If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of rebellion or unruly.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
I have put down the faults which I have been taught to avoid. But it is the apostle who is the teacher of virtues. He teaches a bishop … to be “the husband of one wife.” The bishop is thereby not excluded from marriage altogether … but rather encouraged by chastity in marriage to preserve the grace of his baptism…. There are many who argue that “husband of one wife” is said of marriage after baptism, on the ground that the fault which would constitute an impediment has been washed away in baptism…. But where there has been a second marriage, it is not dissolved. Sin is washed away in baptism, law is not.
The first freedom, then, is to be without crimes. And so when the apostle Paul chose either priests or deacons to be ordained, and when anyone is to be ordained to take charge of a church, he does not say, If anyone is without sin. For if he were to say this, every person would be rejected, no one would be ordained. But he says, “if anyone is without crime,” such as homicide, adultery and uncleanness of fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege, and other things of this sort. .
Without crime. See the like qualifications, 1 Timothy iii. (Witham)
These words if taken in their strictest meaning, do not seem to have all the force St. Paul meant them to have. For it is not sufficient that a bishop be free from great crimes; he ought, moreover to lead such a life as to draw others by his example to the practice of virtue. (Calmet)
If we consult all antiquity we shall find, that if in the early infancy of the Church some who had been once married were ordained to the ministry, we shall find that after their ordination they abstained from the use of marriage. See St. Epiphanius, lib. iii. cont. hær. and lib. ii. hæres. 59.
Parents should not be faulted if, having taught their children well, these turn out badly later. Indeed, if anyone had taught his sons well, it was Isaac, who must be viewed as setting even Esau on a firm foundation. But Esau turned out to be profligate and worldly, when he sold his birthright for a single meal. Samuel also, though he invoked God and God heard him, and he obtained rain at the time of the winter harvest, had sons who declined into greed. .
It is not that every monogamous man is better than every man who has been married twice. Rather, it is that the bishop must teach monogamy and, best of all, continence, by example. Indeed, some monogamous men are less continent than some who have been married twice and widowed. .
“A bishop then must be blameless.” The same thing that he says to Titus, “if any be blameless.” All the virtues are comprehended in this one word; thus he seems to require an impossible perfection. For if every sin, every idle word, is deserving of blame, who is there in this world that is sinless and blameless? Still he who is chosen to be shepherd of the church must be one compared with whom other men are rightly regarded as but a flock of sheep.
“One that rules well his own house.” That is, not by increasing riches, not by providing regal banquets, not by having a pile of finely wrought plates, not by slowly steaming pheasants so that the heat may reach the bones without melting the flesh upon them. No, he does this rather by first requiring of his own household the conduct which he has to inculcate in others.
We should observe what care he bestows upon children. For he who cannot be the instructor of his own children, how could he be the teacher of others? … For if he was unable to restrain them, it is a great proof of his weakness. And if he was unconcerned, his want of affection is much to be blamed. He then who neglects his own children, how shall he take care of others’?.
Paul says this to stop the mouths of those heretics who condemned marriage. He shows that it is not an unholy thing in itself, but so far honorable that a married man might ascend the holy throne. And at the same time he wishes to reprove the wanton, not permitting their admission into this high office those who contracted a second marriage.
Why does he bring forward such an one? To stop the mouths of those heretics, who condemned marriage, showing that it is not an unholy thing in itself, but so far honorable, that a married man might ascend the holy throne; and at the same reproving the wanton, and not permitting their admission into this high office who contracted a second marriage. For he who retains no kind regard for her who is departed, how shall he be a good president? And what accusation would he not incur? For you all know, that though it is not forbidden by the laws to enter into a second marriage, yet it is a thing liable to many ill constructions. Wishing therefore a ruler to give no handle for reproach to those under his rule, he on this account says, If any be blameless, that is, if his life be free from reproach, if he has given occasion to no one to assail his character. Hear what Christ says, If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:23
Having faithful children, not...
How detrimental to faith, how obstructive to holiness, second marriages are, the discipline of the Church and the prescription of the apostle declare, when he suffers not men twice married to preside (over a Church.
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.
Should we not rather recognize, from among the store of primitive scriptural precedents, those that correspond with the gospel order of things respecting discipline? By this means we convey to the new community the typical requirements of antiquity. In the old law I find the pruning knife applied to the license of repeated marriage…. 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. This rule is so rigidly observed that I remember some removed from their office for bigamy.
We have already said that a bishop, a presbyter and a deacon, when they are constituted, must be married but once, whether their wives are alive or whether they are dead. It is not lawful for them, if they are unmarried when they are ordained, to be married afterwards; or if they are married at that time, to marry a second time, but to be content with that wife which they had when they came to ordination.
We have already said, that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon, when they are constituted, must be but once married, whether their wives be alive or whether they be dead; and that it is not lawful for them, if they are unmarried when they are ordained, to be married afterwards; or if they be then married, to marry a second time, but to be content with that wife. which they had when they came to ordination.
