Applied to leaders of the developing church communities of the first century CE, the phrase “married only once,” mias gynaikos anēr in the Greek of the New Testament text and unius uxoris vir in the Vulgate’s Latin translation, appears in just three New Testament passages. These passages are found in the deutero-Pauline Epistle to Titus and the similarly deutero-Pauline First Epistle to Timothy—namely, in Titus 1:6; 1 Timothy 3:2; and 3:12. Stefan Heid considers these passages the key to the practice of clerical continence.1
Any written statement or any oral statement must be interpreted within the context in which it appears. What is arguably the first of the unius uxoris vir passages appears within a quasi-legislative text, written to enable the Church to become a well-organized and well-regarded society in the Greco-Roman world of the late first century. The immediate context of the passage in which it is found is Titus 1:5–9. In order to organize the Church, Titus is to appoint elders in various cities on Crete. The person to be appointed is to be:
Someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless, he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. (Titus 1:6–9)
It is noteworthy that the author begins his instructions for the organization of the Church with one that stipulates the appointment of elders (presbyterous) in each town (kata polin). In the recently established Jewish-Christian community/communities for whose benefit the directive is given, the “elder” would be recognized as a wise man who was knowledgeable about the lore and customs of his people.
Those to be appointed (katastēsēs) are to be blameless (anenklētos). Barrett notes that all members of the Church be above reproach but that this quality is particularly important for its leaders.2 The Church’s need for public respectability requires that its leaders be seen as blameless. The author of Titus 1:5-9 twice notes that the one to be appointed (an overseer) must be blameless (vv. 6, 7).
As the text unfolds, the author explains that the person under consideration for appointment as an overseer must, first of all, be blameless with regard to his family and household responsibilities. Elders under consideration must have a clean record as heads of their respective families. They are to be “married only once” (mias gynaikos anēr)—literally, a “one-woman man.” Moreover, their children are to be believers (tekna echōn pista)—literally, they are to “have faithful children.” Third, these children must “not be accused of debauchery and not rebellious” (mē en katēgoria asōtias ē anypotakta)—literally, “not under the accusation of debauchery nor insubordinate.”
Thereupon, by way of further explanation,3 the author turns his attention to the function of the elders to be appointed. He explains that a bishop (episkopos), as God’s steward (hōs theou oikonomon), must possess an entire range of virtues. Reprising the “blameless” (anenklēton) of the previous verse, the author says that the overseer, precisely because he is the steward of God, must be blameless. On the negative side, he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine, or violent or greedy for gain. On the positive side, he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. The accumulation of six vices and six virtues in this fashion echoes the use of catalogues of virtues and vices4 found in the writings of the moralistic philosophers of the author’s day.
The list of qualities to be had and those to be avoided also resembles the duty lists, the Berufspflichtenlehre of German exegetes.5 A topos in ancient literature was the rehearsal of qualities to be had by those in leadership and sensitive positions, such as kings and generals, physicians and midwives.6 Writing about philosophers, the Stoic Epictetus, whose life partially overlapped with that of Paul, thus making him a contemporary of the Pastorals, says: “You must feel no anger, no rage, no envy, no pity; no wench must look fine to you, no petty reputation, no boy-favorite, no little sweet-cake.”7 Stressing the positive, Onasander, a first-century CE philosopher, writes:
We must choose a general … because he is temperate, self-restrained, vigilant, frugal, hardened to labor, alert, free from avarice, neither too young nor too old, indeed a father of children if possible, a ready speaker, and a man with a good reputation. (De imperatoris officio 1)8
Onasander follows up his listing of these sixteen qualities with a brief explanatory commentary on each of them. It is noteworthy that Onasander does not include military ability among the personal qualities that he would require a general to have. Neither does the author of Titus include any function-specific qualities in the list that he provides in 1:6-8. Nonetheless, he appends to his list an additional asset that is related to the office of the episkopos: “He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9).
Lying within the cultural context of the Pastorals and their lists of responsibilities is the cura morum of Roman censors.9 The primary responsibility of these imperial officials was the census. Their second most important duty was to guide the behavior of the people; they were supervisors of public morality. In this capacity, according to Cicero, they were to forbid people from being unmarried (caelibes esse prohibento).10 It was a matter of public morality that a person not be unmarried. And Cicero wrote some years before the Julian laws on marriage were enacted! Little wonder, then, that the author of Titus requires that an elder to be appointed episkopos should be married only once.
John Chrysostom attributes to “some” (tines)—that is, to others—the idea that the phrase mias gynaikos anēr, “married only once” (NRSV), means that the elder to be appointed must be married but once. In fact, that the candidate be married is clearly an obligation. The point could be argued at length. To begin, the author of Titus adduces the requirement as an explanation of the idea that the person to be appointed an overseer should be blameless. Within the society in which the epistle was written, a man who was not married was in public contravention of imperial law and public mores, let alone the Jewish tradition—a factor that must be considered in a document directed to newly established Jewish-Christian communities. In no way would an unmarried adult male be considered “blameless” in the social and cultural conditions of the times in which the Pastoral Epistles were written.
Second, the genre of Titus is that of a legal text. It rehearses duties and obligations. There are no “ifs,” “maybes,” or “perhapses” in the entire document. The text does not admit of exceptions to the qualities—or qualifies these qualities with conditions—that it spells out for episkopoi no more than it admits of exceptions and conditions for older men, older women, young women, young men, and slaves. The duty lists, which resemble Titus’s list of qualifications for the elder-overseer, provide these qualifications in straight-out fashion; they do not admit of exceptions.
Third, the immediate context is that of household responsibilities.11 Titus 1:6 speaks of an elder who is a good husband and a good father. That it speaks of a father’s success in rearing his family supposes that he is married. Had he children out of wedlock, his conduct would not have been considered blameless.
The children of the elder to be appointed an overseer are to be believers (pista). The adjective pistos could mean “loyal” or “faithful,” as if the elder’s children should be supportive of him12; the term pista means “faithful” in the sense of “believers” in the context of Titus 1:6. Not only is this the connotation of the adjective in the undisputed Pauline corpus, it is also supported by a similar usage in 1 Timothy 6:2 where it refers to (slaves’) masters who are believers and by the reference to the faith (pistin) of God’s elect in Titus 1:1. As a good Jewish father had the teaching of Torah to his sons as his principal paternal duty, so the believing father should raise his children in the faith of God’s elect.13 John Chrysostom comments: “For he who cannot be the instructor of his own children, how could he be the teacher of others?”14 That he be a teacher of others is implied in the last verse of the episkopos’s profile, where reference is made to his preaching sound doctrine (v. 9). The requirement that the children of an elder be people of faith supposes the existence of a believing family.15
Within his believing family, the elder’s children should also be such that their conduct is neither suspect of debauchery nor insubordinate to their parents and other authorities. In the context of the times in which the Epistle to Titus was written, the words that appear in the last part of Titus 1:6 imply that the elder who might be appointed episkopos should have a respectable family. One of our contemporaries might say that his family should not be dysfunctional.
Fourth, the grammar of the sentence must be respected. The principle verb of the clause is the verb estin, “is.” The elder to be appointed is someone who is married only once. Despite the interpretation laid on his words in later times, the author does not say that the elder may be married, but if married, he may be married only once. Rather he says that the elder must be married. In so doing, he rejected the skewed asceticism that troubled communities of believers at that time16 and says that the presbyteros, in order to be appointed an episkopos, should be blameworthy according to the expectations of his society.
That the elder be able to be recognized as a successful paterfamilias is particularly important in the light of the function to which he might be appointed, that of “overseer,” episkopos. In itself, the term is capable of general application17 but the author specifies that the episkopos is to function as “God’s steward” (theou oikonomos)—that is, God’s household manager. The terminology is not used elsewhere in the Pastoral Epistles but the common meaning of oikonomos was “household manager.”18 First Timothy 3:16 describes the Church as the household of God. In effect, the elder must be a good household manager in his own family if he is to appointed to oversee the household of God.
That the one to be appointed an overseer is to serve as God’s steward may not be without significance in the discussion of the marriage of overseers. At the time, overseers or managers were generally slaves who had responsibility for overseeing and coordinating the work of their fellow slaves in service to their master. With regard to marriage, Columella, a noted first-century CE author, writes, “But be the overseer what he may, he should be given a woman companion to keep him within bounds and yet in certain matters to be a help to him.”19 Almost two centuries earlier, Cato the Elder had written about the duties of a manageress (vilica).20 He noted that if the manager had given the manager a wife to help him, he was to remain faithful to her. He was, in Cato’s words, to be “content with her” (ea esto contentus).21
Within this context what does the phrase mias gynaikos anēr, the unius uxoris vir of patristic and canonical importance, really mean? Literally, of course, it means a “man of one woman,” a one-woman man. Abstracted from its context, the phrase could mean that a man has only one wife, that he not be a (simultaneous) bigamist, a “bigamist” as the term is generally understood today. Members of the Antiochene School of biblical interpretation, as was noted above, took this to be the meaning of the phrase, noting, as Theodore of Mopsuestia did, that having two wives was permitted under Jewish Law.22
Another possibility is that the phrase means that a man is to be married once and no more than once—that is, that he should not be a (subsequent) bigamist. This interpretation of the phrase is found in patristic and early canonical writings and is the basis for an ecclesiastical practice that forbids legitimately married priests and deacons from remarrying should their spouses precede them in death. The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles cover subsequent bigamy as well as simultaneous bigamy: “It is not lawful for them [a bishop, presbyter, or deacon] … to marry a second time, but to be content with that wife which they had when they came to ordination … when they are constituted, must be married but once, whether their wives are alive or whether they are dead.”23
A third possibility is that the phrase means that the elder who is to become an episkopos is someone whose marital fidelity is exemplary. This interpretation is also found in patristic literature. To cite but one example, Theodore of Mopsuestia writes, “He who marries one wife, lives with her prudently, keeps to her, and directs to her the desire of nature.”24
Was the mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir phrase written within a social context in which simultaneous bigamy or even polygamy was a real issue? If not, what does the prescription mean?
The Fathers of the Church speak of the biblical tradition allowing a man to have more than one wife. To be sure, in patriarchal times Abraham had Sarah and Hagar as wives25 and Jacob had the sisters Leah and Rachel as his wives.26 In later times, Moses married Zephorah as well as an unnamed African woman.27 In the time of the Judges, Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah.28 These instances of simultaneous bigamy were considered to be warranted by a legitimate desire for offspring to carrying on the family name.
During the period of the monarchy, despite the Deuteronomic prescription that a king should not multiply wives (Deut 17:17), Solomon was reported to have had seven-hundred princesses as wives along with three hundred concubines.29 To be sure, some of the marriages took place in order to cement political alliances, but Solomon’s behavior in accumulating so many sexual partners was censured.30
In the first century, bigamy was theoretically acceptable31—particularly if a wife had not produced offspring—but Qumran’s Damascus Document cited Scripture in an attempt to counter the practice. The document argues in favor of monogamy, apparently against the Pharisees, who “are caught twice in fornication: by taking two wives in their lives even though the principle of creation is ‘male and female he created them’ and the ones who went into the ark ‘went in two by two in the ark.’”32 The text continues, “And about the prince it is written, ‘He should not multiply wives to himself.’”33
In the Common Era, the Mishnah allowed a man to have five wives,34 while kings were permitted to have eighteen.35 The practice, however, seems not to have been common apart from those with great wealth.36 Monogamy was the common practice of Jewish households.37 By the tenth century CE, Jewish tradition prohibited a man from having two wives,38 a prohibition that was already in effect in imperial law since the time of Theodosius in 393.39
In the Pastorals’ Greco-Roman world, both traditional Greek practice and Roman law effectively prohibited simultaneous bigamy (being married to two wives at the same time). Euripides, for example, said, “We count it as a shame that over two wives one man hold wedlock’s reins.”40 For the Greeks, legitimate and physical cohabitation were characteristic of monogamous marriage.41 Under Roman law, a second marriage would annul a prior marriage, thus making bigamy legally impossible. Among ancient societies the monogamy of Greco-Roman society was almost without parallel.42
In effect, bigamy and polygamy were virtually nonexistent during the time 1 Timothy and Titus were written within both the dominant Greco-Roman society and among the Jewish population. The reality of marriage at the time would have made it impossible for the author of Titus to have written about an elder who was mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir in order to prohibit a potential overseer from engaging in a nonexistent practice.
The second possibility is that the mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir prescription was designed to prohibit from the role of overseer a man who had been twice married—that is, a man who had taken a second wife after the death or divorce of his spouse. It should be noted that since Titus was intended for a recently founded Christian community (or communities), it is not impossible that some neophyte believers had divorced prior to their acceptance of the faith.
The Fathers of the Church often—but not always43—interpreted the phrase as if it precluded a person who had married a second wife after the first had died or had been divorced.44 John Chrysostom, for example, supposing that refraining from a second marriage after the death of one’s spouse is a way to honor the deceased, writes, “How could a man who doesn’t honor the memory of his wife lead a church?”45
Does the phrase in Titus 1:6 really preclude a subsequent second marriage? That is theoretically possible but it would seemingly fly in the face of the teaching of Paul, the revered patronym of the epistle. In his long disquisition on sexual relationships (1 Cor 7), Paul spoke about the situation of widows and widowers, allowing the possibility of their remarrying after the death of their spouses, to wit, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control [ouk enkrateuontai], they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Cor 7:8-9).
Restricting his focus to that of a widow, Paul concludes the chapter by writing, “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free [eleuthera] to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Lord. But in my judgment she is more blessed if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 7:39-40). This codicil to Paul’s reflections on sexual relationships had been written in the context of the expectation of an imminent Parousia and the social context of Roman law, which required younger widows to remarry within a short period after the death of their spouse. For Paul, the issue of her freedom (eleutheria) takes precedence over the restraint (enkrateia) that he would have preferred while believers were expecting the imminent Parousia.
Titus does not specifically address the issue of another marriage after the death of one’s spouse, but 1 Timothy does address the issue, at least with regard to the case of a younger widow. In that instance, the author not only tolerates the second marriage but he almost requires it: “So I would have [boulomai] younger widows marry” (1 Tim 5:14a). The reason for this strong counsel is social respectability: “so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us” (1 Tim 5:14b). Part of the context of this strong exhortation was that a widow between the ages of twenty and fifty was bound to remarry within two years after the death of her spouse according to imperial law.46
The author’s mentor, the apostle Paul, had allowed for a second marriage even in the situation of the expectation of an imminent Parousia. Moreover, both Paul and the author(s) of the Pastoral Epistles argued against an undue asceticism in sexual matters. In addition, 1 Timothy specifically urges the remarriage of a younger widow for the sake of social respectability in accordance with the law of the realm. Hence, it is hardly likely, in the absence of any further evidence, that the author of Titus 1:8 intended mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir to mean that the elder under consideration as one to exercise the function of overseer should be a person who has not remarried after the death—or possibly divorce—of his spouse.
What then about the third possibility—namely, that the mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir prescription requires that the elder to be named as overseer should be a one-woman man in the sense that he must be faithful to his wife?47
Socially and culturally, this could be likely. Although Greco-Roman mores strongly endorsed monogamy and Roman law forbade adultery, Greco-Roman society tolerated a married man’s dalliances with slaves and prostitutes.48 Moreover, concubinage was hardly unknown in that society. This sort of sexual congress was not viewed as adultery. Under Roman law, adultery was a matter of a man having sexual intercourse with a married woman, another man’s wife, much as it was in the traditional Jewish understanding of adultery. Adultery was an offense against the aggrieved husband49 who enjoyed exclusive rights to his wife’s sexual activity, not so much as a matter of fidelity to her or respect for her, but as a way to ensure the legitimacy of any children born to her. The one thing that was required at the time was that a man’s paramours be kept out of the home and away from the man’s wife.
Classic is the advice that Plutarch, the Greek philosopher and biographer, gave to married women, telling them to tolerate their husbands’ dalliances with slave women because in that way they would be spared direct involvement in their husbands’ debauchery.50 On the other hand, some philosophic moralists condemned such philandering. Thus the Stoic Musonius Rufus criticized a “man who has relations with his own slave girl, a thing that some people consider quite without blame.”51
In terms of the Christian and literary matrix within which the author of Titus sets out the mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir qualification, it is likely that he had marital fidelity to a single wife in mind. He concludes the short lists of vices and virtues that he stipulates as further requirements for the overseer by saying that the overseer must be (dei, v. 7) self-controlled (enkrate, v. 8). This is the only instance of words derived from the enkrat-root in the Pastoral Epistles.52 The adjective suggests control of one’s physical appetites, especially one’s sexual urges. Lists of virtues and lists of vices were a literary genre mediated to the author(s) of the Pastoral Epistles through the Stoic tradition,53 which valued such self-control.
Self-control “signifies the free, autonomous and independent person, who does not allow himself to be tempted or diverted by any allurements.”54 As such it is a quality that befits a leader.55 Philo of Alexandria, for instance, considers self-control to be one of the three characteristics of statesmanship along with the art of shepherding (poimēnikon) and household management (oikonomikon).56 Commenting on Palestinian rabbinic attitudes and Xenophon’s Oiconomicos, Eliezer Diamond writes: “To rule—over one’s worker’s, one’s wife or one’s fellow citizens—one must first have demonstrated, through the control of one’s passions and impulses, the ability to rule oneself.”57
Strikingly, the author of Titus says that the overseer must be blameless since he functions as “God’s steward” (theou oikonomos, v. 7), the manager of God’s household. That the overseer is to be self-controlled would seem to confirm that connotation of mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir that the elder to be appointed as overseer be faithful to his wife.58 Thus, the NEB translates the phrase as “faithful to one wife,” capturing well the meaning of the expression mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir.
The words mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir are an expression of a man’s morality as much as they are a statement of his social condition as a married man. The point at issue is not how often a person has been married but how he lives his married life. As Luke Timothy Johnson says, “The value Paul seeks is that of fidelity and respectability.”59
Understood in this sense, the requirement that the would-be overseer be mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir is consistent with the Pauline tradition. On several occasions, Paul reiterated the traditional Jewish and Roman prohibition of adultery. On my reading of the apostle’s exhortation on sanctity in 1 Thessalonians, the oldest of his extant letters, Paul urges the Thessalonian Christians to avoid adultery. He writes, “For this is the will of God … that you abstain from fornication; that each of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter” (1 Thess 4:3–6a).60 The phrase that no one wrong a brother (ton adelphon autou61) in this matter is a statement that not violating another Christian’s marriage by committing adultery is God’s will and a condition of sanctification.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he cites “adulterers” (moichoi) among ten types of persons excluded from the Kingdom of God.62 In his Letter to the Romans, in an argument with an imaginary Jewish interlocutor, Paul poses this rhetorical question: “You that forbid adultery, do you commit adultery?”63 thereby upholding the validity of the sixth commandment.64 Later in the letter, he explicitly cites the sixth commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” (ou moicheuseis), listing it first among the four commandments that he cites.65
Paul often writes about “fornication” (porneia,66 a general term that connotes sexual misconduct rather than “fornication” in the narrower sense, in which the term is generally taken today). In 1 Corinthians 6:18 and 1 Thessalonians 4:3, he urges his addressees to flee from fornication (porneia). In 1 Corinthians 7:2–5, he urges marriage, in which husbands and wives have an active sexual life and similar responsibilities and rights with regard to their sexuality, as a way to combat sexual immorality (porneia). There is little doubt that Paul excludes sexual liaisons other than that of a man’s sexual union with his wife.
Despite Heid’s assumption “that the pastoral letters really expected continence of all ministers, whether married or not,”67 the phrase mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir speaks of marriage, not marital continence. Excluding sexual intercourse from the marriages of ministers of the Church is based on eisegesis of the biblical texts. It is reading something into the texts that the texts themselves do not imply. In no way can the formula be construed as if it banned a man’s sexual union with his wife after he became an overseer. The phrase speaks about marriage with a sexual component.68
Moreover, abstinence from sexual union with one’s wife was unheard of in Judaism, except, perhaps, for those married men who might have joined the community at Qumran.69 As for Paul, as we have seen, he urges couples who want to avoid extramarital affairs not to deprive one another of their sexual rights “so that Satan might not tempt you because of your lack of self-control [dia tēn arkasian hymōn]” (1 Cor 7:5).
In sum, the requirement that an elder to be appointed an overseer must be mias gynaikos anēr/unius uxoris vir whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious is a requirement that this elder be married and be faithful to his wife. In marriage, he must have children and be a good family man—and presumably be seen as such by those outside the community. He must have these qualities in order to function as God’s steward, as the household manager in the household of God.
The husband of one wife phrase, mias gynaikos anēr, appears again in 1 Timothy 3:2, in a similar context but in the accusative form, mias gynaikos andra:
The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop [episkopēs] desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach [dei oun ton episkopon anepilēmpton einai], married only once [mias gynaikos andra], temperate, sensible, respectable [kosmon], hospitable [philoxenon], an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way—for if someone does not know how to manage his own household well, how can he take care of God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be thought well of by outsiders [dei de kai marturian kalēn echein apo tōn exōthen], so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim 3:1–7)
The short list of virtues to be had and vices to be avoided70 is, for the most part, similar to short catalogues of virtues and vices that are used to list the requisite qualities for an overseer in Titus 1:7–8. The two lists begin in a similar fashion. They open with a comprehensive phrase, the “bishop must be above reproach,” although the author of 1 Timothy writes about the overseer being “above reproach” (anepilēmpton) while the author of Titus says that the overseer must be “blameless” (anenklēton). The two adjectives are basically synonymous but the author of 1 Timothy has a preference for “above reproach” (anepilēmptos). The word appears three times in this epistle (1 Tim 3:2; 5:7; 6:14) but in no other passage of the New Testament.
It is noteworthy that, unlike Titus, the author of 1 Timothy emphatically places “married only once” at the head of the list of virtues that he is about to rehearse. Here there is nothing optional about marriage.71 There is no more an option for an overseer to be married or not than there is for the overseer to have an option to be temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, or a good teacher. The episkopos “must be” (dei einai) the husband of one wife. It is the dei einai construction that requires that the phrase “married only once” be in the accusative rather than in the nominative.
The requirement that the overseer be married is consistent with the antiencratist spirit of the epistle. Its author takes issue with those who “forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods” (1 Tim 4:3). He views marriage and food as having been created by God and argues that “everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected” (1 Tim 4:4).
The author’s logic in insisting that the overseer be married but once in order that he be above reproach is similar to the logic of Paul’s argumentation in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians where the apostle insists that marriage is a way to avoid sexual misconduct and to be holy (1 Thess 4:3). Being married should lead to conduct that is above reproach, certainly with regard to sexual matters.
The author of 1 Timothy does not speak about an appointment72 nor does he speak of elders at this juncture in his letter.73 He concentrates on the qualifications required that a man functions well as an overseer in the community and that he be found respectable, well thought of by outsiders. Placing “married only once” (mias gynaikos andra) at the head of his list of virtues means that the author considers this quality to be most important if an overseer is to be a blameless individual.
The author defers the overseer’s qualities as a household manager until later in the pericope. Nonetheless, the virtue of hospitality (philoxenon) appears on his list of the overseer’s virtuous qualities just as it does in Titus 1:8.
Having run the gamut of the vices that an overseer must avoid, the author of 1 Timothy turns to the overseer’s household responsibilities as he says, “He must manage his own household well [tou idiou oikou kalōs proistamenon]” (1 Tim 3:4). The qualifiers are important. The household that the overseer must have managed well (kalōs) is his own (tou idiou). Immediately the author indicates why this qualification is so important: “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household [ei de tis tou idiou oikou prostēnai ouk oiden], how can he take care of God’s church [pōs ekklēsias theou epimelēsetai]?” (1 Tim 3:5). A man’s ability to run his own household well qualifies him to run a larger household, God’s church. This idea is implicit in Titus’ description of the overseer as God’s steward, but the author of 1 Timothy expresses the idea with full clarity.
An integral element of the overseer’s good management is that he has kept “his children submissive and respectful in every way” (en hypotagē, meta pasēs semnotētos). In comparison with Titus’ description of the overseer’s children, the author of 1 Timothy makes no mention of the offspring’s religious adherence and speaks positively rather than negatively.74 The overseer must have raised his children well, showing that he has been a good leader to them. If the overseer has not been an effective leader of his own children, how can he be a good leader to a larger group?
There is hardly any mention of the overseer’s wife in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 but the phrase mias gynaikos andra speaks volumes about the overseer’s fidelity to her.75 Marital fidelity and effective household leadership are among the qualities that a man must have if he aspires to become an overseer in the household of God—the Church.
The third passage in the New Testament that uses the mias gynaikos anēr phrase, although in the plural, is found in 1 Timothy 3:12 where it is cited as a qualification of “servers” (diakonoi): “Let deacons [diakonoi] be married only once.”
Diakonoi do not appear in Titus, perhaps evincing Titus’ less developed state of the Church than that witnessed to in 1 Timothy. The noun diakonos appears twice in the plural in 1 Timothy 3:8–13 and once in 1 Timothy 4:6, the only passages in which mention is made of servers in the Pastoral Epistles. In 1 Timothy 4:6 the noun diakonos is applied to the epistle’s patronymic addressee, to whom it is said, “If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus [kalos esē diakonos Christou Iēsou].”
Cognate with the noun diakonos, “server,” is the verb diakoneō, “serve.”76 The verb appears twice in the passage under consideration—namely, at 3:10 and 3:13—and nowhere else in the minicorpus of the Pastoral Epistles. This use of the language of service suggests its functional connotation, rather than any suggestion of a full-fledged office in the Church. The functional character of the verb is suggested by Paul’s own usage. For example, in Philemon 13, the imprisoned Paul says of Onesimus, “I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service [diakonē] to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel.”
During his lifetime, the apostle Paul knew of those who functioned as servers in the believing community. He addressed his Letter to the Philippians “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops [episkopois] and deacons [diakonois]” (Phil 1:1b). And he makes particular mention of a woman named Phoebe whom he commends to God’s beloved in Rome, called saints.77 The apostle identifies Phoebe as “our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church of Cenchrae [diakonon78 tēs ekklēsias tēs en Kenchreiais]” (Rom 16:1).
After describing the qualities of the overseer, the author of 1 Timothy turns his attention to the qualities of those who would serve in God’s household. He writes:
Deacons likewise [diakonous hōsautōs] must be serious [semnous], not double-tongued, nor indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless [anenklētoi], let them serve as deacons [diakoneitōsan]. Women likewise [gynaikas hōsautōs] must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be married only once [diakonoi estōsan mias gynaikos andres], and let them manage their children and their households well [teknōn kalōs proistamenoi kai tōn idiōn oikōn]; for those who serve well as deacons [kalōs diakonēsantes] gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. (1 Tim 3:8–13)
We recognize in this passage lists of qualifications, both virtues to be possessed and vices to be avoided similar to those found in Titus 1:6–9 and 1 Timothy 3:1–7,79 for both men and women. A brief word about what it means for the overseer and the server to be “blameless” is in order. The Greek of the respective texts uses two different adjectives—anenklētos in Titus and 1 Timothy 3:10 and anepilēmptos in 1 Timothy 3:2—both of which are translated as “blameless” in the NRSV. Heading the list of vices in 1 Timothy 3:8 is a virtue, “serious” (semnos). For all practical purposes, the terms are synonymous. All three terms speak about the way that a person is viewed by others but there is an importance nuance that differentiates them.
The terms anenklētos and anepilēmpton begin with a negative particle and connote the idea that an onlooker could perceive the failure to live up to accepted standards. So that people do not see the elder or overseer as blameworthy, he must be once married and faithful to his wife. His failure to have been married and shown fidelity to his wife would give reason for this leader of the community to be criticized by those within and without the community. The blameworthiness of the server in this regard is ascertained on the basis of the scrutiny that he has undergone.
The adjective semnos, on the other hand, is positive in form. The term was most often used in antiquity of the gods, with the connotation of august, revered, awesome. When applied to humans, it means revered or respected. If the one who serves is to be respected within the community that is testing him as well as by outsiders, he must possess the virtues that are listed and avoid those vices that are mentioned. That the servers’ faithfulness is also under scrutiny is implied by the phrase, “they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.”
The reference to women (gynaikas) in verse 11 is a reference to female deacons.80 The list is somewhat different from the list set out for men since Hellenistic society, from the time of Aristotle, believed that some virtues were more appropriate for men and others for women.81 The list of the female deacon’s qualifications does not include the requirement that she be “married only once” (enos andros gynē82) even though it is more than probable that female deacons were also married.83 Although it is impossible to enter into the author’s mind and discern the reason why he did not explicitly require female deacons to be married only once, it could be that such a prescription would seemingly fly in the face of what he is to recommend for young widows in 1 Timothy 4:14, as well as the prescriptions of the Julian laws for widowed and divorced women under the age of fifty.84
On the other hand, the list of qualifications for male deacons does include the requirement that they be married only once (mias gynaikos andres). Although the terminology of this qualification is similar to that found in Titus 1:6 and 1 Timothy 3:2, the qualification does not appear at the head of the list as it does in the other two instances. As noted above, in both of these instances, the requirement that the overseer be married only once is the first clarifying indication of what it means to be blameless. Whereas it is said that the overseer “must” (dei) be “married only once,” a matter of obligation, it is written of servers, “let deacons [diakonoi, servers] be married only once.” The verb estōsan, “let be,” preceding the mias gynaikos andres phrase, is the third-person plural, present imperative of the verb to be. “Let them be” is not a permission or an allowance; it is a command and a requirement.85 Servers are required to be married just as overseers are.
In 1 Timothy 3:8–13, the “husband of one wife” qualification is deferred so that it becomes the first of the server’s personal household responsibilities rather the first of the requirements for him as he is being scrutinized prior to be being allowed to “serve” within the community. Marital fidelity is explicitly required of male servers but it is also necessary that they be regarded as overall good family men: “Let them manage their children and their households well” (teknōn kalōs proistamenoi kai tōn idiōn oikōn). A single participle is used to speak of the server’s responsibility to his children and household. The terseness of the author’s description may be due to the fact that, while the server must be well regarded (semnos)86 as a family man, he is not going to function in a capacity that requires managerial skills, such as those required of the steward and overseer in the household of God. Hence, there is no need for the author of 1 Timothy to dwell on the server’s managerial skills.
As previously stated, the Greek phrase mias gynaikos anēr, translated in the NRSV as “married only once” but literally meaning “a man of one woman,” appears just three times in the New Testament. All three occurrences are in the Pastoral Epistles—namely, in Titus 1:6 and 1 Timothy 3:2, apropos overseers (episkopoi), and in 1 Timothy 3:12, apropos servers (diakonoi). Interestingly enough, a similar phrase, enos andros gynē, also translated in the NRSV as “married only once,” is to be found in 1 Timothy 5:9. The difference in wording between this formula and that found in Titus 1:6; 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 is due to the fact that enos andros gynē applies to a woman, a widow (chēra). If a widow is to be put on a list of widows who deserve the Church’s support she must be a “woman [wife87] of one husband,” to wit:
Let a widow be put on the list if she is not less than sixty years old and has been married only once [enos andros gynē]; she must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing service to doing good in every way. But refuse to put younger widows on the list. (1 Tim 5:9–11)
With regard to fidelity in marriage and a second marriage, social expectations for women were different from those for men, both in Greco-Roman and Jewish society. Women were always held to a stricter standard. What, then, does it mean that a real widow88 should be “married only once”?
The qualification that a real widow be married only once appears in second place in the list of the widow’s virtues and is followed by a rehearsal of the way she raised her children and her service to “the saints,” members of the church (1 Tim 5:9). It is noteworthy that the qualification follows after the requirement that she have attained the age of sixty,89 that she be a senior to whom the Julian laws on widowhood were no longer applicable. This is also the age beyond which further marriage was unlikely.90
While this older widow’s fidelity to her husband may have been considered noteworthy, the younger widow of child-bearing age was urged to remarry and take care of her family (v. 14), precisely so that the community of believers in God’s household not be subject to ridicule and shame. First Timothy 5 also speaks about a third group of widows, those who have children and grandchildren who can take care of them in keeping with traditional norms of filial piety.91 Other than the fact that this third group consists of women bereft of their husbands at the time, but having living descendants, nothing is said about the possibility or lack thereof of such a widow having married again after the death of her spouse.
With reference to 1 Timothy 5:9, what is meant when it is said that the real widow, the one to be enrolled, must be enos andros gynē, “married only once”? Unlike the rarely attested mias gynaikos anēr, “married only once” descriptive of a man, a laudatory form of “married only once” as applied to a woman was well-known in antiquity. A late first-century BCE elegy by Sextus Propertius is indicative in this regard. “Cornelia to Paullus from Beyond the Grave,” says:
I was united to your bed, Paullus, only to leave it so: read it on this stone, she was wedded to one alone [uni nupta]. I call as witness the ashes of my forebears, revered by you…. My life never altered, wholly without reproach: we lived in honour from the wedding to the funeral torch…. Moreover I earned the robe of honour through child-bearing: it was not a childless house that I was snatched from…. But if the bed that faces the doorway should be altered, and a careful stepmother occupy my place, boys, praise and accept your father’s wife: captivated, she will applaud your good manners. Don’t praise your mother too much: thoughtless speech that compares her with the first wife will become offences against her. Or if Paullus, you remember me, content that my shade suffices, and consider my ashes thus worthy, learn to feel now how old age advances, and leave no path open for a widower’s cares.92
The compound word monandros and univira93 are found on a number of Jewish and Gentile inscriptions. The phrases were used to eulogize a good and faithful wife, even in eulogies given by a woman’s second husband.94 Secular usage of the phrase does not, therefore, exclude a second marriage.
Reflecting this usage, Theodore of Mopsuestia comments on the phrase that it applies to a woman, “If she has lived in chastity with her husband, whether she had only one, or whether she was married a second time.”95 Theodoret of Cyrrhus interprets the phrase in similar fashion, to wit, “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.”96 John Chrysostom, however, takes the phrase in 1 Timothy 5:9 as one that discourages second marriages. For him it is not so much a matter of a widow showing undivided loyalty to one man as it is a matter of her leisure should she remain unmarried after the death of her husband.97
Clearly, some segments of ancient Greco-Roman98 and Jewish society99 considered it praiseworthy for a widow not to remarry after the death of her husband. Her willingness to forgo a second marriage was thought to be a sign of her loyalty to her deceased husband. An indication of such loyalty to just one husband was the idea that only widows who had been married a single time were allowed to serve at the altar of Pudicitia.100
Accordingly, Lightman and Ziesel101 maintain that the univira epithet functioned in two different ways. In its descriptive form, the epithet served as a formula of social approbation and was used of women who died before their husbands, be they a first or subsequent husband. Used in this fashion, the epithet was used of women from all levels of society. Used, however, in a prescriptive manner and related to various institutional and ritual activities, as it was of those who served as Pudicitia’s altar, the term referred to those married women, not necessarily widows, who had been married to a single man. The circles in which this usage was found were those of the social elite.
Origen, the early Alexandrine scholar, held that “real widows” should not be married a second time. His opinion was certainly more rigid and legalistic than were the later views of Theodore of Mopsuestia and John Chrysostom. In a homily on Luke 17:10, Origen remarked, “Anyone twice married may be neither a bishop nor a presbyter nor a deacon nor a widow.”102
With regard to the notion that a real widow must be “married only once,” Bassler argues that something more than the death of a spouse is involved. “Celibacy,” she says, is the “defining feature of the group” of real widows and speaks of their “vows of celibacy.”103 In fact, in the recent Wirkungsgesichte of 1 Timothy 5:9’s “married but once,” the interpretation of the phrase appears closely linked with another issue. This is whether “real widows” constituted an order within the nascent Church and whether “real widowhood” was to be seen as a designation of a ministry of Christian service at the time.104 Authors such as Spicq,105 Quinn and Wacker,106 Krause,107 and Fiore108 speak of “an order” of widows and suggest that one qualification of becoming a member of the order is that the widow has had only one husband. For example, Quinn and Wacker argue:
The point of the provision would be quite lost if it referred simply to fidelity in successive marriages, for a widow is a widow and the number of her previous marriages would be irrelevant. The provision is obviously meant to exclude certain widows from the order of real widows with a provision that turns on number, as was the case with preceding provision on age. Widows below sixty are not to be enrolled with the “real widows”; widows of a second marriage are similarly disqualified.109
Commenting on the stringency of the requirements, Krause adds, “it seems fair to wonder if the letter writer’s ideal (‘real’) widow is really a dead widow, or a nonexistent widow.”110
In my judgment the possibility that there was an order of widows with a ministry of service in the late first century remains a moot question, especially if the order was restricted to sixty-year-old widows. This would definitely be a group of old widows in a society in which life expectancy was forty years of age. Towner correctly observes that “these real widows were in the closing years of their lives, not at a point at which to take up new ministries.”111 That is not to say that they could not continue to perform some services within the church. They were, however, at a venerable stage in life when they would normally look to others to provide for their needs.112
Every translation is, as was previously noted, an interpretation and, sometimes, even a falsification. This is the case with translations of lists of the real widows’ qualifications in 1 Timothy 5:9–10. The NRSV translates this pair of verses in this way: “Let a widow be put on the list if she is not less than sixty years old and had been married only once; she must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to good works in every way.”
The wording makes it appear as if having attained the age of sixty and been married but once are coordinate notions and the primary conditions to be fulfilled if a widow is to be enrolled. The translation, with its punctuation, suggests that the text is alluding to some sort of an order of enrolled widows. The NRSV’s first “and” as well as the “had been” have, however, no equivalent in Greek. In addition, the Greek text lacks all punctuation, including the semicolon of 1 Timothy 5:9 and the words “she must be” that follow.
In the Greek text, the words from “one who has brought up children” (ei eteknotrophēsen) to “devoted herself to good works” (ei panti ergō agathō epēkolouthēsen) constitute a series of five conditional clauses, each of which is introduced by ei, “if.” Arguably the text should be read in this fashion: “let a widow be listed who is no less than sixty, married only once, and well-spoken of because of her good works:113 rearing children, showing hospitality, washing the saints’ feet, helping the afflicted, and devoting herself to every sort of good work.”114 The double reference to “good works” forms a kind of literary inclusion around the intervening four conditional clauses. The clauses that speak of rearing children, showing hospitality, washing the saints’ feet, helping the afflicted, and devoting herself to every kind of good work explain what the author means by good works (ergois kalois).
In the NRSV, that she be “married only once” appears to be one of two principal conditions required of the widow if she is to be enrolled (perhaps in an order of widows). On my reading of the text, that the widow be “married only once” is one of three conditions to be fulfilled in order for her name to be entered on the list of those to be cared for by the community.
The existence of a biblical tradition that demands that care be taken of widows and orphans, those without the male head of household to protect and provide for them, is beyond any reasonable doubt. Passages such as Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 14:29; and Zechariah 7:9–10 give evidence of this concern as do such New Testament passages as James 1:7 and Acts 6:1–7.115 The community of God’s people must provide for those widows who are otherwise without anyone to provide for them.
It should be noted that the first words of the passage on widows, 1 Timothy 5:3–16, are “honor widows” (chēras tima). Care for widows is the principal theme of the pericope,116 a theme to which attention is drawn in the opening and closing words. The verb timaō, “honor” and the related substantive timē, the noun for honor, have to do with material support. The verb is that used in Septuagintal Greek of the fourth commandment, both in Exodus 20:12 and in Deuteronomy 5:16, mandating that adult children, especially males, provide for their elders during their advanced years.117 The noun timē is found in 1 Timothy 5:17, a relatively few verses after the passage under discussion in reference to the support of “elders” within the community.
With this as the horizon for the care of widows enjoined by 1 Timothy 5:3–10, the enos andros gynē can read as an indication that the widow to be cared for by the community must be one recognized for the quality of her domestic life and her life as a respectable member of society. Having attained at least the age of sixty, the real widow is one who has married only once, and is well attested for her good works—that is, she has brought up her children and has shown hospitality. Moreover, she must have washed the feet of the saints,118 helped the afflicted, and done good in every way. “There is,” as Dibelius and Conzelmann observe, “no reason whatever to infer a prohibition of a second marriage here.”119
Within this reading of the text it is arguable that the author’s enos andros gynē, “married only once,” is more of a commentary on the widow’s marital fidelity than a reference to the number of times that she has been married. Were enos andros gynē to mean that the widow qualifying for enrollment had only a single husband during the course of her life, the implication is that she had enjoyed an unusually long marriage. The median age of widowhood was mid-thirties. Under the Julian laws, a woman whose husband had died before she had turned fifty was expected to remarry.
Support for the moral quality interpretation of the phrase, “married only once,” enos andros gynē—namely, that the widow to be supported by the Church should have been faithful to her husband—can be found in the fact that the author of 1 Timothy positively urges young widows to remarry (1 Tim 5:14). This bit of paraenesis is consistent with the author’s taking issue with those who were against marriage. He argued that marriage is a good created by God and not to be rejected.120 Does he want to suggest that a widow who follows his advice is unworthy of support from the Church, should her second husband predecease her?
Also to be taken into consideration is the Pauline tradition to which the author lays claim in 1 Timothy 1:1–2a.121 Even in the context of what he believed to be the impending Parousia, the apostle acknowledged the legitimacy of a widow’s remarriage should her passions continue to remain strong (1 Cor 7:8–9). He set down only one condition—namely, that she marry “in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:39) by marrying a believer.
Social respectability is an important feature of the paraenesis of 1 Timothy. The text’s author does not explicitly cite this motivational factor in writing about senior widows but in his society a woman’s fidelity to her husband was particularly valued. It is that quality that appears to come to the fore in Propertius’ uni nupta and the monandros/univira expression found on ancient epigraphs and in funereal discourse. There is little reason to think that our author’s enos andros gynē implied anything else.
One final note: Even if it could be established that the connotation of enos andros gynē is that the widow to be enrolled should have had only one husband during her lifetime, the phrase would not be a strong argument for taking the author of 1 Timothy’s use of the mias gynaikos anēr expression to mean that overseers and servers should not be married once. The fact that ancient standards of marital respectability for women were so different from those for men and the fact that the ancients attributed different virtues to women than they did to men make the application of what pertains to females applicable to males a socially unlikely transition. A widow’s single marriage would not mean that overseers and servers were not to remarry if their first wives have died.
1 With regard to the practice of clerical continence, Heid says, “The key is found in the Pastoral Epistles.” See Heid, Celibacy in the Early Church, 40. Heid’s reflections on the three texts in the Pastorals, pages 40-52 in Celibacy in the Early Church, are based on an earlier study, “Grundlagen des Zölibats in der frühen Kirchen,” in Der Zölibats des Priesters, ed. Klaus M. Beker, Sein und Sendung 9 (St. Otilien: EOS Verlag, 1995), 51–68.
2 Cf. C. K. Barrett, The Pastoral Epistles in the New English Bible (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 75.
3 See the postpositive gar, “for,” in v. 7.
4 Cf. Raymond F. Collins, “How Not to Behave in the Household of God,” LS 35 (2011): 7–31.
5 See, for example, Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 50-55.
6 Even a dancer was expected to possess admirable human qualities. Why? Lucian answers: “The praise that he gets from the spectators will be consummate when each of those who behold him recognizes his own traits, or rather sees in the dancer as in a mirror his very self, with his customary feelings and actions” (The Dance 81). The citation is from Lucian. Volume IV, trans. Austin M. Harmon, Loeb Classical Library 162 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).
7 Discourses 3.22.13. Cf. Epictetus. Discourses Books 3–4. The Enchiridion, trans. W. A. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library 218 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1928).
8 Cf. Aeneas Tacitus, Asclepiodotus, Onasander: With an English Translation by Members of the Illinois Greek Club, Loeb Classical Library 156 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).
9 Cf. Boris A. Pasche, “The cura morum of the Roman Censors as Historical Background for the Bishop and Deacon Lists of the Pastoral Epistles,” ZNW 98 (2007): 105–19.
10 Cf. Cicero, De legibus 3.3.
11 See also the requirement that the episkopos be philoxenos, “hospitable” (v. 8), a quality that he should have if he were expected to host the gathering in his own home.
12 Cf. N. C. Grubbs, “The Truth about Elders and Their Children: Believing or Behaving in Titus 1:6,” Faith & Mission 22 (2009): 3-13. See Raymond F. Collins, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, NTL (Louisville: Westminister / John Knox, 2002), 321.
13 Cf. Eph 6:4b.
14 Hom. on Titus 2 (NPNF 1 13:524-25).
15 Cf. Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 132.
16 Cf. 1 Tim 4:3; 1 Cor 7:1-7.
17 See above, pp. 113-17. Cf. 1 Tim 4:1-5.
18 See, for example, Xenophon and Plato.
19 Columella, Rust. 1.8.5; cf. Varro, Agricultural Topics in Three Books 1.17.5. See John K. Goodrich, “Overseers as Stewards and the Qualifications for Leadership in the Pastoral Epistles,” ZNW 104 (2013): 77-97, 93-94. See also Xenophon’s Oiconomicos and Michel Foucault’s discussion of this work in The History of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality, 2 (New York: Vintage, 1990), 152-65.
20 Cato, Agriculture, 142-43.
21 Ibid., 143.
22 See above, p. 165.
23 Constitutions 6:17 (ANF 7:457).
24 Cf. Henry Barclay Swete, Theodori episcopi Mopsuesteni: In epistolas B. Pauli commentarii, vol. 2 (Westmead, England: Gregg International, 1969), 103.
25 Cf. Gen 16:1-3; 25:1-2.
26 Cf. Gen 29:15-30.
27 Cf. Exod 2:21; Num 12:1. This second marriage displeased Moses’ siblings, Miriam and Aaron.
28 Cf. 1 Sam 1:2.
29 Cf. 1 Kgs 11:3.
30 Cf. 1 Kgs 11:2, 4.
31 Josephus notes that some priests, appealing to the example of the patriarchs and citing biblical passages that allowed polygamy (cf. Exod 21:8-11; Deut 21:15; 25:5-10), had more than one wife. Cf. Josephus, Ant. 17.1, 2, 14.
32 CD 4:20-21, citing Gen 1:27 and Gen 7:9. Cf. 6QD, frg. 1. See Koltun-Fromm, Hermeneutics of Holiness, 61.
33 CD 5:2, citing Deut 17:17. The text continues by excusing David from having violated this precept. “David had not read the sealed book of the law which was in the ark, for it had not been opened in Israel since the day of the death of Eleazar and of Jehoshua, and Joshua and the elders who worshipped Ashtaroth” (CD 5:2-4).
34 Cf. m. Yebam. 11:3.
35 Cf. m. Sanh. 2:4; b. Sanh. 21a. Cf. Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Family in First Temple Israel” in Leo G. Perdue, et al, Families in Ancient Israel: The Family, Religion, and Culture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 48-103, esp. 64.
36 Cf. Leo G. Perdue, “The Israelite and Early Jewish Family: Summary and Conclusions,” in Perdue, Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 1997), 163-222, 185.
37 Cf. Launderville, Celibacy in the Ancient World, 171. Satlow, Jewish Marriage, 190; Catherine Hezser, “Part Whore, Part Wife: Slave Women in the Palestinian Rabbinic Tradition,” in Doing Gender—Doing Religion: Fallstudien zur Intersektionalität im frühen Judentum Christentum und Islam, ed. Ute E. Eisen, Christine Gerber, and Angela Standhartinger, WUNT 302 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 303-23, 313, 320.
38 Cf. Menachem Elon, “Bigamy and Polygamy,” EncJud2 3, 691–94, esp. 691.
39 Cf. Code of Justinian 1.9.7. The prescription was reiterated in Novel 9 in 537. See also John J. Collins, “Marriage, Divorce, and Family in Second Temple Judaism,” in Perdue, Families in Ancient Israel, 104-61, 122.
40 Andromache 215.
41 This did not preclude married men’s use of prostitutes and hetaerai.
42 Cf. Walter Scheidel, “Monogamy and Polygyny” (Princeton: Stanford Working Papers in Classics, 1999), 1.
43 The Ambrosiaster, for example, admits the possibility of the second marriage. Cf. Comm. on 1 Tim, at 3:2-4 (PL 17, 95ab).
44 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, for example, alludes to the possibility of a man having dismissed his wife. Cf. Comm. in 1 Tim, at 1 Tim 3:2 (PG 82, 804d-805d).
45 Hom on 1 Tim II. 1 (PG 62, 553d).
46 See above, pp. 66–67.
47 Audet compares the phrase to such idiomatic phrases as “the man of one book” or “someone with one idea.” He suggests that the connotation of the phrase is that of man’s undivided attachment to his wife. Cf. Jean Paul Audet, Mariage et célibat dans le service de l’Église: Histoire et orientations (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, 1967), 95.
48 Cf. Walter Scheidel, “Monogamy and Polygyny” (Princeton: Stanford Working Papers in Classics), 1999, 3–4, 7; Pomeroy, Xenophon Oeconomicus, 35, 297–98. Pomeroy references Xenophon Oeconomicus 9.5; 10.12–13; and Pseudo-Demosthenes 59.122.
49 The “against her” (epʾautēn) of Mark 10:11 was truly countercultural.
50 Cf. Plutarch, “Advice to the Bride and Groom” 16 (Moralia 140b).
51 “On Sexual Relations,” frg. 12.
52 Words belonging to the enkrat- word group are rarely used in the New Testament. The noun enkrateia appears just three times in the New Testament (Acts 24:25; Gal 5:23; 2 Pet 1:6); the verb enkrateōomai twice (1 Cor 7:9; 9:25) and the adjective enkratēs just once, here in Titus 1:8.
53 Cf. Raymond F. Collins, Sexual Ethics and the New Testament: Behavior and Belief, Companions to the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 74, 77–79.
54 EDNT 1, 37.
55 Polycarp (Phil. 5:2) lists self-control as one of the qualities that a diakonos should have.
56 Cf. Philo, Joseph 54.
57 Diamond, “‘And Jacob Remained Alone,’” 54.
58 Cf. Peter Trummer, “Einehe nach den Pastoralbriefen: Zum Verständnis der Termini mias gynaikos anēr und henos andros gynē,” Bib 51 (1970): 471–84; Sydney Page, “Marital Expectations of Church Leaders in the Pastoral Epistles,” JSNT 50 (1993): 105–20.
59 Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, Letters to Paul’s Delegates: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, The New Testament in Context (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1966), 143.
60 I hold that “each of you know how to control your own body” is not a statement on ascetic sexual self-control but an expression of God’s desire that men marry. Cf. Raymond F. Collins, “This Is the Will of God: Your Sanctification (1 Thess 4:3),” LTP 39 (1983): 27–53; “The Unity of Paul’s Paraenesis in 1 Thess. 4.3–8: 1 Cor. 7.1–7, A Significant Parallel,” NTS 29 (1983): 420–29, reprinted in Collins, Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians, BETL 66 (Leuven: University Press-Peeters, 1984), 299–335; James W. Thompson, Moral Formation According to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 72–79.
61 Since the phrase concerns adultery within a context in which adultery is viewed as an offense against a cuckolded husband, adelphon must be taken as the gender-specific “brother” rather than as the gender-inclusive “brother and sister.”
62 Cf. 1 Cor 6:9.
63 Rom 2:22.
64 That is the sixth commandment according to the common Roman Catholic enumeration of the Ten Commandments. Other traditions divide the commandments a bit differently, citing the prohibition of adultery as the seventh commandment.
65 Cf. Rom 13:9, citing Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18.
66 Cf. 1 Cor 5:1; 6:13, 18; 7:2; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19; 1 Thess 4:3. See also 1 Cor 5:9, 10, 11; 6:9, 18; 10:8.
67 Heid, Celibacy in the Early Church, 61.
68 Siricius’ statement that the author does not add “who continues in the desire to have children” (Epist. 5.3 [PL 13:160a-1161a]) is clearly gratuitous.
69 See above, p. 58.
70 Heid labels the items on the list as “impediments to ordination” (Celibacy in the Early Church, 42) and suggests that they served as a questionnaire during a scrutiny for ordination (ibid., 46). 1 Timothy 3:10 does indeed make reference to a testing of servers, but the Scripture makes no reference to a similar testing of overseers.
71 Notwithstanding the clear language of the text, Heid comments: “Here, too, it should be added: on the condition that he is married.” See Heid, Celibacy in the Early Church, 38. This appears to be a gratuitous addition to Scripture.
72 Cf. the “appoint” (katastēsēs) of Titus 1:5.
73 Cf. 1 Tim 5:1, 2, 17, 19.
74 “Not accused of debauchery and not rebellious” is the way that the author of Titus 1:6 describes the children of the would-be overseer.
75 Cf. Ed. Glasscock, “‘The Husband of One Wife’ Requirement in 1 Timothy 3:2,” BSac 140 (1983): 244–58. Glasscock maintains that “husband of one wife,” with its implications, pertains to man’s status after his conversion and does not pertain to his preconversion life.
76 The NRSV, along with the NAB, translates the verb as “serve as deacons.” The translation, unfortunately, easily leads to an anachronistic reading of the text.
77 Cf. Rom 1:7.
78 The epithet is a masculine form, albeit used of the woman Phoebe.
79 Cf. Collins, “How Not to Behave,” 7–31.
80 Cf. Collins, I & II Timothy and Titus, 90–91, 331. See also the note at 1 Timothy 3:11 in the NAB.
81 Ibid., 91.
82 See below, pp. 207–9, on 1 Tim 5:9.
83 Cf. Jürgen Roloff, Der Erste Brief an Timotheus, EKKNT 15 (Zurich: Benziger/Neukirchen: Neukirchener-Vluyn, 1988), 166.
84 See above, p. 66.
85 The translation of 1 Timothy 3:12 in the NAB, “Deacons may be married only once and must manage their children and their households well,” is at best tendentious. The NAB makes it appear as if there are two principal verbs in the sentence, “may be” and “must” (or “must manage”). The Greek text, however, contains only one principal verb, the imperative estōsan. The denotation of the verb is echoed in the “must” of the second clause in the NAB translation. The Greek sentence contains no verb that hints of a concession or allowance. “Manage” is a participial form in Greek (proistamenoi). The sentence could be translated in this fashion, “Deacons must be men of one woman, who have managed their children and households well.” The REB hits the nail on the head, with its translation of the verse: “A deacon must be the husband of one wife, and good at managing his children and his own household.”
86 Cf. 1 Tim 3:8, 13.
87 The Greek gynē literally means woman but, in context it generally connotes “wife.”
88 Cf. 1 Tim 5:3, “Honor widows who are really widows” (chēras tima tas ontōs chēras); 1 Tim 5:5, “The real widow [hē de ontōs chēra], left alone, has set her hope on God”; 1 Tim 5:16, “so that it can assist those who are real widows” (tais ontōs chērais).
89 In Plato’s ideal city, sixty was the age at which a woman could become a priestess. Cf. Plato, Laws 6.759d. See also Plutarch, Comparatio Lycurgi et Numae 26.1–2; Pollianus, 2.11; Demosthenes, Discourses 43.62.
90 So, Oden, who references John Chrysostom and Jerome. Cf. Thomas C. Oden, First and Second Timothy and Titus, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox, 1989), 156; John Chrysostom, Letter to a Young Widow, 2; Jerome, Epist. 79.7.
91 Cf. 1 Tim 5:16. Within Judaism, this dimension of filial piety was codified in the fourth commandment.
92 Propertius, Elegies, 4.11. Translation by A. S. Kline (2008), accessible at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Prophome.htm. See also Valerius Maximus, Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings, 2.1.3. “Women who had restricted themselves to one marriage were honored with the garland of modesty; our ancestors felt that the heart of a married woman was especially incorruptible and trustworthy if she refused to leave the bedroom in which she had lost her virginity, but they believed that to have experienced many marriages was a sign of legalized promiscuity.” Henry John Wells, trans., Valerius Maximus. Memorable Deeds and Sayings: One Thousand Tales from Ancient Rome (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004).
93 Spicq cautions that this word is not the exact equivalent of enos andros gynē. See Ceslaus Spicq, Les épîtres pastorales, 1, EBib., 4th rev. ed. (Paris: Gabalda, 1969), 402. Cf. NewDocs 4, 222; Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, 1: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic / Nottingham, UK: Apollos, 2006), 269.
94 Cf. Audet, Mariage et célibat, 96.
95 Cf. Swete, Theodori episcopi Monsuesteni 2, 161 (PG 66, 944). Dibelius and Conzelmann label Theodore’s interpretation as “correct.” Cf. Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 75.
96 Cf. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Comm. in 1 Tim, at 1 Tim 5:9 (PG 82, 817).
97 Hom 14.1 in 1 Tim (NPNF 2 10:392).
98 Cf. Anthologia graeca 7, 324.
99 Spicq cites Jdt 16:22 and Luke 2:36–37 as evidence of the Jewish practice. See Spicq, Épîtres pastorales, 1, 402.
100 Cf. Livy, Roman History 10.23.9.
101 Cf. Majorie Lightman and William Zeisel, “Univira: An Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society,” CH 46 (1977): 19–32.
102 Cf. Joseph T. Lienhard, ed., Origen: Homilies on Luke, Fathers of the Church, FC, vol. 94 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 75.
103 Jouette M. Bassler 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 93–94, 96–97.
104 On this issue, see especially Bonnie Bowman Thurston, The Widows: A Woman’s Ministry in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989); “1 Timothy 5:3–16 and Leadership of Women in the Early Church” in A Feminist Companion to the Deutero-Pauline Epistles, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003), 159–74, esp. 172.
105 Cf. Spicq, Épîtres pastorales, 1, 532–33.
106 Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 436.
107 Cf. Deborah Krause, 1 Timothy (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 100–101.
108 Benjamin Fiore, The Pastoral Epistles: First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, SP 12 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 104.
109 Quinn and Wacker, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 437.
110 Krause, 1 Timothy, 100.
111 Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 346.
112 Cf. I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 593.
113 The first and last clauses are participial clauses; sandwiched between them is “a one-man woman.”
114 Similarly the NAB, which reads, “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years old, married only once, with a reputation for good works, namely, that she has raised children, practiced hospitality, washed the feet of the holy ones, helped those in distress, involved herself in every good work” (1 Tim 5:9–10).
115 Cf. Ignatius Pol. 4.
116 “The main theme is care for widows” (his emphasis), writes Towner (Letters to Timothy and Titus, 345).
117 Cf. Raymond F. Collins, “Obedience, Children and the Fourth Commandment—A New Testament Note,” LS 4 (1972–73): 157–73. Among other things it can be noted that the discussion of this commandment in Mark 7:9–13 and Matthew 15:3–9 deals with the material support of one’s parents.
118 Washing a guest’s feet was a traditional gesture of hospitality (cf. Luke 7:44). It may also be that “washing the feet of the saints” is an implicit reference to John 13:12–15.
119 Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 75.
120 Cf. 1 Tim 4:1–4.
121 “Loyal” (gnēsiō) in 1 Timothy 1:2a implies that the author is the legitimate heir of Paul. See Collins, I and II Timothy and Titus, 24.