Читать толкование: К Титу послание ап. Павла, Глава 1, стих 8. Толкователь — Иероним Стридонский блаженный

То есть не легко поднимает руку для удара.

***

Что священник должен избегать любостяжательности, этому научает и Самуил, свидетельствуя перед народом, что он ни у кого ничего не брал (1 Цар. 12:1-3), и нищета апостолов, которые, получая от братии средства к содержанию, хвалились, что, кроме пищи и одежды, они ничего другого не имеют и не желают (Ср. 1 Тим. 6:8).

Before everything “hospitality” (hospitali- tas) is officially announced in the future bishop. For if everyone desires to hear the following from the Gospel, “I was a stranger (hospes) and you received me,” how much more should a bishop, whose home ought to be a common lodge for all! For a layman will fulfill the duty of hospitality by receiving one or two or a few strangers. A bishop is inhumane if he does not receive everyone.
But I am apprehensive that, just as the Queen of the South who came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon will judge the men of her own time; and just as the men of Nineveh who did penance at the preaching of Jonah will condemn those who scorned listening to the one who was greater than Jonah, the Savior; so in the same way very many among the people will judge the bishops who dis¬sociate themselves from their ecclesiastical rank and practice things that do not befit bishops. I think that John is writing to Gaius about them: “Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you achieve among the brothers, and you do this for strangers who gave testimony to your love before the Church, whom you do well if you send them ahead worthily of God; for they went out on behalf of his name, taking noth¬ing from the Gentiles.” And with the Holy Spirit truly speaking in him what is to come upon the churches, even then he rebukes, say¬ing, “I wrote likewise to the church, but he who desires to exercise pri¬macy among them, Diotrephes, does not receive us. Therefore when I come I will admonish his works that he is doing, detracting from us by means of evil words. And it is not enough that he does not receive the brothers himself, but he even hinders those who want to, and he expels them from the church.”
Truly, now it is to discern what has been said first, that in very many cities the bishops or priests, if they see that the laity are “hospi¬table, lovers of good things,” they envy them, they complain, they ex-communicate, they expel them from the church. They act as if it is not permitted to do what the bishop is not doing. The very fact that the laity are such is a condemnation of the priests. And so they resent them, and regard them as if they were burdens on their necks, in order to lead them away from good works, to unsettle them by various forms of per-secution.
But let the bishop be “chaste,” which the Greeks call aufpona, and the Latin translator, fooled by the ambiguity of the word, translated “prudent” instead of “chaste.” But if laymen are commanded to ab¬stain from intercourse with their wives for the sake of prayer, what is one to think of a bishop, who will daily offer intact victims for his own sins and the people’s? We should reread the books of Kingdoms and we will find that the priest Abimelech was unwilling to give any of the bread of proposition to David and his men before he had first asked whether the men were “clean from woman,” assuredly referring not to someone else’s spouse but to their own. And until he had heard that they had been free from the conjugal act since yesterday and the day before, he did not allow them the bread that he had at first denied. How great is the difference between the bread of proposition and the body of Christ? It is the difference between shadow and bodies, between image and truth, between copies of things to come and the realities themselves which were prefigured through the copies.
And so, just as gentleness, patience, sobriety, moderation, abstain-ing from profit, hospitality, too, and kindness, ought to be in a bishop in particular, and they ought to be eminent among all the laity, so also there should be in him a unique chastity and, so to speak, a priestly pu¬rity, so that he not only keeps himself from the unclean act but even from the glance of his eye and from straying in his thoughts. Let his mind be free to confect the body of Christ. The bishop should be just and holy as well, so that he is preeminent in justice among the people among whom he labors, rendering to each man what he deserves, showing no partiality in judgment. The difference between the justice of a layman and of a bishop is this, that a layman can appear just to a few people, but a bishop can practice justice among as many people as are subject to him.
Now “holy,” which in Greek is expressed by osioi, signifies more the idea of sanctity itself combined with religiousness. It is referred to God. For the one whom we call holy, the Greeks call ayion. But what they call osion we can call pious toward God.
Let the bishop also be “abstinent,” not only, as some think, from lust and from the embrace of a woman, but from all disturbances of the mind. Let him not be incited to wrath; let not sadness cause him to be dejected; let not fear scare him away; let him not be carried away by excessive gladness. Now abstinence is listed by the apostle among the fruits of the Spirit. And if it is demanded of everyone, how much more of the bishop, who ought to bear the vices of sinners with pa¬tience and gentleness: “console the faint-hearted, endure the weak,”“render to no one evil for evil,” but “overcome evil by good.”