{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1678","native_reference":{"book_number":610,"chapter_from":5,"chapter_to":5,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":9,"verse_to":9},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: It is not that old age alone makes the widow. Rather the virtues of the widow may become the duties of old age. For she certainly is the more prone to virtue who represses the heat of youth and the impetuous ardor of youthful age, coveting neither the tenderness of a husband nor the abundant delights of children. She rises above one who, now worn out in body, cold in age, of ripe years, can neither grow warm with pleasures nor hope for offspring.<br/><i>— Concerning Widows 2.9</i></p><p><b>Apostolic Constitutions</b>: Choose your \"widows not under sixty years of age\".<br/>Let the deaconess be a pure virgin; or, at the least, a widow who has been but once married, faithful, and well esteemed.<br/><i>— CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: It is possible to be a widow and not be enrolled in the rank of widows, as when a woman has not as yet accepted this way of life.… Paul allows the uncommitted woman to remarry if she so desires. But he strongly admonishes the one who has professed perpetual widowhood to God but then has later gotten married, because she has treated superficially her commitment to God.<br/><i>— ON VIRGINITY 39.2</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: He had said, \"Let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents.\" He had also said, \"She that liveth in pleasure is dead whilst she liveth.\" He had said, \"If she provides not for her own she is worse than an infidel.\" Having mentioned the qualities which not to have would render a woman unworthy to be reckoned among the widows, he now mentions what she ought to have besides. What then? are we to receive her for her years? What merit is there in that? It is not her own doing that she is threescore years old. Therefore he does not speak of her age merely, as, if she has even reached those years, she may not yet, he says, without good works, be reckoned among the number. But why then is he particular about the age? He afterwards assigns a cause not originating with himself, but with the widows themselves.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Timothy 14</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: Let a widow be counted as not less than sixty years old, the wife of one man, well attested for good works, if she has brought up children, if she has hosted strangers, if she has washed the feet of the saints, if she has comforted the afflicted, if she has devoted herself to every good work.</p><p>Here, Paul also considers age along with other factors, and previously he states the reason, saying that even if the age were sixty years old, without the other conditions being met, it should not be counted.</p><p>— [OECUMENIUS] They also say that Paul is referring to those designated for widowhood. [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius A f. 172v, B f. 207v; G J. 295v] —</p><p>— [OECUMENIUS] well attested for good works. Having said generally, \"well attested for good works,\" Paul then proceeds to each particular thing. And he said that the care of children is above. What then, if he has no children? Let him do the rest. [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius] —</p><p>— [OECUMENIUS] He does not say \"if she had children,\" but \"if she has brought them up according to the will of God, if she has led them properly,\" for this is exceptional. One must understand that this is said concerning widows. [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius G f. 295v] —</p><p>if she has hosted strangers. Do you see that even here Paul places the benefits to one's own people before those to foreigners? For having said this first.</p><p>if she has brought up children. Thus it suggests, \"She has hosted strangers.\"</p><p>if she has washed the feet of the saints. But he will say: I am very poor, and I do not have the means to be host or to assist the afflicted. Does he not say, \"Can you not wash the feet of the saints?\" Is the ability lacking to pursue good works? For Paul spoke of each of these according to what was available.</p><p>if she washed the feet of the saints; that is, if she performed the lowest services to the saints without shame. Thus, Clement in the seventh book of Hypotyposes.</p><p>if she has devoted herself to every good work, that is, she has shared, supplied. For although the ability to act may be lacking, the ability to provide is nevertheless present.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON 1 TIMOTHY</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: It is good and best, if any woman is able to possess the grace of virginity; but if she has not been able to do this, and it has befallen her to lose her husband, let her remain a widow. And this she ought to have in mind not only after the death of her husband, but even while he lives, so that, even if her own will and resolve do not come to pass, she may be crowned by the Lord and may say: this I vow and promise, that if anything human, which I do not wish for, should befall me, I will do nothing else than remain undefiled and a widow. But now second and third and fourth marriages — to say nothing of more — are found in the Church, and we are not unaware that such a union will cast us out of the kingdom of God. For just as not only fornication but also second marriages exclude a man from ecclesiastical dignities — for neither a bishop nor a presbyter nor a deacon nor a widow can be twice-married — so perhaps the twice-married man will also be cast out from the assembly of the \"firstborn and undefiled\", the \"Church, which has no spot or wrinkle\"; not that he is sent into the eternal fire, but that he has no part in the kingdom of God.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF Luke 17</i></p><p><b>Pelagius</b>: What is being said here applies in particular to the women who are being considered for ordination as deaconesses.<br/><i>— PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: So far as we can, let us love the opportunity of continence. As soon as it offers itself, let us resolve to accept it, so that what one may not have had the strength to follow in matrimony one may now follow in widowhood. Continence in widowhood transcends the command that has previously been necessary for marriage. How detrimental to faith, how obstructive to holiness, second marriages are. The discipline of the church and the prescription of the apostle also declare this, when he does not permit men twice married to preside over a church. The same is true when he would not grant a widow admittance into an order unless she had been \"the wife of one man.\"<br/><i>— TO HIS WIFE 1.7</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But the authority which licenses her sitting in that seat uncovered is the same which allows her to sit there as a virgin: a seat to which (besides the \"sixty years\" not merely \"single-husbanded \"(women)-that is, married women-are at length elected, but \"mothers\" to boot, yes, and \"educators of children; \"in order, forsooth, that their experimental training in all the affections may, on the one hand, have rendered them capable of readily aiding all others with counsel and comfort, and that, on the other, they may none the less have travelled down the whole course of probation whereby a female can he tested.<br/><i>— On the Veiling of Virgins</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: 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 ), when he would not grant a widow admittance into the order unless she had been \"the wife of one man; \" for it behoves God's altar to be set forth pure.<br/><i>— To His Wife Book I</i></p><p><b>Theodore of Mopsuestia</b>: What is said here applies only to the order of widows and not to deaconesses, as some believe.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON 1 TIMOTHY</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: The teaching that a widow should be the wife of only one man is an encouragement to chastity within marriage, not a forbidding of second marriages.<br/><i>— INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"38f3dd5a1e72794425a82dd2d8b4303b8a4ecf1b25e313ae35fbc136683ed96b","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1678,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"425999f19682a9f71f01ec3e84195d7038aaa26b42e2dcbb0e29a890f9d9c02d","translator":null,"work":null}