Читать толкование: К Титу послание ап. Павла, Глава 1, стих 5. Толкователь — Иероним Стридонский блаженный

А чтобы кто-нибудь не заспорил, что в одной церкви было много епископов, выслушай и еще свидетельство, в котором очевиднейшим образом утверждается, что епископ и пресвитер — одно и то же. Для того я оставил тебя на Крите; чтобы ты довершил недоконченное и поставил по всем городам пресвитеров, как я тебе приказывал: если кто непорочен, муж одной жены, детей имеет верных, не укоряемых в распутстве или непокорности. Ибо епископ должен быть непорочен, как Божий домостроитель (Тит. 1:5-7). ...А что впоследствии избран один и поставлен начальником над остальными — это сделано для устранения раскола, чтобы всякий, к себе привлекая, не разрывал Христовой Церкви. Ибо в Александрии, со времени евангелиста Марка и до епископов Геракла и Дионисия¹, пресвитеры всегда выбирали одного из среды своей и, возведя его на высочайшую степень, называли епископом (так точно, как войско выбирает императора).

1.5a. For the sake of this matter I left you in Crete, that you might cor¬rect the things that were wanting. It belongs to apostolic dignity to lay the foundation of the church, which no one can lay down except the architect. “But there is no foundation other than Christ Jesus.” The ones who are lesser craftsmen can build the temple upon the founda¬tion. And so Paul is like a wise architect, and he strives with all effort not to boast in things done previously, but where Christ had not yet been proclaimed. After he had softened the hard hearts of the Cre¬tans for faith in Christ, and had subdued them by both words and signs, and had taught them to believe not in their native Jove, but in God the Father and in Christ, he left his disciple Titus in Crete in order to strengthen the rudimentary lessons of the nascent church and to correct anything that seemed wanting. He himself traveled on to other nations in order once again to lay down among them the foundation of Christ.
Now his words, “that you correct what is wanting,” show that they had not yet come to a complete knowledge of the truth; and although they were corrected by an apostle, nevertheless they still need correc-tion. Now everything that is corrected is imperfect. For in the Greek a preposition is attached, so that it is written epiSiopGuah. This does not express the same thing as SiopGuap, that is, “correct,” but it means, so to speak, “super-correct.” Thus he means, let the things that have been corrected by me and have not yet been treated again to the full line of truth, be corrected by you and let them receive an equal standard.
1.5b. That you should appoint priests in every city, just as I arranged for you. Let the bishops who have the authority to appoint priests in the individual cities hear by what kind of law the ranking of ecclesiasti¬cal appointments should be maintained. Let them not think that these are the apostle’s words, but Christ’s, who says to his disciples, “He who rejects you, rejects me; but he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me.” So also, “he who hears you hears me; but he who hears me hears him who sent me.” From this it is clear that those who wish to confer ecclesiastical status on someone not by merit but as a favor, having de¬spised the apostle’s law, act contrary to Christ, who in what follows has described through his apostle what sort of priest ought to be appointed in the church. Moses, God’s friend, to whom God spoke face to face,surely was able to appoint his own sons to be the successors of his rule, and to leave behind his own dignity to posterity. Instead, he selected Jesus, an outsider from a different tribe. This was so that we would know that rule among the people should not be conferred by blood ties but by manner of living. And at the present time we perceive that very many make appointments as a favor. Thus they do not look for those who can help the church the most, they do not set up pillars in the church, but those whom either they themselves like, or by whose flat¬tery they have been won over, or a man whom one of the elders has re¬quested. I better keep quiet about worse situations, those who have obtained their rank in the clergy by means of financial gifts.
Let us pay careful attention to the words of the apostle who says, “that you should appoint priests in every city, just as I arranged for you.” He discusses what sort of priest ought to be ordained in what fol-lows when he says, “If anyone is without fault, a husband of one wife,”and so on. Later he added, “For a bishop must be without fault, as a steward of God.” It is therefore the very same priest, who is a bishop, and before there existed men who are slanderers by instinct, before factions in the religion, and before it was said to the people, “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, but I am of Cephas,” the churches were gov¬erned by a common council of the priests. But after each one began to think that those whom he had baptized were his own and not Christ’s,it was decreed for the whole world that one of the priests should be elected to preside over the others, to whom the entire care of the church should pertain, and the seeds of schism would be removed.
If someone thinks that this is our opinion, but not that of the Scriptures—that bishop and priest are one, and that one is the title of age, the other of his duty—let him reread the apostle’s words to the Philippians when he says, “Paul and Timothy, slaves of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace,” and so on. Philippi is a single city in Macedonia, and at least in one city several were not able to be bish¬ops, as they are now thought. But because at that time they called the same men bishops whom they also called priests, therefore he has spo¬ken indifferently of bishops as if of priests.
This may still seem doubtful to someone unless it is proven by an-other testimony. In the Acts of the Apostles it is written that when the apostle came to Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and summoned the priests of that church to whom later he said among other things, “Watch your-selves, and the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit appointed you bishops to feed the church of God, which he acquired through his own blood.” And observe here very carefully how, by summoning the priests of the single city of Ephesus, later he has spoken of the same men as bishops.
If anyone wants to receive that epistle which is written in Paul’s name to the Hebrews, even there care for the church is shared equally by many. For indeed he writes to the people, “Obey your leaders, and be in subjection; for they are the ones who watch over your souls, as those who will give a reckoning. Let them not do this with sighing; for indeed this is advantageous to you.” And Peter, who received his name from the firmness of his faith, speaks in his own epistle and says, “As a fellow priest, then, I plead with the priests among you, and as a witness of Christ’s sufferings, I who am a companion also of his glory that is to be revealed in the future, tend the Lord’s flock that is among you, not as though by compulsion but voluntarily.”
These things have been said in order to show that to the men of old the same men who were the priests were also the bishops; but grad¬ually, as the seed beds of dissensions were eradicated, all solicitudewas conferred on one man. Therefore, just as the priests know that by the custom of the church they are subject to the one who was previ¬ously appointed over them, so the bishops know that they, more by custom than by the truth of the Lord’s arrangement, are greater than the priests. And they ought to rule the Church commonly, in imitation of Moses who, when he had under his authority to preside alone over the people of Israel, he chose the seventy by whom he could judge the people. Therefore let us see what sort of priest, or bishop, ought to be ordained.