, and also (b) in its visible results; and so it is both heard and recognised (Colossians 1:6). Accordingly Barnabas could see it at Antioch (Acts 11:23). It is possible to stand fast in it (1 Peter 5:12), and to continue in it (Acts 13:43). It is given to men, to be dispensed by them to others (Romans 1:5, Ephesians 3:2; Ephesians 3:7); and if men do not respond to it, they are said to fall short of it (Hebrews 12:15). Here it is described in its essential power and range, σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρ., … appeared, bringing salvation to all men (so R.V.; A.V.m). This connexion of the words is favoured by the fact that ἐπεφάνη is used absolutely in Titus 3:4.

Titus 2:12. παιδεύουσα. erudiens (Vulg.), corripiens ([319]). Grace is potentially σωτήριος as regards all men; actually its efficacy is seen in the disciplining of individuals one by one; ἡμᾶς, to begin with. See notes on 1 Timothy 1:1; 1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Timothy 4:10. So Chrys. makes ἵνα depend on ἐπεφάνη more directly than on παιδεύονσα: “Christ came that we should deny ungodliness.” The connexion, then, is ἐπεφάνη … ἵνα … ζήσωμεν. “The final cause of the Revelation in Christ is not creed, but character” (J. H. Bernard). It is of course possible (and this is the view usually held) to join παιδεύουσα ἵνα; the ἵνα introducing the object (instructing us, to the intent that, denying, etc., R.V.), not the content (teaching us that denying, etc., A.V.) of the παιδεία.

[319] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

ἀρνησάμενοι … ζήσωμεν … προσδεχόμενοι represent three successive stages in the Christian life. The force of the aorist participle must not be lost sight of, though it may be pedantic to mark it in translation. ἀρνησάμενοι κ.τ.λ., synchronises with the “death unto sin” which precedes the definite entry on newness of life, while προσδεχόμενοι expresses the constant mental attitude of those who are living that new life.

ἀρνησάμενοι: This indicates the renunciation of the Devil, of the vanity of this world, and of all the sinful lusts of the flesh. ἀρνέομαι means here to repudiate, renounce all connexion with. Cf. ἀποθέμενοι, 1 Peter 2:1. See on 1 Timothy 5:8.

τὴν ἀσέβειαν: εὐσέβεια being Christian practice (see below, εὐσεβῶς ζήσωμεν), ἀσέβεια is heathen practice, the non-moral life.

τὰς κοσμικὰς ἐπιθυμίας: saecularia desideria (Vulg.), “the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephesians 2:3), “the lusts of men” (1 Peter 4:2); opposed to σωφρ. καὶ δικαίως; such as have relation to no higher sphere than that of the visible world. They are analysed in 1 John 2:16.

σωφρόνως: The reference of the three adverbs is well explained by St. Bernard: “sobrie erga nos; juste erga proximos; pie erga Deum”.

Titus 2:13. προσδεχόμενοι κ.τ.λ., as already stated, describes the glad expectancy which is the ruling and prevailing thought in the lives of men looking for their Lord’s return (Luke 12:36), προσδεχόμενοι τὸ ἔλεος τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ (Judges 1:21). Cf. Romans 8:19; 1 Corinthians 1:7; Php 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Hebrews 9:28; 2 Peter 3:12. Isaiah 25:9 is the basal passage. Cf. Acts 24:15, ἐλπίδα ἔχων εἰς τὸν Θεόν, ἣν καὶ αὐτοὶ οὗτοι προσδέχονται. In this quotation ἐλπίδα is the mental act, while the relative ἥν is the realisation of the hope. ἐλπίς is also passive—the thing hoped for—in Galatians 5:5; Colossians 1:5; 1 Timothy 1:1.

επιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης: The Second Coming of Christ will be, as we are assured by Himself, “in the glory of His Father” (Matthew 16:27; Mark 8:38). “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2, a passage which supports the view that δόξης here is dependent on ἐπλίδα as well as on ἐπιφάνειαν). von Soden takes ἐπιφάνειαν as epexegetical of ἐλπίδα. The Second Coming of Christ may, therefore, be regarded as an ἐπιφάνεια τῆς δόξης Θεοῦ, even though we should not speak of an ἐπιφάνεια τοῦ Πατρός, while ἐπιφάνεια Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is normal and natural (See on 1 Timothy 6:14). τῆς δόξης having then an intelligible meaning, we are not entitled to treat it as merely adjectival, the glorious appearing (A.V.). The genitival relation does not differ in this case from τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. See also note on 1 Timothy 1:11. Again, there does not seem any reason why τοῦ σωτῆρος, κ.τ.λ., here should not depend on ἐπιφάνειαν, on the analogy of 2 Timothy 1:10. This may be thought too remote. In any case, the conception of the Second Coming as an occasion of manifestation of two δόξαι, that of the Father and of the Son, is familiar from Luke 9:26, ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἑν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς, κ.τ.λ. On the whole, then, we decide in favour of the R.V.m. in the rendering of this passage, appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The grammatical argument—“the identity of reference of two substantives when under the vinculum of a common article”—is too slender to bear much weight, especially when we take into consideration not only the general neglect of the article in these epistles but the omission of it before σωτήρ in 1 Timothy 1:1; 1 Timothy 4:10. Ellicott says that “μεγάλου would seem uncalled for if applied to the Father”. To this it may be answered that (a) the epithet is not otiose here; as marking the majesty of God the Father it is parallel to the ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν, κ.τ.λ., which recalls the self-sacrificing love of the Son; both constituting the double appeal—to fear and to love—of the Judgment to come. (b) Again, St. Paul is nowhere more emphatic in his lofty language about God the Father than in these epistles; see 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:15-16.

This is the only place in the N.T. in which μέγας is applied to the true God, although it is a constant predicate of heathen gods and goddesses, e.g., Acts 19:28. (See Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, vii., vii. 563). In view of the fact that the most probable exegesis of Romans 9:5 is that ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων, Θεός εὐλογητὸς, κ.τ.λ. refers to Christ, it cannot be said that ὁ μέγας Θεός, as applied to Him, is un-Pauline. But the proofs that St. Paul held Christ to be God Incarnate do not lie in a few disputable texts, but in the whole attitude of his soul towards Christ, and in the doctrine of the relation of Christ to mankind which is set forth in his epistles. St. Paul’s “declarations of the divinity of the Eternal Son” are not studied, as Ellicott admits that this would be if the R.V. rendering (our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ) be adopted. To this it may be added that the Versions, with the exception of the Aethiopic, agree with R.V.m. Ell. cites on the other side, of ante-Nicene writers, Clem. Alex., Protrept. § 7, and Hippolytus,—quoted by Wordsworth—besides the great bulk of the post-Nicene fathers. The text is one which would strike the eye of a reader to whose consciousness the Arian controversy was present; but it is safe to say that if it had read τοῦ σωτῆρος, the μεγάλου would have excited no comment. Consequently the papyri (all vii. A.D.) cited by J. H. Moulton (Grammar, vol. i. p. 84) “which attest the translation our great God and Saviour as current among Greek-speaking Christians” are too late as guides to St. Paul’s meaning here. The similar problem in 2 Peter 1:1 must be discussed independently. At least, even if it be granted that the R.V. there is correct, and that 2 Peter 1:1 is an example of the transference to Christ of the language used of deified kings “in the papyri and inscriptions of Ptolemaic and Imperial times,” it does not follow that the same account must be given of Titus 2:13.

Titus 2:14. ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν κ.τ.λ.: see note on 1 Timothy 2:6. As already observed, this is an appeal from the constraining love of Christ to the responding love of man.

λυτρώσηται: deliver. The language is borrowed from Psalms 129 (130):8 αὐτὸς λυτρώσεται τὸν Ἰσραὴλ ἐκ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτοῦ. The material supplied by this passage for a discussion of the Atonement is contained in ἔδωκεν … ἡμῶν, not in λυτρώσηται. See Dean Armitage Robinson’s note on Ephesians 1:14.

ἀνομίας: Lawlessness is the essence of sin (1 John 3:4), self-assertion as opposed to self-sacrifice which is love. Love, which is self-sacrifice, is a dissolvent of self-assertion or sin. And to what degree soever we allow the love of Christ to operate as a controlling principle in our lives, to that degree we are delivered from ἀνομία, as an opposing controlling principle.

καθαρίσῃ ἑαυτῷ λαόν: This is a pregnant expression for “purify and so make them fit to be his people”. St. Paul has in mind Ezekiel 37:23, “I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God”, ῥύσομαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν ὧν ἡμάρτοσαν ἐν αὐταῖς, καὶ καθαριῶ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔσονταί μοι εἰς λαὸν, κ.τ.λ. There is in καθαρίσῃ an allusion to Holy Baptism, which is explicit in Titus 3:5. Cf. Ephesians 5:26, ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ καθαρίσας τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι.

λαὸν περιούσιον: populum acceptabilem (Vulg.). A people for his own possession (R.V.) is the modern equivalent of a peculiar people (A.V.). λαὸς περιούσιος is the LXX for עַם סְגֻלָּה. סְגֻלָּה means “a valued property, a peculiar treasure” (peculium), and occurs first in Exodus 19:5, “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me.” Here the LXX inserts λαός, possibly from the references in Deut., in which the combination סגלה עם is found. סגלה alone occurs in Malachi 3:17 (εἰς περιποίησιν) and in Psalm 135:4 (εἰς περιουσιασμόν). The LXX of Malachi 3:17 is echoed in Ephesians 1:14, εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως, (where see Dean Armitage Robinson’s note) and 1 Peter 2:9, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν, in which λαός is a reminiscence of the LXX of the passages in Exod. and Deut. Perhaps περιούσιος refers to the treasure as laid up, while περιποίησις refers to it as acquired.

ζηλωτὴν καλῶν ἔργων: See Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 1:15; Hebrews 10:24.

Titus 2:15. See on 1 Timothy 4:12.

ταῦτα is best connected with λάλει only, and referred to the positive instructions of chap. 2, “the things which befit the sound doctrine”; while παρακάλει and ἔλεγχε represent the two main functions of the pastor. See Titus 1:9.

ἐπιταγῆς: authority, imperio; πάσης ἐπιτ.: in the most authoritative manner possible; not to be connected with ἔλεγχε only.

μηδείς σου περιφρονείτω: another way of saying μετὰ πάσης ἐπιταγῆς. Do not permit thine authority to be despised, Be consistent. See 1 Timothy 4:12.