So again the Old Latin (_domum custodientes_[137]),--the Vulgate (_domus curam habentes_[138]),--and Jerome (_habentes domus diligentiam_[139]): and so the Peshitto and the Harkleian versions,--besides the Bohairic.

There evidently can be no doubt whatever about such a reading so supported.

To be [Greek: oikouros] was held to be a woman's chiefest praise[140]: [Greek: kalliston ergon gyne oikouros], writes Clemens Alex.[141]; assigning to the wife [Greek: oikouria] as her proper province[142].

On the contrary, 'gadding about from house to house' is what the Apostle, writing to Timothy[143], expressly condemns.

But of course the decisive consideration is not the support derived from internal evidence; but the plain fact that antiquity, variety, respectability, numbers, continuity of attestation, are all in favour of the Traditional reading.
Notwithstanding this, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, because they find [Greek: oikourgous] in [Symbol: Aleph]*ACD*F-G, are for thrusting that 'barbarous and scarcely intelligible' word, if it be not even a non-existent[144], into Titus ii.5.The Revised Version in consequence exhibits 'workers at home'-- which Dr.Field may well call an 'unnecessary and most tasteless innovation.' But it is insufficiently attested as well, besides being a plain perversion of the Apostle's teaching.