Titus 3:6
Whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour:
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quem effudit in nos abunde per Jesum Christum Salvatorem nostrum :
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- οὗ ἐξέχεεν ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς πλουσίως διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν,
Haydock's commentary
All presumption of human merits, which have not the grace of Jesus Christ for their principle, is here completely confounded; and the whole glory of our salvation is justly attributed to the mercy of God, through Jesus Christ. A new birth, new creature, new spirit. The effusion of the water upon the body in baptism, is a figure of the salutary effusion of the holy Spirit in the soul to renew it, and to make it a child of God.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants, From the Epistle to Titus
Then again he writes to Titus as follows: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” And to the like effect in another passage: “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
St Augustine A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, He Proves Out of St. Paul that Grace is Not Given According to Men’s Merits
Now there was, no doubt, a decided merit in the Apostle Paul, but it was an evil one, while he persecuted the Church, and he says of it: “I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.” And it was while he had this evil merit that a good one was rendered to him instead of the evil; and, therefore, he went on at once to say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Then, in order to exhibit also his free will, he added in the next clause, “And His grace within me was not in vain, but I have laboured more abundantly than they all.” This free will of man he appeals to in the case of others also, as when he says to them, “We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” Now, how could he so enjoin them, if they received God’s grace in such a manner as to lose their own will? Nevertheless, lest the will itself should be deemed capable of doing any …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Titus 2:11-14
Ver. 6 . “Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Thus we need the Spirit abundantly. “That being justified by His grace”, again by grace and not by debt, “we may be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” At the same time there is an incitement to humility, and a hope for the future. For if when we were so abandoned, as to require to be born again, to be saved by grace, to have no good in us, if then He saved us, much more will He save us in the world to come.
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
Tit. iii. 4-7 . The kindness and mercy of God our Saviour saved us. 11. We now turn to the Gospels “and supplement the flickering flame of the Apostolic light with the brightness of the lamp of Christ.”
St Ambrose On the Holy Spirit, Chapter X. Being about to prove that the will, the calling, and the commandment of the Trinity is one, St. Ambrose shows that the Spirit called the Church exactly as the Father and the Son did, and proves this by the selection of SS. Paul and Barnabas, and especially by the mission of St. Peter to Cornelius. And by the way he points out how in the Apostle's vision the calling of the Gentiles was shadowed forth, who having been before like wild beasts, now by the operation of the Spirit lay aside that wildness. Then having quoted other passages in support of this view, he shows that in the case of Jeremiah cast into a pit by Jews, and rescued by Abdemelech, is a type of the slighting of the Holy Spirit by the Jews, and of His being honoured by the Gentiles
107. It is, then, the Holy Spirit Who has delivered us from that Gentile impurity. For in those kinds of four-footed creatures and wild beasts and birds there was a figure of the condition of man, which appears clothed with the bestial ferocity of wild beasts unless it grows gentle by the sanctification of the Spirit. Excellent, then, is that grace which changes the rage of beasts into the simplicity of the Spirit: “For we also were aforetime foolish, unbelieving, erring, serving divers lusts and pleasures. But now by the renewing of the Spirit we begin to be heirs of Christ, and joint-heirs with the Angels.”