not so good. Since then the love of God surpasses the love of our
neighbor, and the contemplative life is preferable to the active, as
shown above (Q. 25, A. 1; Q. 26, A. 2; Q. 182, A. 1) it would seem
that a man sins not if he refuse absolutely the episcopal office.

Obj. 2: Further, as Gregory says (Pastor. i, 7), "it is very
difficult for anyone to be able to know that he is cleansed: nor
should anyone uncleansed approach the sacred ministry." Therefore if
a man perceives that he is not cleansed, however urgently the
episcopal office be enjoined him, he ought not to accept it.

Obj. 3: Further, Jerome (Prologue, super Marc.) says that "it is
related of the Blessed Mark* that after receiving the faith he cut
off his thumb that he might be excluded from the priesthood." [*This
prologue was falsely ascribed to St. Jerome, and the passage quoted
refers, not to St. Mark the Evangelist, but to a hermit of that name.
(Cf. Baronius, Anno Christi, 45, num. XLIV)] Likewise some take a vow
never to accept a bishopric. Now to place an obstacle to a thing
amounts to the same as refusing it altogether. Therefore it would
seem that one may, without sin, refuse the episcopal office
absolutely.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (Ep. xlviii ad Eudox.): "If Mother
Church requires your service, neither accept with greedy conceit, nor
refuse with fawning indolence"; and afterwards he adds: "Nor prefer
your ease to the needs of the Church: for if no good men were willing
to assist her in her labor, you would seek in vain how we could be
born of her."

_I answer that,_ Two things have to be considered in the acceptance
of the episcopal office: first, what a man may fittingly desire
according to his own will; secondly, what it behooves a man to do
according to the will of another. As regards his own will it becomes
a man to look chiefly to his own spiritual welfare, whereas that he
look to the spiritual welfare of others becomes a man according to
the appointment of another having authority, as stated above (A. 1,
ad 3). Hence just as it is a mark of an inordinate will that a man of
his own choice incline to be appointed to the government of others,
so too it indicates an inordinate will if a man definitively refuse
the aforesaid office of government in direct opposition to the
appointment of his superior: and this for two reasons.

First, because this is contrary to the love of our neighbor, for
whose good a man should offer himsel