Толкование К Титу послание ап. Павла 1 глава 6 стих - Экзегет

Епископ должен быть непорочен (1 Тим. 3:2) — то же, что и в письме Титу: Если кто непорочен. Апостол все добродетели обнимает в одном слове и требует почти противного природе. Ибо если всякий грех, даже в праздном слове, достоин порицания, то кто же в этом мире проживет без греха, то есть без упрека? Но пастырем Церкви избирается и такой, по сравнению с которым прочие, по справедливости, должны называться стадом.
*** И не всякого единобрачного мы сочтем лучше двоеженца; речь идет о том, что епископ должен призывать к единобрачию и постоянству, предлагая самого себя в пример для обучения. ...Кто вам из двух представляется лучшим, скромнейшим, более постоянным? Непременно тот, кто, овдовев и во втором браке, стал после этого проводить жизнь целомудренно и свято, а не тот единобрачный, кто от объятий блудницы за целый век до старости не освободился.
*** Среди тех, кто хорошему обучил своих сыновей, оказавшихся впоследствии дурными, полагаю и Исаака, который сына Исава во всяком случае наставил в доброй вере. Исав же, блудливый и низменный, за одну еду продал первородство свое (См. Быт. 25:29-34). Среди таковых родителей был и Самуил, который воззвал ко Господу, и Господь услышал его, и во время жатвы дождь зимой вымолил; но его сыновья уклонились в алчность (См 1 Цар. 8:1-6).
*** Не умножать богатства должен епископ, не устраивать царские пиршества, не приготовлять на легком огне фазанов... Нет, он должен прежде от своих домашних требовать того, что собирается внушать народу.

 В том и другом послании повелевается, чтобы в сан как епископа, так и пресвитера (хотя у древних епископами и пресвитерами были одни и те же, поелику первое было именем достоинства, а второе – возраста), избирались единобрачные. Что действительно апостол говорит здесь о крещенных, в этом никто не сомневается. Потому, если рукоположение возможно, хотя бы рукополагаемый и не имел до крещения качеств, требуемых от епископа (потому что требуются качества настоящие, а не прошедшие): то почему же препятствует рукоположению одно имя жены, что одно и не было грехом? Ты скажешь: так как не было грехом, то и не было отпущено в крещении. Это новость: поелику не было грехом, то вменится в грех! Всякий разврат, грязь публичного смешения, нечестия, отцеубийство, кровосмешение, грехи противоестественные очищаются водою Христа: а пороки брачного сожития останутся, публичные домы будут иметь предпочтение пред спальнями?! Я не ставлю тебе в вину множество блудниц, толпы развратников, кровопролитие, помойные ямы, где валяются как свиньи во всякой скверне похотей; а ты, в укоризну мне, извлекаешь из гроба давно умершую жену, которую я взял, чтобы не делать того, что сделал ты? Пусть же язычники – эта жатва церкви, которою ежедневно наполняются наши житницы, – и оглашенные, – эти кандидаты веры, – пусть же они услышат, что до крещения они не должны жениться, не должны вступать в честные браки, но, по обычаю Скоттов и Антикотов и по республике Платона, должны иметь общих жен и общих детей; пусть они остерегаются даже употреблять слово супруга, – чтобы после того, как они уверуют во Христа, их не стали упрекать, что когда-то они имели не наложниц и блудниц, а законных жен.

First of all, then, he should be without fault. I think that in another word to Timothy this is termed “irreproachable.” It is not that he is to be without any fault merely at that time when he is to be ordained and washes away past blemishes by a new manner of life; but from that time when he was reborn in Christ, he should not be plagued by any consciousness of sin. For how can the one in charge of a church “remove evil from its midst,” who falls into the same sin? Or by what license can he correct the one who sins, when he tacitly responds to himself that he has perpetrated the very same things that he is correcting?
And so “he who desires the episcopacy desires a noble task.”“Task,” he says, not honor, not glory. “But he ought to have a good testimony with those who are outside, so that he does not fall into reproach, and into the snare of the devil.” Now as for his words “husband of one wife,” we should understand them as follows: It is not that we are to think that every monogamous man is better than the one who has been married twice; but that he is able to exhort unto monogamy and continence, who offers the example of himself in his teaching. For let there be some young man who has lost his spouse, and overcome by the necessity of the flesh has taken a second wife, whom he also immediately loses. Then he lives continently. But let there be another man who was married to an older woman and made use of his wife, as the majority think happiness consists, and he never ceased from the work of the flesh. Which of the two seems better to you, chaster, more continent? Surely it is the one who was unhappy (infelix) even in the second marriage and afterward lived chastely and piously, and not the one who was not separated from his wife’s embrace in old age. Therefore let him not congratulate himself, whoever is chosen as if monogamous, that he is better than every twice-married man, since in him happiness is chosen more than will.
Certain ones think the following about this passage. It was a Judaic custom, they say, to have two or more wives, because even in the old law we read this about Abraham and Jacob. And they want this to be a command now, lest the one who is to be chosen bishop equally should have two wives at the same time. Many, more superstitiously than truly, think that likewise those ones are not to be chosen for the priesthood who, when they were pagans and had one wife, who was lost, after the baptism of Christ, married another. Though assuredly, if this is to be observed, those ones ought to be excluded from the episcopate who, while practicing wandering lust among prostitutes previously, having been reborn, took one wife. And it would be much more detestable that he has fornicated with many than to be found twice-married, since in one there is the unhappiness of marriage, in the other there is a lasciviousness that is prone to committing sin.
Montanus and those who are adherents of the schism of Nova- tus presume for themselves the name of the “purified.” They think that second marriages are to be kept from communion of the church, though the apostle, when giving this instruction about bishops and priests, assuredly relaxed it in respect to the rest. It is not because he is encouraging them to second marriages, but that he makes a concession to the necessity of the flesh. Tertullian too wrote a heretical book about monogamy, which no one who reads the apostle will fail to know is contrary to the apostle. And indeed it is under our control that a bishop or priest be without fault and have one wife. Otherwise, what follows, “having faithful children, not given to the accusation of excess, and not insubordinate,” is outside of our will.
For let it be so that parents have instructed their children well and have constantly educated them from early childhood in the Lord’s commands. If at a later time they devote themselves to excess and are overcome by vices and let go of the restraints to lust, will the fault redound to the parents? Will the sins of the child defile the father’s sanctity? If anyone educated his children well, I think that Isaac was among them. Assuredly he should be believed to have instructed his son Esau well. But Esau, a fornicator and a profane man, sold the rights of the firstborn for one meal. Samuel was also such, so that he called upon the Lord and the Lord heard him, and he obtained winter’s rain at the time of the harvest. He had sons who turned aside after greed, and they accepted financial gifts and exhibited themselves as such unjust judges that the people could not bear it and demanded a king over them in imitation of the other nations. Well then, if there were an election of priests, both Isaac, on account of Esau, and Samuel, on account of his sons, would have been deemed unworthy of the priesthood. And though the sins of the parents are not imputed to the children, since that pronouncement is no longer in force, “The parents ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” will the children’s vices prejudge the parents?
And so, first of all it should be said that the name of priesthood is so holy that even the things that are placed outside of us are required of us. This is not in order that we not become bishops on account of our vices, but because we need to be hindered from taking this step on account of the incontinence of our children. For by what freedom can we correct the children of others and teach what is right, when the one who has been corrected could immediately hurl at us, “First teach your own children”? Or with what effrontery do I correct an outside fornicator, when my own conscience responds to me, “Disinherit then the fornicating child; cast out your children who are enslaved to the vices”? But when a bad child lives together with you in the same house, do you dare to remove the speck from the other’s eye, not seeing the beam in your own? Consequently a just man is not defiled by the vices of his children, but the apostle restricts the freedom of the ruler of the church, that he may become such a kind who is not afraid that outsiders reproach him for the vices of his children.
Next the following must be added because of those who grow puffed up from the episcopate and think that they have obtained not a stewardship of Christ but power to command. For they are not at once superior to all those who have not been ordained bishops. From the fact that they themselves have been chosen, let them consider themselves more approved; but let them understand that some have been removed from the priesthood because their children’s vices hindered them. But if the sins of the children prohibit a just man from the episcopacy, how much more should each one who considers himself and who knows that the “powerful suffer powerful torments” withdraw himself from what is not so much an honor as a burden. Let him not campaign to occupy the place of others who are more worthy.
Finally the following should be said, that in the Scriptures by “sons,” λογισμοὺς, that is, thoughts are understood; but daughters are understood as πράξεις, that is, deeds. And he ought to be instructed now to become a bishop who has both his thoughts and deeds under his own control, and who truly believes in Christ and is not defiled by any blemish of surreptitious vices.