This is a true saying, If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Consider these three temperaments: the contemplative, the active, the contemplativeactive. A man can live the life of faith in any of these three and get to heaven. What is not indifferent is that he love truth and do what charity demands. No man must be so committed to contemplation as, in his contemplation, to give no thought to his neighbor’s needs, nor so absorbed in action as to dispense with the contemplation of God. The attraction of leisure ought not to be emptyheaded inactivity but in the quest or discovery of truth, both for his own progress and for the purpose of sharing ungrudgingly with others. Nor should the man of action love worldly position or power, for all is vanity under the sun, but only what can be properly and usefully accomplished by means of such position and power … of contributing to the eternal salvation of those committed to one’s care. Thus, as St. Paul wrote, “If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires good work.” He wanted to make clear that ...
“I want to be a bishop; oh, if only I were a bishop!” Would that you were! Are you seeking the name or the real thing? If it’s the real thing you’re seeking, you are setting your heart on a good work. If it’s the name you’re seeking, you can have it even with a bad work but with a worse punishment. So what shall we say? Are there bad bishops? Perish the thought, there aren’t any; yes, I have the nerve, the gall to say there are no bad bishops; because if they are bad, they aren’t bishops. You are calling me back again to the name and saying, “He is a bishop, because he is seated on the bishop’s throne.” And a straw scarecrow is guarding the vineyard. ..
But you think that this should not have happened to you because you believe that no one should be forced to do good. See what the apostle said, “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work,” yet how many are forced against their will to undertake the episcopacy. Some are dragged in, locked up and kept under guard, suffering all this unwillingly until there arises in them a will to undertake this good work. .
The office of a bishop is a good work, dearest brethren, as the blessed apostle says, “Whoever wants to be a bishop aspires to a noble task.” Now when “task” is heard, labor is understood. Therefore whoever desires the office of bishop with this understanding wants it without the arrogance of ambition. To express this more clearly, if a man wants not so much to be in authority over the people of God as to help them, he aspires to be a bishop in the true spirit.
He desireth a good work. No doubt but the work, or office, and charge of a bishop is good; but the motive of desiring to be a bishop not always good. However, in those days, the desire could scarce be grounded on temporal advantages. (Witham)
Should the entreaties of your brethren induce you to take orders, I shall rejoice that you are lifted up and fear lest you may be cast down. You will say, “if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.” I know that; but you should add what follows: such a one “must be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, chaste, prudent, wellprepared, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker but patient.” … Woe to the man who goes in to the supper without a wedding garment.
This relates to the present subject, not to what follows, respecting the office of a Bishop. For as it was doubted, he affirms it to be a true saying, that fathers may be benefited by the virtue of their children, and mothers also, when they have brought them up well. But what if she be herself addicted to wickedness and vice? Will she then be benefited by the bringing up of children? Is it not probable that she will bring them up to be like herself? It is not therefore of any woman, but of the virtuous woman, that it is said she shall receive a great recompense for this also.
Moral. Hear this, you fathers and mothers, that your bringing up of children shall not lose its reward. This also he says, as he proceeds, Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children. 1 Timothy 5:10 Among other commendations he reckons this one, for it is no light praise to devote to God those children which are given them of God. For if the basis, the foundation which they lay be good, gr...
The first of all qualities that a priest or bishop ought to possess is that he must purify his soul entirely of ambition for the office…. The right course, I think, is to have so reverent an estimation of the office as to avoid its responsibility from the start…. But if anyone should cling to a position for which he is not fit, he deprives himself of all pardon and provokes God’s anger the more by adding a second and more serious offense…. It is indeed a terrible temptation to covet this honor. And in saying this, I do not contradict St. Paul but entirely agree with what he says. What are his words? “If a man seeks the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.” What is terrible is to desire the absolute authority and power of the bishop but not the work itself.
As now proceeding to discourse of the Episcopal office, he sets out with showing what sort of a person a Bishop ought to be. And here he does not do it as in the course of his exhortation to Timothy, but addresses all, and instructs others through him. And what says he? If a man desire the office of a Bishop, I do not blame him, for it is a work of protection. If any one has this desire, so that he does not covet the dominion and authority, but wishes to protect the Church, I blame him not. For he desires a good work. Even Moses desired the office, though not the power, and his desire exposed him to that taunt, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Acts 7:27; Exodus 2:14 If any one, then, desire it in this way, let him desire it. For the Episcopate is so called from having the oversight of all.
To ourselves even does the apostle allow the concupiscible quality. "If any man "says he, "desireth the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.".
Thence, therefore, among us the prescript is more fully and more carefully laid down, that they who are chosen into the sacerdotal order must be men of one marriage;.
Come, now, you who think that an exceptional law of monogamy is made with reference to bishops, abandon withal your remaining disciplinary titles, which, together with monogamy, are ascribed to bishops.
