One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
Ver. 4. One that ruleth well] προισταμενον. A good priest in his own family, which he daily perfumes with evangelical sacrifices, till his house, as the house of David, be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them, Zechariah 12:8 .
Having his children in subjection] Yet Pope Pelagius forbids a bishop to have either wife or children; whereof this wise reason is given, because children are argumentum ambulans super terram, A walking argument of their father's incontinence. Os durum! Hard saying! His successor Paul III had no wife indeed, but children he had. One of whom, named Petro Alvigi Farnesis, having first forced and then poisoned Cosmus Chaerius, bishop of Fanum, received no other check or chastisement of his father the pope but this, Haec vitia me non commonstratore didicit, He never learned those vices from his father.