This is the third and final part of a talk I gave a couple of weeks ago (early 2023) at the Baptist Women of the Pacific conference.
Part 1. An introduction and a discussion on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 are here.
Part 2. My discussion on 1 Timothy 2:12 is here.
The conference talks have been posted as audio files here. My talk starts at the 13.45-minute mark in session 2.
What Does “Husband of One Wife” Mean?
When I first started writing about women in ministry, 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:12 were the verses that were continually brought up in conversations. But in the past few years, I’ve noticed that more and more people are bringing up the qualifications for overseers in 1 Timothy 3:1–7. In particular, they are using verse 2 in this passage to say that women can’t be church leaders.
“If anyone aspires to be an overseer,[1] he desires a noble work. An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled …” 1 Timothy 3:1b–2a (CSB)
Many are stuck on the phrase “husband of one wife” that occurs in verse 2. Women can’t be husbands; women therefore can’t be overseers or supervisors of congregations. That’s the thinking.
But this isn’t the thinking of some respected complementarian New Testament scholars, such as Douglas Moo and Thomas Schreiner.[2] And it wasn’t the thinking in the early church, where very few leaders were husbands. Many leaders and ministers in the early church were single and celibate.
The “husband of one wife” phrase is an idiom that is poorly understood.[3] Judging by how the early church understood this phrase, however, it meant more than being monogamous (in the way “monogamous” is understood today). One sense of the idiom was that a married person didn’t marry again after their first spouse had died.[4] And having a spouse die while still relatively young was not uncommon in the first century.
The New Revised Standard Version captures this meaning in their rendering of the phrase as “married only once” in 1 Timothy 3:2, 12; 5:9 and Titus 1:6. Moffat’s translation (1913), Goodspeed’s translation (1923), the English version of the Jerusalem Bible (1966), and the New American Bible (1970) (including the latest revised edition), also translate the phrase as meaning married only once.
In the Roman world, there was a virtue that in Latin was called univira. The etymology of this word is “one-husband.” We see the word, univira, engraved on ancient gravestones celebrating virtuous wives. Univira applied to deceased wives who had been married only once and also to widows who had chosen not to marry after their first husband had died.[5]
Implicit in this virtue was that the woman had restrained her passions and lived an impeccably chaste life. Paul however, writing in Greek, applied this virtue to ministers, male and female. He wanted these men and women to be completely devoted to ministry and have their sexual urges restrained and under control.[6]
Masculine Language does not Necessarily Exclude Women
The idiom is applied to four different groups of people in 1 Timothy and Titus but in each occurrence, it has essentially the same meaning. There wasn’t a gender-inclusive way to render this idiom, however; so in 1 Timothy 3:2 (in the context of overseers), in 1 Timothy 3:12 (in the context of deacons),[7] and in Titus 1:6 (in the context of elders), Paul wrote, “husband (or, husbands) of one wife.”
But when Paul was only speaking about women, in 1 Timothy 5:9 (in the context of enrolled widows, a church order), he used a flipped form of the idiom, in effect, “wife of one husband.” And these women were definitely not married.[8]
Masculine language in ancient Greek is often used to include women. However, it is understandably more difficult to see this possible inclusion when the words being used are “husband/ man” and “wife/ woman.”
But we’ve done this even in English. We can imagine that if we read, say a pilot’s manual from 100 or even 70 years ago, or a book written for lawyers, there will be masculine language. This is for two reasons: first, almost all pilots and lawyers were men at that time, and second, the convention of English in the past was to use words such as “man” and “men” without necessarily excluding women.
Ancient Greek is roughly comparable in this regard. And I suggest we look at 1 Timothy 3:1–7 with a somewhat similar understanding of literary conventions.
Many church leaders in New Testament times were male, and the list of qualifications in 1 Timothy 3:1–7, including verse 2, assumes an overseer most often will be male, and married or widowed, and have children, and have his own household to manage and care for. In fact, overseers in the early decades of the church (circa 40–80) were probably relatively wealthy householders who hosted and cared for congregations that met in their own homes for all kinds of meetings and activities.
Paul used the phrase “husband of one wife” because it wouldn’t have made any sense to use the phrase “wife of one husband,” when most overseers would have been men. As I said, there wasn’t a gender-inclusive version of this idiom. But nowhere in the Greek New Testament, including 1 Timothy 3, does it plainly say that a church leader must be male. The New Living Translation, as one example, makes the statement that “a church leader must be a man … ,” but this statement is not in the Greek.
Also, don’t be misled by any masculine pronouns in English translations of 1 Timothy 3:1–7. There are no masculine personal pronouns in the Greek of this passage in the oldest surviving manuscripts, and the Greek word for “man/ husband,” occurs just once in this passage, in the idiom, “husband of one wife.”
Even though most overseers would have been men, we know some women who hosted and cared for congregations that met in their homes. Lydia in Acts 16 and Nympha in Colossians 4:15, among others. But Priscilla is the standout example, and I’ll get to her in a minute.
Paul’s Ministry Terminology
Interestingly, Paul never refers to one of his ministry coworkers as an overseer (episkopos). He never refers to any one of his ministry coworkers as an elder or a pastor either.
His favourite words for ministers who he identifies by name are:
coworker
brother or sister
diakonos (“minister, deacon”)
apostolos (“apostle, missionary”)
and he uses labourer and labouring words.
These words don’t have connotations of prestige or power. They have connotations of camaraderie, service, and hard work. Being a minister in the first century could be very difficult and dangerous work (cf. Acts 15:26).
Paul uses his favourite ministry terms for men such as Timothy and Silas, and also for women such as Priscilla, Euodia, Syntyche, Apphia, Phoebe, Junia, Persis, and others.
I have more on Paul’s preferred ministry terminology here.
Priscilla in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome
We’ve spent a bit of time (in this series) looking at letters addressed to Christians in Corinth and to Timothy in Ephesus. Priscilla and her husband Aquila were known to these Christians, and it seems the couple were leaders in a house church they hosted in Ephesus and, later, a house church in Rome.
Could Priscilla have been an overseer?
- When Apollos was teaching in Ephesus, it was Priscilla, with her husband, who corrected his theology, and Apollos accepted their correction (Acts 18:24–26). No one else is mentioned as being involved. Correcting the doctrine of a visiting teacher is usually a role of overseers or elders. And the fact that Luke bothered to record this event in Acts is significant. Moreover, the church in Ephesus was established by Priscilla and Aquilla.[9]
- When Paul closes his first letter to the Corinthians which he wrote from Ephesus, he passes on greetings, but he only names Aquila and Priscilla (1 Cor. 16:19–20). Clearly, this couple was well-known to the Corinthians, presumably because of their ministry.
- When Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy in Ephesus, he sent greetings to Timothy, to Priscilla and Aquila, and to the household of Onesiphorus (2 Tim. 1:2; 4:19). No other Christians in Ephesus are greeted. Were these four named people the main leaders of the Ephesian church?
But Romans 16 is especially interesting.
- In Paul’s list of greetings to members of the church at Rome, a list that includes 28 individuals, Priscilla is listed first (Rom. 16:3–5). First of 28 people! This indicates Priscilla was a leading figure in the church in Rome.[10]
Priscilla and Aquila were well-known in Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. And I suggest the only thing that stops us from recognising that Priscilla and her husband were senior leaders in these churches is prejudice because of Priscilla’s sex and a faulty understanding of a few, a very few, New Testament verses.
Paul’s Overall Theology of Ministry and Women
In some of his letters, Paul provides lists of ministries and he does not exclude women from any of these ministries. Lists can be found in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12:28, 1 Corinthians 14:26, Ephesians 4:11, and Colossians 3:16.
Here’s what Paul says in Romans 12:6–8 (NIV).
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving [or, ministering], then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage [or, to exhort], then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.[11]
Paul’s overall theology of ministry was, You have a gift; use it to build up others in the Lord!
None of Paul’s statements about women in his letters, when understood in their context, restricts the ministry of godly and gifted women. And none of his statements should be used to limit, discourage, or wound our capable sisters in Christ. Paul loved and valued his female co-workers and there is no evidence that he silenced or limited women such as Priscilla. Let’s not silence and limit the Priscillas in our churches today.[12]
Footnotes
[1] The Greek word for “overseer” in 1 Tim. 3:1 is episkopos. This word is sometimes translated into English as “bishop.” Commenting on episkopos in Philippians 1:1, Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek observe, “Episkopos carried none of the connotations that the word “bishop” does today, or even after Ignatius of Antioch. It is a term borrowed from management functions, meaning supervisor or overseer.”
Madigan and Osiek (eds. and transl.) in Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 11.
In his Church History 7.19.2, Sozomen, who wrote in the early 400s, commented on the different ways the term episkopos (“bishop”) was used in his time.
There are, for instance, many cities in Scythia, and yet they all have but one bishop; whereas, in other nations a bishop serves as priest even over a village (καὶἐν κώμαις ἐπίσκοποι ἱερῶνται), as I have myself observed in Arabia, and in Cyprus, and among the Novatians and Montanists of Phrygia.
[2] I don’t agree with much that Douglas Moo and Thomas Schreiner say about women as elders, but I agree completely with Moo’s statement: “… while it would be going too far to argue that the phrase clearly excludes women, it does suggest that Paul had men in mind when he wrote it.”
Douglas J. Moo, “The Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11–15: A Rejoinder,” Trinity Journal 2 NS (1981): 198–222, 211. (A PDF of this paper is here.)
Thomas Schreiner argues, “The requirements for elders in 1 Tim 3:1–7 and Titus 1:6–9, including the statement that they are to be one-woman men, does not necessarily in and of itself preclude women from serving as elders …” I agree with him here. However, Schreiner then goes on to say that the phrase, “does fit with such a conclusion,” namely, that women cannot serve as elders.
Thomas Schreiner, “Philip Payne on Familiar Ground: A Review of Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters.” The Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 15.1 (Spring 2010): 33–46, 35. (A PDF of JBMW 15.1 is here.)
[3] An idiom is “A fairly fixed speech form or expression that cannot be understood grammatically from its constituents parts but whose elements function as a set with a meaning peculiar to itself.” Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001), 70.
For example, ti emoi kai soi (“what [is it] to me and to you”) is an idiom found several times in the New Testament. Its meaning is “what concern is it of yours,” or more colloquially, but not disrespectfully, “it’s none of your business.”
“Stiff-necked” is another idiom used in the Bible. (See here.) It doesn’t refer to a person’s neck, but to stubbornness.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, a staunch complementarian, recognises that the phrase in 1 Timothy 3:2 is an idiom. His understanding is that “‘husband of one wife’ represents an idiom of marital faithfulness …” Köstenberger, Commentary on 1–2 Timothy and Titus (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2017).
[4] This footnote grew too long, so I’ve posted this information in a new blog post, “Husband of One Wife” in Early Christian Texts.
[5] Köstenberger states, “The requirement of being, literally, a ‘one-wife-type-of-husband’ resembles that of the Roman univira (a ‘one-husband-type-of-wife’). This term conveying marital fidelity initially applied to wives during their lifetime and later became an epithet husbands gave to their wives after they died, as is attested by numerous extant tombstone inscriptions. Köstenberger, Commentary on 1–2 Timothy and Titus. (See also page 23 here: Google Books)
Majorie Lightman and William Zeisel have traced the usage of univira from the days of the early Roman Republic, when it was only used for elite once-married Roman matrons, to its use in early Christianity, where it meant “continent widowhood” (p. 27). Their paper, Univira: An Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society, can be read for free on the JSTOR website here.
Olankunbi O. Olasope has written about the ancient evidence surrounding univira in her paper, Univira: The Ideal Roman Matrona, which can be read on the Academia.edu website here.
[6] By the fifth century, celibacy was compulsory for church leaders in the Latin-speaking West. Luther disapproved of how the idiom was enforced in the Roman Catholic Church. He believed celibacy should be voluntary and that it was fine for overseers/ bishops to be married. In his remarks on “husband of one wife” in his commentary on Titus, Luther states, that the idiom is behind “the custom of so many centuries and the examples of so many saintly fathers. The fathers observed celibacy freely, without coercion by any law; later on it was enacted into law.” Martin Luther, Commentary on Titus (Internet Archive pp. 18–19) Luther overstates the freedom clergy had to choose celibacy.
[7] In around 394, Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople and a native Greek speaker, wrote that the phrase “husbands of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:12 applied to male and female deacons: “This must be understood therefore to relate to deaconesses. For that order is necessary and useful and honourable in the Church” (Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy, Homily 11). (More about deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8–13, here.)
A decade earlier, Chrysostom wrote an essay against marrying again after the death of a spouse. This essay was not aimed at deacons, or deaconesses, or other clergy, but at a general Christian audience.
[8] The Greek word often translated as “widow” can also mean a woman who has never been married and lives independently of a man. At least some, perhaps many of the Ephesian “widows” may have been virgin women. I’ve written about Virgin Widows in the early church, here.
[9] Clinton E. Arnold, an expert on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, says that the church at Ephesus began with the work of Priscilla and Aquila. (Video: Introduction to Ephesians, Zondervan, on YouTube, 10:41 minute-mark)
Ian Paul writes, “A Christian community was established in Ephesus in the 50s by Priscilla and Aquila, who had been left there by Paul on their journey from Corinth where they had met and ministered together (Acts 18:19). …” Ian Paul, Revelation (Tyndale New Testament Commentary, IVP Academic, 2018), 78.
A note on Priscilla and Aquila in the ESV Global Study Bible includes this statement, “On his way back to Antioch, Paul left Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus to establish the church in that city.” (Source: ESV.org)
[10] As well as establishing the church at Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, (see previous footnote), a few years later, “It seems that Prisca [Priscilla] and Aquila, Epenetus, Miriam [Mary], and Andronicus and Junia were foundational in the establishment of Christianity in the capital city of the Roman Empire.” Richard N. Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2016), 1069.
[11] Romans 12:6–8 is just as gender–inclusive in the Greek, and has similar Greek grammar, as John 3:16.
[12] How the late-first-century church viewed morality regarding first and subsequent marriages is entirely different from how the 21st-century church regards morality regarding first and subsequent marriages. So I would not disqualify any godly and gifted person from being a church leader because of the “husband of one wife/ wife of one husband” (univira) qualification in 1 Timothy 3:1ff, 1 Timothy 5:9-10, and Titus 1:6ff, etc.
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My articles on Paul’s Theology of Ministry are here.
“Husband of One Wife” in Early Christian Texts
Paul’s Qualifications for Church Leaders (1 Timothy 3)
Must Manage His Own Household Well (1 Tim. 3:4)
All my articles on 1 Timothy 3 are here.
The First Century Church and the Ministry of Women
Were there women elders in New Testament churches?
Partnering Together: Paul’s Female Coworkers
My articles on Priscilla are here.
바울의 사역 신학: 디모데전서 3:2과 브리스길라
28 thoughts on “Paul’s Theology of Ministry: 1 Tim. 3:2 and Priscilla”
Why do you assume that Paul wrote 1 Timothy? In my opinion it should be dismissed as a fake, and few experts see it as genuine.
I have a short footnote about this in part 2. But I think the answer to the question is obvious: 1 Timothy 1:1-2.
One expert who thinks it is genuine is Ben Witherington III. He discusses the matter in his book: Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Volume 1, A Socio-Rhetorical Comentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John.
While there are difficulties with seeing the pastoral letters as genuine, seeing them as fake is also problematic. Witherington believes that these letters were co-authored with Luke, and that this gives a plausible explanation for the difficulties.
Ditto Phil Payne and Craig Keener.
Dear Marg,
Could the idiom Paul used be directed against the common practice of polygyny? Perhaps he wanted to restrict church leadership to people who had only one spouse (at a time). Since Paul regarded marriage as a good thing, and he even gave instructions about lawful second marriages, it seems unlikely he’d be ruling out leaders who had been (lawfully) married more than one time in their lives. For example, if Priscilla had died, and Aquila remarried a believer, would Aquila thereby have been disqualified from serving? Also, you said there was no gender-inclusive form of the idiom. Could this be due to the fact that polyandry wasn’t a common practice in that patriarchal society; therefore, Paul makes no mention of it since restricting women from multiple, concurrent husbands would be superfluous? He would be restricting something that was not even happening. What do you think? I love your articles and appreciate your work very much! Thanks.
Hi Debbie, Polygamy was illegal under Roman Law and uncommon in the first-century Roman world. We have evidence of a few Jewish men who had more than one wife in and around the first century, but I imagine that in Roman colonies and in cities heavily influenced by Rome, such as Ephesus, polygamy would have been rare. And since the same idiom is used for widows, I doubt it refers primarily to polygamy.
So, you’re saying that remarriage is only biblical if you’re not a leader on the church?
I wouldn’t word it like that. Nevertheless, being married only once, and preferably not being married at all, was the preferred state for ministers, male and female, in the early church. This idea didn’t change much until the reformation.
Hi Marg,
Tischendorf 8th Edition uses gyne, not gynaikos in Timothy 3:2 and the Codex Sinaiticus has gynaik with os added in the margin. Are these variations significant in this discussion of women as episkope?
Also at https://biblehub.com/greek/1984.htm – the definition of episkope includes “personal visitations” as well as oversight. It hints at “pastoral care” as major role of bishops (1 Peter 2:12, James 1:27)?
For some reason, Bible Hub has got a weird version of Tischedorf’s 8th edition where all the cases of the nouns and adjectives are changed to the nominative and the verbs are given in their lexical form. εἷς γυνή ἀνήρ doesn’t make any sense.
Here is an accurate version of Tischendorf’s 1869 Greek New Testament with the nouns in their proper cases and genders, etc: https://archive.org/details/novumtestamentu02abbogoog/page/n877/mode/2up?view=theater
And here is an easier-to-read version: https://newchristianbiblestudy.org/bible/greek-tischendorf/1-timothy/3/
________
There are also implications of pastoral care with the Greek participle proistamenon in 1 Tim. 3:4 and the infinitive prostēnai in 1 Tim. 3:5 (both from the verb proistēmi).
There is some overlap in the senses of the verbs proistēmi (related concrete noun: prostatēs (m), prostatis (f)) and episkeptomai (related concrete noun: episkopos). Episkopē in 1 Timothy 3:1 is the related abstract noun meaning oversight, overseer-ship, etc.
I’ve written about this here. https://margmowczko.com/manage-household-1-timothy-34/
________
I can’t see –os in the margin of Codex Sinaiticus. What I can see is three very small marks next to ΓΥΝΑΙΚ, but I can’t make them out. The first two are probably letters, but I don’t know about the third, darker, mark. Whatever the case, these marks are not in the margin. The marks are attached to ΓΥΝΑΙΚ- and most likely represent -OC in some way.
The codex can be viewed here: https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=47&chapter=3&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0#47-3-11-3
And here’s a screen shot of the pertinent phrase.
ΓΥΝΑΙΚOC is at the end of the first line in the screenshot.
[…] 1 Timothy 3:2 and the phrase “husband of one wife” is discussed here. […]
I know you’ve commented above that polygamy was uncommon in the 1st century Roman world, but what about mistresses? “One woman man” seems like it could refer to mistresses, rather than wives, in which case I assume the phrase would be more applicable to men than women?
If “one woman man” refers to a man who doesn’t have a mistress, what does “one man woman” (used in 1 Timothy 5) refer to?
Judging by how the early church consistently understood and applied the phrases, I’m reasonably convinced it meant the same as what univira meant for women, and it meant the equivalent for men.
You’ve mentioned that the idiom “one woman man” is found on funerary inscriptions. Do you happen to have a photo of such an inscription? Would love to see one if so. Thanks, Marg. 🙂
Here is what Bauer and Danker have said about the idiom in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition, Walter Bauer, revised & edited by F.W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 292.
μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ a husband married only once (numerous sepulchral inscriptions celebrate the virtue of a surviving spouse by noting that he or she was married only once, thereby suggesting the virtue of extraordinary fidelity, e.g. CIL VI, 3604; 723; 12405; 14404; cp. Horace, Odes 3, 14, 4; Propertius 4, 11, 36; Valerius Maximus 4, 3, 3; and s. esp. CIL VI, 1527, 31670, 37053=ILS 8393 [text and Eng. tr.: EWistrand, The So-Called Laudatio Thuriae, ’76]; s. GWilliams, JRS 48, ’58 16–29.
I quote this statement, here, and have linked to some of these documents. However, I couldn’t find a source that exactly says μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ or ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή, especially as many are in Latin, such as the first inscription.
Here’s a photo of CIL VI 3604 where I’ve underlined UNIVIRA. https://margmowczko.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CIL-VI-3604-uni-vira.jpg
The texts (not photos) of four more Latin inscriptions that contain the word UNIVIRA, or a form of it, are here: https://feminaeromanae.org/univirae.html
I can’t find the Greek phrases μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ or ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή anywhere in Greek texts before Paul.
Jill, can you show me where, on my website, I state that “the idiom ‘one woman man’ is found on funerary inscriptions”? I may need to add a sentence to explain or qualify this statement. (It sounds like something I may have said before I looked into it more.)
Marg – it’s in the paragraph right before footnote [5].
I still can’t see it.
Diane, would you mind copy-and-pasting the full sentence?
I can’t see that I’ve used “funerary” or “inscriptions” in this article.
Thanks, Marg. Well, no, I am not sure where I read about the “funerary inscriptions”. I assumed it was from you, but now I’m not sure.
“There wasn’t a gender-inclusive way to render this idiom.”
Thank you, Marg!
This was a question for which I’d never been able to run down a source.
As in Spanish, there isn’t a gender-inclusive way to refer to a mixed group of friends. (If you say “my friends” speaking of women it would be “amigas”; of men it would be “amigos”. But if one man (friend) joined the group of women friends, then the feminine “amigas” would change to masculine “amigos”–you generally wouldn’t say “amigos y amigas”. The masculine “amigos” covers both groups.
I felt instinctively that “husband of one wife” had to be the gender-inclusive way of saying “spouse of one spouse”.
Hi Darryl, Yes, from what I can tell, there wasn’t a gender-inclusive expression that meant the same thing, and I think it meant more than monogamous.
Here’s part of a comment I left on another page, but I don’t have a good handle on this yet.
There were other ways of expressing monogamy (e.g., μόνανδρος–“having one husband”) but the more gender-inclusive words—verb μονογαμέω (“to marry one person”), abstract noun μονογαμία (“monogamy”), and concrete noun μονόγαμος (“monogamous person” especially “monogamous man”)—don’t seem to have been coined until the second century CE where they seem to be used predominantly in astronomical texts.
According to Liddell, Scott, and Jones’s exhaustive Greek lexicon:
Mονογαμέω occurs in Antiochus of Athens’s late second-century CE astronomical work Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum 2.209.
Mονογαμία occurs in Antigonus of Nicea’s work excerpted by Hephaistio in Apud Hephaestionem Astrologum 218. (Originally written in the second or third century.)
Mονόγαμος occurs in Ptolomy’s Tetrabiblios 183 (circa 150 CE) and Vettius Valens’s Anthology 120.8 (circa 150-170 CE).
But in these ancient texts, monogam– words were typically used of men marrying only one wife, and not women marrying only one husband. Paul, on the other hand, used his idiom for both men and women.
Hi Marg,
I was trying to locate my previous question to you about this and can’t seem to find it, so I will ask again here, but with a slightly different twist. 1 Timothy 3:12 says “Let the diakonoi (masculine plural) be the husbands of one wife…” and Romans 16:1 says “I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a diakonon (singular feminine) of the church which is at Cenchrea.”
I have always assumed that the fact that Paul calls Phoebe a “diakonos” is one proof that the idiom “one woman man” in 1 Tim 3:12 clearly doesn’t exclude women.
I only noticed today that the word in Romans 16:1 has a feminine inflection. Does this feminine inflection in any way diminish this proof that A = B and C = A, therefore C = B? [A diakonos (idiomatically) must be a “one woman man.” Phoebe is a diakonos. Therefore, Phoebe (idiomatically) meets the qualification of a “one woman man.”]
Hi Jill, The husband-of-one-wife/ wife-of-one-husband requirement for ministers was probably (I think, undoubtedly) a later development. I doubt there was such a requirement at the time Phoebe was ministering in Cenchrea (AD 50s). So I don’t think Phoebe being a female diakonos makes a strong case for husband-of-one-wife including women.
However, as I explain in the article, there wasn’t a gender inclusive way to express the idiom. When it mostly refers to men (or perhaps refers to men and to women) as is the case for the overseers in 1 Timothy 3:1ff and the elders in Titus 1:6ff, “husband-of-one-wife” is used. This may also be the case for the diakonoi in 1 Timothy 3:12. Chrysostom took it that way. When it only applies to women, as is the case for the enrolled widows in 1 Timothy 5, “”wife-of-one-husband” is used.
I don’t know what you mean by feminine inflection in Romans 16:1. Unlike what a few people say, diakonos is grammatically feminine in Romans 16:1. I have a lengthy footnote on this here. However, diakonos doesn’t have a feminine inflection. It has same forms and declensions whether masculine or feminine. Some refer to this as “common gender.” There are several words in Greek that have common gender.
What a diakonos was in the 50s is not the same as what a diakonos was in the late first century and later. The role, and it’s requirements, evolved and narrowed.
Okay, that makes sense regarding diakonos being a common gender word. So, it is context driven. Phoebe is a woman, therefore the feminine form of diakonos is used in Romans 16:1.
However, I’m a little confused by the meaning of diakonos changing. Paul calls Phoebe a diakonos in Romans 16:1 which he likely wrote in AD 57 or 58. Paul then lists requirements for a diakonos in 1 Tim 3:12 which he wrote in AD 62-66. Let’s say for argument sake he wrote it in AD 66. Are you saying that his use/meaning of “diakonos” had changed significantly in those previous 8 or 9 years?
I think the Pastorals were written later, after the 60s. (On a related issue, we don’t know when Paul died.)
The use of diakonos in Paul’s letters compared with Ignatius’s letters, as one example, is quite different. For Ignatius, writing in around 110, diakonos is the title of a male deacon who fills a role in a clerical hierarchy. In 1 Timothy 3, we see the beginnings of this development of deacon as a church order. (In 1 Timothy, we also see that “widows” is developing into a church order.)
Paul calls several people a diakonos. He is the only NT person to use that word for ministers, and I argue that when he used it, it had the sense of “an agent with a sacred commission” and could be used for a variety of ministries and roles. Paul even used diakonos for a Roman magistrate who had a sacred commission (Romans 13).
https://margmowczko.com/servant-of-god-romans-13/
Paul used diakonos and other words as descriptions of Phoebe’s ministry. He didn’t use it as a formal ecclesial title. By the end of the first century, diakonos had become a recognisable ministry title in at least some churches.
The use of episkopos also changed. I, and some others such as Kevin Giles, think the first episkopoi were the hosts and managers of house churches. When Ignatius writes, an episkopos is the overseer, or bishop, of a network of churches in a city.
In short, the words diakonos and episkopos developed into church titles, rather than ministry descriptions.
Paul often used several ministry or ecclesial descriptions when commending a person. He uses 4 for Epaphroditus in Philippians and 3 for Phoebe. In Colossians 4:7, Tychicus is also given 3 ministry descriptions; he is described as “a beloved brother”, “a trustworthy diakonos,” and “a fellow slave in the Lord.” Paul was quite free in how he used ministry descriptions for individuals.
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