ACC ~ 1 Timothy 5 v9b

SECOND MARRIAGES FORBIDDEN THE ORDAINED. ORIGEN: Not only fornication but also a second marriage excludes someone from office in the church. Anyone twice married may be neither a bishop nor a presbyter nor a deacon nor a widow. HOMILIES ON LUKE 17.10.

LOVE CONTINENCE. TERTULLIAN: 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.” TO HIS WIFE 1.7.

SECOND MARRIAGES DISCOURAGED. CHRYSOSTOM: But why does he discourage second marriages? Is the thing condemned? By no means. That is heretical. Only he would have her henceforth occupied in spiritual things, transferring all her care to virtue. For marriage is not an impure state but one of much occupation. He speaks of their having leisure, not of their being more pure by remaining unmarried. HOMILIES ON 1 TIMOTHY 14.

AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO CHASTITY. THEODORET OF CYR: 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. INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

THE VIRTUES OF THE WIDOW. AMBROSE: 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. CONCERNING WIDOWS 2.9.

1 Tim