1 Timóteo 5
Jerome · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
1 Timóteo 5:3
[Paul] is training a church still untaught in Christ and making provision for people of all stations but especially for the poor, the charge of whom has been committed to himself and Barnabas. Thus he wishes only those to be supported by the exertions of the church who cannot labor with their own hands and who are widows indeed, approved by their years and by their lives. — LETTERS 79.7
1 Timóteo 5:5
A widow who has ceased to have a husband to please, and who in the apostle's language is a widow indeed, needs nothing more earnestly than perseverance. Remembering past enjoyments, she knows what gave her pleasure and what she has now lost. By rigid fasting and vigils she must quench the fiery darts of the devil. — LETTERS 54.7
1 Timóteo 5:6
It is difficult, or rather impossible, when we are swimming in luxury or pleasure, not to think of what we are doing. And it is an idle pretense which some put forward that they can take their fill of pleasure with their faith and purity and mental uprightness unimpaired. It is a violation of nature to revel in pleasure, and the apostle gives a caution against this very thing when he says, "She that gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives." The bodily senses are like horses madly racing, but the soul like a charioteer holds the reins. And as the horses without a driver go at breakneck speed, so the body, if it be not governed by the reasonable soul, rushes to its own destruction. — AGAINST JOVINIAN 2.9-10
1 Timóteo 5:12
The apostle, in concluding his discussion of marriage and virginity, is careful to observe a right balance in discriminating between them. Turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, he keeps to the King's highway and thus fulfills the injunction, "Be not righteous overmuch." … Do we not clearly show by this language what is typified in the Holy Scriptures by the terms right and left, and also what we take to be the meaning of the words "Be not righteous overmuch"? We turn to the left if, following the lust of Jews and Gentiles, we burn for sexual intercourse. We turn to the right if, following the error of the Manichaeans, we under a pretense of chastity entangle ourselves in the meshes of unchastity. But we keep to the King's highway if we aspire to virginity yet refrain from condemning marriage. Can anyone, moreover, be so unfair in his criticism of my poor treatise as to allege that I condemn first marriages, when he reads my opinion of second ones as follows, "The apostle, it is true, allows second marriages, but only to such women as are bent upon them, to such as cannot contain, lest 'when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they marry, having condemnation because they have rejected their first faith,' and he makes this concession because many 'are turned aside after Satan.' But they will be happier if they abide as widows." — Letters 48.8
1 Timóteo 5:13
It is true that in writing to Timothy the apostle from fear of fornication is forced to countenance second marriage.… He is offering not a crown to those who stand but a helping hand to those who are down. What must a second marriage be if it is looked on merely as an alternative to the brothel! — LETTERS 79.10
1 Timóteo 5:13
Paul speaks of idle persons and busybodies, whether virgins or widows, such as go from house to house calling on married women. They display an unblushing effrontery greater than that of a stage parasite. Cast them from you as you would the plague. For "evil communications corrupt good manners," and women like these care for nothing but their lowest appetites. They will often urge you, saying, "My dear creature, make the best of your advantages, and live while life is yours," and, "Surely you are not laying up money for your children." Given to wine and wantonness, they instill all manner of mischief into people's minds and induce even the most austere to indulge in enervating pleasures. — LETTERS 22.29
1 Timóteo 5:19
When a man is advanced in years, you must not be too ready to believe evil of him. His past life is itself a defense, and so also is his rank as an elder. Still, since we are human and sometimes in spite of the ripeness of our years fall into the sins of youth, if I do wrong and you wish to correct me, accuse me openly of my fault. Do not backbite me secretly. — LETTERS 125.19
1 Timóteo 5:23
Notice the reasons why wine is allowed: it is to cure pain in the stomach and to relieve a frequent infirmity and hardly then. And lest perchance we should indulge ourselves on the ground of illness, Paul recommends that but a little wine should be taken, advising rather as a physician than as an apostle—although indeed an apostle is a spiritual physician. — LETTERS 22.8
1 Timóteo 5:25
The words mean this: Certain persons sin so deliberately and flagrantly that you no sooner see them than you know them at once to be sinners. But the defects of others are so cunningly concealed that we only learn them from subsequent information. Similarly the good deeds of some people are public property, while those of others we come to know only through long intimacy with them. — LETTERS 54.8