1 Timothy 5:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Well reported,” he says, “for good works.” In what works? “If she has brought up children” (v. 10). Truly, bringing up children is no small work. Yet raising children does not mean merely feeding them. It means bringing them up as they ought to be raised.

This is as the Apostle said above: “if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with chastity” (1 Tim 2:15). Do you see how everywhere he places benefits shown to those near us above those shown to strangers?

First he says, “If she has brought up children.” Then he says, “if she has lodged strangers, washed the saints’ feet, relieved the afflicted, and diligently followed every good work” (v. 10).

But what if she is poor? Even then she is not deprived of the power to raise children, receive strangers, or comfort the sorrowing. She is not poorer than the woman who put in two mites.

Let us suppose she is poor. Still, she has a house and does not live in the open air. “If she has washed the saints’ feet,” he says. This requires no expense.

“Well reported for good works.” What commandment does he give here? He commands material assistance, since women are especially able to serve, spread a bed, and give rest.

What great perfection he requires of a widow! It is almost the same as from one clothed with the episcopal dignity. For “well reported for good works” means this: if she could not do it herself, she at least shared in it and served.

Cutting away luxury, the Apostle wants her to be careful, orderly, and constantly abiding in prayer. Such was Anna.

See how he requires from a widow a perfection that he does not require even from virgins. Yet from these also he required great perfection and lofty virtue.

For when he said, “that you may serve the Lord fittingly and without distraction” (1 Cor 7:35), he indicated every virtue in outline.

Do you see that becoming a widow is not enough if one merely refrains from a second marriage? Many other things are also needed.

For why, tell me, does he urge her not to enter a second marriage? Did he condemn it? No. That belongs only to heretics.

He wanted her afterward to exercise herself in spiritual contests and turn to virtue. Marriage, though not impure, is nevertheless joined with cares.

Therefore he said, “that they may give themselves to prayer” (1 Cor 7:5). He did not say, “that they may be purified.” Marriage truly brings many cares.

Therefore, if you do not marry because you wish to train yourself in the fear of God, yet do not train yourself, abstinence will profit you nothing. Nor will it profit you that you serve strangers and saints in every way.

So when you do not do this, it is clear that you abstain from marriage more because you condemn the matter itself.

So also a virgin, if she has not been wholly crucified with Christ, rejects marriage because she condemns it as defiled and impure.

Do you see that by hospitality the Apostle means not mere good will, but good will joined with care, good intention, and zeal? Such zeal sets about the work as though preparing to receive Christ Himself.

He wants them not to entrust service to the saints to maidservants, but to do it personally.

“If I then,” says the Lord, “your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14).

Even if one of them were infinitely wealthy, famous, and exalted by noble ancestry, the distance would still not equal that between God and the disciples.

If you receive the stranger as Christ, you have no cause for shame. Rather, glory in this work. If you do not receive him as Christ, it is better not to receive him at all.

“He who receives you receives Me,” said the Lord (Mt 10:40). If you do not receive him in this way, you will not receive the reward.

Abraham, as it seemed to him, received men, travelers passing by. Yet he did not entrust all the needed preparations to his household.

He himself performed much of the service. He also ordered his wife to knead the flour, though he had three hundred eighteen servants, among whom there were probably maidservants.

He wished to receive the reward with his wife, not only for the expense, but also for the service.

Thus we must fulfill the duty of hospitality, doing everything ourselves. Then we ourselves shall be sanctified, and our hands also shall be blessed.

When you give to the poor man, do not disdain to give with your own hand. You are not giving to the poor man, but to Christ.

Who could be so wretched as to disdain stretching out his hand to Christ? This is hospitality. This is truly doing something for God.

But if you give orders proudly, then even if you command the stranger to take the first place, this is not hospitality. Nor is it done for God.

The stranger needs many services and much encouragement. Even after this it is hard for him not to blush.

Since the very nature of the matter makes the recipient ashamed, his shame must be dispersed by abundant service.

One must show by word and deed that the benefactor is not bestowing a benefit, but is himself finding benefit. He receives a benefit rather than gives one.

In this way merit is increased through free intention. One who thinks he suffers loss loses everything. Likewise, one who thinks he is doing a kindness loses everything.

But the one who thinks he is receiving a benefit gains still more. “For God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7).

Therefore you must even thank the poor man because he receives. If there were no poor, you would not be freed from a multitude of sins.

They are physicians of your wounds. Their hands offer you medicine.

A physician does not bring you healing so much when he stretches out his hands and applies medicine. The poor man removes from you the burden of your sins when he stretches out his hand and receives alms.

You gave him silver, and with it your sins departed. So it is also with priests: “They feed on the sins of My people” (Hos 4:8).

Thus you receive more than you give. You receive benefit rather than confer it. You lend to God, not to men. You increase your wealth, and do not diminish it.

You diminish it if you do not reduce it, if you do not give.

“If she has received strangers,” he says, “if she has washed the saints’ feet.” Which saints does he mean? Those who endure afflictions, and not saints in general.

For there may be saints who receive great service from everyone. Do not go after those who live in abundance. Go after those whose life passes in afflictions and obscurity, and whom few know.

“Since you did it,” says the Lord, “to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Mt 25:40).

Do not leave the head of the Church to distribute your alms. Serve personally, so that you may receive the reward not only for the expense, but also for the service.

Give with your own hands. Sow the field yourself.

Here there is no need to plant a plough, yoke oxen, wait for the season, cut the earth, or struggle with frost. This sowing is free from all such cares.

You sow in heaven, where there is no frost, winter, or anything like it. You sow in souls, where no one will steal what is sown.

There it will be preserved continually, with great care and great diligence. Sow yourself. Why do you deprive yourself of the reward?

There is a great reward even when someone can distribute the property of others. The reward is not only for giving, but also for distributing well what another has given.

Why, then, do you not receive the reward? And that there is a reward for this also, hear what Scripture says.

The apostles appointed Stephen with the others to the service of widows (Acts 6). Therefore become the distributor of your own goods.

Love for mankind and the fear of God appoint you to this. This delivers from vainglory. This comforts the soul. This sanctifies the hands.

This calms the thought. This teaches philosophy. This makes you more zealous. This enables you to acquire blessing.

You depart receiving abundant blessings of widows upon your head.

Become more zealous in prayers. Seek out holy men, truly holy men, who sit in deserts and cannot ask, being joined to God.

Make the long journey. Give personally. You yourself will receive much benefit if you give.

Do you see the hut and temporary shelter? Do you see the desert? Do you see the solitary place?

Often, when you have set out to distribute money, you have wholly surrendered your soul. You were detained, became a captive, and appeared as a stranger in the world.

Visiting the poor is also a great work. “It is better,” Scripture says, “to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting” (Eccl 7:2).

In the latter, the soul is inflamed by passion. If you can be filled in the same way, you receive an impulse toward luxury. If you cannot, you feel grief.

In the house of mourning there is nothing of this kind. There, if you cannot indulge, you are not distressed. If you can, you restrain yourself.

Monasteries are truly houses of mourning. There are haircloth and ashes. There is solitude. There is neither laughter nor a swarm of worldly cares.

There is fasting. There is lying on the ground. Everything there is removed from the smell of blood, from noise, confusion, and human bustle.

Monasteries are a quiet harbor. They are like lamps set in a harbor, shining from above for those who come from afar.

They draw all to their stillness. They do not allow those who turn their gaze to them to suffer shipwreck. They do not allow those who look upon them to remain in darkness.

Go to them. Greet them as friends. Approach and touch the feet of the saints. It is far more honorable to touch their feet than the heads of other men.

Tell me, if some embrace the feet of statues because they fully represent the royal image, will you not embrace the feet of one who bears the image of Christ within himself?

Will you not do this in order to receive salvation? Holy are these feet, even if they are withered. Among the ungodly, even the head deserves no honor.

The feet of the saints have great power. Therefore they send down punishment when they shake off the dust from themselves.

When a holy man comes to us, we must not be ashamed to do something like this for him.

The saints are all who have the right faith and live piously. They are saints, even if they do not work signs or cast out demons.

Go to the huts of the saints. To seek refuge in the monastery of a holy man is the same as withdrawing from earth to heaven.

There you do not see what you see at home. The place is pure in every respect. Silence and deep stillness reign there. There is no “mine” and “yours.”

If you spend a day or two there, then you will feel still greater delight.

Day approaches, or rather, before day approaches the rooster has crowed. There nothing happens as it does at home.

Servants snore. Doors are locked. All sleep like the dead. The mule driver rings his bells.

There is nothing like this there. When the abbot awakens them, all at once reverently put sleep aside.

They rise, form a sacred choir, stand in order, suddenly stretch their hands upward, and sing sacred hymns.

They do not need many hours, as we do, to shake off sleep and lighten the heaviness in the head.

When we rise, we sit for a long time, stretch ourselves, and go about our needs. Then we wash face and hands.

After that we put on shoes and clothing, and much time passes. There is nothing like this there.

No one calls for servants, because each can help himself. He does not need many garments. Nor does he need to shake off sleep.

As soon as he opens his eyes, because of his sober life, he is already like one who has been awake for a long time.

Indeed, when the heart is not burdened with food and does not sink into earthly things, it needs no long time to leap up. It is sober at once.

Their hands are always clean, because even their sleep is seemly. There you will hear no one snoring or yawning.

You will see no one spread out in sleep or uncovered. All sleep lying more decently than those who are awake.

All this comes from the good disposition of the soul. They are truly saints, angels among men.

"Well reported for good works." This is what makes her worthy among the widows. Then the Apostle lists her works in particular.

"If she has raised children." The raising of children does not consist simply in feeding them, but in raising them as one ought. This is like what he said above: "if they continue in faith and love and holiness" (1 Tim 2:15).

"If she has lodged strangers." Do you see that he places beneficence toward one's own above beneficence toward strangers? Having first said, "if she has raised children," he then adds, "if she has lodged strangers."

Even if some widow is in want of something, she still has a house and does not live under the open sky.

If she has testimony in good works, if she has raised her children and has not handed them over to strangers, if she has been zealous in every good work, then she must be such.

"Well reported for good works." Then he lists these works according to their kinds.

"If she has raised children." The Apostle requires not only that she raise them, but that she raise them piously. God says this also about Abraham, that he commanded "his sons and his household after him" to keep all the judgments of the Lord God (Gen 18:19).

"If she has lodged strangers." Then he says what strangers in particular.

"If she has washed the saints' feet." For they acted so in ancient times. Thus Lydia received the Apostle himself and those with him. Thus he said of Phoebe: "She has been a helper of many, and of myself also" (Rom 16:2).

"Well reported for good works." What works are these?

"If she has raised children." This means raising them in piety and purity.

"If she has lodged strangers." Do you see how everywhere he places care for one's household before care for strangers?

"If she has washed the saints' feet." This is both a sign of humility and the rendering of honor to God.

"If she has been a consolation to the afflicted." That is, if she gave relief to those in misfortune, either by deed or by a word of consolation. However poor a widow may be, she can do all this even in her poverty.

Next he uses an expression in a broader sense.

Before entering stillness, the hesychast must have testimony from good works. Examine yourself, you who wish to enter the harbor, or more correctly, the sea of stillness.

Have you followed every good work, not according to the nature of the old Adam, but in accord with the qualities of the New? In other words, have you taken upon yourself the yoke of humility and meekness? Have you tasted that this yoke is good and the burden light (Mt 11:30)?

In other words, have you studied the commandments of the Gospel? Have your mind and heart become their tablets, and your conduct their expression and consequence?

Do you seek righteousness outside the Cross? If you seek it, you are neither capable nor ready for stillness. It is ruinous to enter stillness without condemning yourself and while remaining in condemnation of your neighbors.

“If she has followed every good work.” Besides outward and incidental qualities, inward qualities are also required of a widow-deaconess, chiefly those manifested in works of mercy. These qualities are all the more necessary because care for the sick and strangers, and consolation of the suffering, formed the chief purpose of widows.

Which widows are to be chosen for Church service and for full maintenance by the Church?

"Let a widow be enrolled," that is, she must be chosen. Καταλεγέσϑω means let her be entered into the catalogue of widows, or "let her be placed in the widows' order, εἰς τὸ χηρικόν" (Oecumenius). She must be not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one husband, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has received strangers, and so forth (1 Tim 5:9-10).

It is evident that here is meant the choice or enrollment of widows not merely for aid from the Church. For the Church did not deprive, and could not deprive, of its mercies those widows who had not reached sixty years, yet were fully worthy of them by good conduct and bitter family circumstances.

The Apostle first defines by age, sixty years, election into the number of true widows cared for by the Church, that is, deaconesses. Then he points to their having had one husband, comparing them in this respect with deacons and presbyters.

He acknowledges family and public merits. Especially noteworthy among them is the washing of the feet of the saints, that is, Christian travelers, with special reference to heralds of the faith and the holy Apostles.

"One must not judge widows by age alone," says Chrysostom. "If she had passed beyond this age, but had no merits, she still should not be numbered among the widows."

Then Timothy must exercise caution in the choice of deaconesses. They were obliged to help presbyters at the baptism of women and to perform various works of Christian love toward women and children, which was not entirely convenient for deacons.

In particular, a widow chosen for this difficult office must be not less than sixty years old. Only for such a woman can one answer that she will no longer marry, but will devote herself with all her heart to her work.

The reason why the Apostle requires that a woman become a deaconess only if she has been married once was, of course, the same reason why priests and deacons must be married only once.

"Well reported for good works." This means one of whom all say only good, testifying that they have seen her only in the doing of good works. This is the general feature.

Then "the Apostle enumerates in particular which works make a widow worthy of support" (blessed Theophylact). "If she has brought up children," ετεκνοτροφησεν, means that she has fulfilled properly this first service laid upon a wife and mother.