Roman Wives, Roman Widows
Page 13
According to Juvenal, who was threatened by the `new' woman, she would be no less a threat at dinner as a dominant conversationalist.
Let the wife, who reclines with you at dinner, not possess a rhetorical style of her own, let her not hurl at you in whirling speech the wellrounded syllogism. Let her not know all history. Let there be some things in her reading which she does not understand. I hate the woman who is always consulting and poring over the grammatical treatise of Palaemon, who observes all the rules and laws of correct speech, who with antiquarian zeal quotes verses that I never heard of and corrects her ignorant female friend for slips of speech that no man need trouble about: let her husband at least be allowed to make his solecisms [slips in syntax] in peace.81
Hemelrijk notes the social tension between the politically prominent educated woman and the modest and submissive Roman matrona; also noted are the satire and invective against this shift in values.82
The symposia and the dinner parties were held in homes. This was the setting of the meetings of the early church. The concern that, at the Lord's Supper or in other forms of worship, women might behave in a similar way can be understood, for they aped secular customs.83 Certainly the Corinthian experience of abuse at the former and disorder in the latter would provide a precedent to be avoided (i Cor. 11:17-31; chs. 12-14).
The first century saw the rise of the Second Sophistic in which rhetorical education replaced to some extent that which had traditionally been provided by the philosophers. Its aim was to provide education for sons so that they could pursue a career as an orator in the public domain, a lawyer or a teacher cum sophist. All these demanded a tertiary education in rhetoric so that they could be public speakers. According to Hemelrijk educated daughters of the elite and the sub-elite lacked the career path of a public speaker although it had been the parental objective in educating their brothers.84
Is there evidence of wives actively engaging in speaking in a public gathering? Valerius Maximus asks this question and responds curtly: `What business has a woman with a public meeting? If ancestral custom be observed, none.' However, he goes on to note that when the household is disturbed, the ancient convention is overridden. He indicates this in the present tense - 'But when domestic quiet is stirred by the waves of sedition, the authority of the ancient usage is subverted.' He then adds an enigmatic comment, `and compulsion of violence has greater force than persuasion and precept of restraint"' It is not clear what incident occurred at that time or what follows from it he is referring to; he may be regretting that women engaged in speaking in politeia, i.e., the courts and, in one instance, the forum. The rise of women advocates can be traced and those named were highly effective as lawyers. (See pp. 176-79 for this public role of women.)
Did women in the ancient world teach? We know that they were taught by their mothers or by male instructors, but there is no record of women undertaking the task of a teacher in a professional sense either in salaried posts in great houses or in running schools as sophists.86 Hemelrijk, in her extremely thorough work on the education of women, provides no evidence of women who were professional teachers at any level of schooling outside the home.87
However, this does not mean that women had no educative role in their domestic domain. It was expected that upper-class women would take their sons in hand to help educate them and, above all, to exercise discipline.88 Tacitus records the ideal mother who taught by word and example and cites his mother-in-law who educated her son in an exemplary fashion.89 Hemelrijk rejects doubts that have been expressed that women needed to be well-educated in order to supervise their children's education. She cites Cicero and Quintilian who acknowledged their own mother's critical contribution to their education and careers as orators; Vitruvius and Martial also acknowledged both parents in this regard.90 Furthermore, with the death of the husband, the full supervision of education was passed on to the mother. There is no lack of evidence of well-educated mothers, and this holds true for their devotion to the daughter's education as well as to their son's.91
While the term `to teach' has not attracted significant discussion, the infinitive that follows certainly has. This section will seek to explore what the term uMEvz&co was meant to signify. Did it reflect a concern that Christian women wanted to have authority in Christian gatherings (which included men) or to dominate in the same way that some `new' women were accused of doing in the civil courts and the forum?
Danker and Bauer concluded that the term a1 OsvTLW means `to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to, dictate to'. They follow the Liddell and Scott rendering `to have full power or authority over [someone]'. In later editions they themselves have cited i Timothy 2:12 as an example, with the cognate a1OEvTia referring to absolute sway or authority.92 One is grateful for the exhaustive studies that have been conducted on this verb.93 However, citing the extensive examples of this term even before the TLG came on a CDRom and after does not necessarily clarify this issue. Are there any philological insights peculiar to the history of the Greek language that have been missed? Is giving equal weight to all examples appropriate with much of the later discussion from Christian sources? Has sufficient weight been given to the semantic domains?
Much of the information supplied by Hesychius of Alexandria from the fifth century A.D. can be important, although the significance of his evidence is often overlooked in Greek philology in general, and in the New Testament in particular.94 His Alphabetical Collection of All Words has a list of Greek words whose meanings were no longer well known in his day. He supplied a synonym or synonyms for the benefit of his contemporaries, using examples of earlier readings of literary texts for which later correctors provided the word in vogue in later periods.95
Hesychius indicates that u.MEVTfw is a synonym for ii ourtccl;Ety, `to have authority, and also records that the cognate auOfVZgc refers to the person who executes authority (s ouotaGTj ), or who does things with his own hands (au-rbXEtp), or who murders (4ovri s).96 The fact that he also notes that auzobtKET (he has `jurisdiction over' or `power over another') is a synonym for WWOEVTET has been overlooked. In the case of the latter he adds the comment `when he himself gives orders' (oTav auzoc Xfyq ).97 In the case of au6M>>S as with other Greek words, the particular semantic field should secure the apposite rendering. Clearly neither rendering of the term in 2:12 as `teaching and doing things with her own hands' or `murdering' makes any sense, but 'having authority' in relation to teaching is an appropriate meaning.
Other evidence from a much later example with the equivalent Latin rendering may be of help. `The women from the Agilians exercise authority over [have in their power] men and they do evil as they desire, not being jealous of men, but achieving in agriculture and in construction, and in all manly things' (crap' Ayiaaiots ai yuvcu rE co OrviOU6t Twv &vbpwv, Apud Agilaeos feminae sua viros in potestate habent), xai Tropvrtourty CJS (3otXovTat, µ>j (gXozurrouiEvat 7rapa TWV &vbpwv auzwv, yECOpyiav bi xai oixoboµiav xai rr&vTa Tca &vbpwa irpdzzourtv.) cdOrvi006t is rendered in Latin as potestate habent and means to `have in their power'.98
Also of importance in the midst of the large amount of extant material is the comment of Phrynichus in the late second-century A.D. on the usage of a cognate. He argues that one should never use the cognate co Ofvrtic to refer to a 'master' (bE6nrbrgS) as the legal rhetoricians do, but of the one who murders by his own hand (iq1 frroiE Xpt16n 5rri bE6rrbrov, ws of rrrpi ra btKO(OTIpta PrjropES, &XX' iirrl rou auroXEtpoc 4ovftoq).99 However much Phrynichus may object, as he himself observes, this cognate was used to refer to those who controlled others.
Is this same sentiment expressed using another synonym? Plutarch comments on Fulvia who was an exceedingly powerful wife who marshalled troops. We are told -
She was a woman who gave no thought to spinning or housekeeping, nor did she consider it worthwhile to dominate a man not in public life (ovbb &vbpbc ibu;.rrov xparsiv &~iouv). She wished to rule (&pXEiv) a ruler and command (ozpazfyEiv) a commander.100
&nbs
p; Diodorus of Sicily also comments on an unusual custom of the Egyptians that was enshrined in their law and contrary to that of other nations. He reports that `the wife should enjoy authority over her husband, the husbands agreeing in the marriage contract that they will be obedient in all things to their wives' (KvptE1Ety Tr V yvvaixa Tavbpbs). The term used in this instance is KVptEtEtV that has clear legal as well as social and domestic implications. 101
Given the antithetical comments that preceded (2:11) and followed (2:12b) and without at this stage foreclosing on the nature of the way in which authority was being exercised, it seems that here the term carries not only the connotation of authority but also an inappropriate misuse of it.
The significance to be given to this term needs to be assessed in the light of the preceding background discussion relating to 1 Timothy 2:9-11 and 15, the dress codes being proscribed there and the desire on the part of some first-century women not to have children. This would confirm Marshall's view of the meaning of awOEvT6co. `Ideas such as autocratic or domineering abuses of power and authority appear to be more naturally linked with the verb in view of the meanings of the cognate nouns w O vTfc and aWOEVTia ... "0'
Just as we have the erotics of domination (to use Greene's title to her work on the sexual domain) '103 so, too, certain married women had a parallel or similar desire to dominate in the Forum and the courts. Was there a concern that a comparable attitude might creep into the Christian community with the desire to use power to control, this time in the context of public instruction (1 Tim. 2:12)?
The immediate context of these verses is that of learning and teaching. The deciphering of the dress codes and its coded use in the previous section have gone a substantial way in locating the social Sitz im Leben. This latter section shows the public role of some women engaged in the public place and some form of social or intellectual control on the part of some. The cumulative evidence on the new women helps in the choice of the meaning of the term a1 OEvTECO (2:11-12).
A later Christian writer, Clement of Alexandria was addressing the same issues c. A.D. 200 in `Against the embellishing of the body'. He refers to
those women who wear gold, who occupy themselves in curling their tresses, and engage in anointing their cheeks, and painting their eyes, and dyeing their hair, and practising the other pernicious acts of luxury, bedecking the outer covering of the flesh - in true Egyptian fashion - to attract their idolatrous lovers . . . for love of finery is not for a wife but a courtesan; such women think little of keeping house beside their husbands; but, loosing their husbands' purse-strings, they expend its resources on their pleasures, that they may have many witnesses to their seeming beauty, and the whole day they spend with their slaves, devouring their attention to beauty treatments. loo
The external pressures on women in the philosophical schools and the community reflected in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 seem not to have diminished. The latter passage does not indicate that this was an existing difficulty in that community at that time. It contrasts with the situation of widows dealt with in the same letter where the problem clearly existed within the Christian community (5:15). So the aim appears to have been preventative and not remedial; the reason for the concern was the possible influence on that community of the norms of the `new woman'.
It should be noted that the discussion of Christian wives does not conclude in i Timothy 2:9-15. In 3:11, in the midst of a discussion on roles of deacons (3:8-13), there are stipulations concerning wives - `women [or wives] must likewise be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things.' If that refers to women deacons or the wives of deacons, then it would also have a bearing on what it meant to be a godly one. Furthermore, the requirements of married women in the light of 2:9-15 need to be understood in the context of the discussion of the young widows remarrying, raising children and running their own households in 5:14, and vice versa. (See pp. 137-40.)
The evidence presented above may help resolve the concerns of commentators. For example, Marshall wrote: `It may seem puzzling that ostentation and seduction would be a concern when the heresy insisted on asceticism and celibacy (4:3), but the presence of wealthy women and motives of greed (6:3- io) and the concern for the perceptions of outsiders who would not appreciate fine points of doctrine are probably sufficient to make sense of the inclusion of traditional paraenesis.'105 When cognisance is taken of the immediate social context, it is no longer necessary to posit a dichotomy of the rich men and women, the poor and some connection to heresy. Furthermore, it is not accurate to suggest from this passage that `the author employs a disparaging caricature of wealthy women' .106 However, Marshall rightly concludes `that the main point is that true adornment will be internal, expressing itself outwardly in Christian character, whereas an emphasis on the external suggests a desire to attract attention to oneself, perhaps to seduce .1107 The evidence does show that a woman so dressed certainly sent signals to all who saw her.
Judge concludes his examination of the important Neo-Pythagorean text with this observation: `Although there are close similarities of detail between the letter of Melissa and the NT letters on the restraint of women's dress (ll. i15, 24-26, compared with 1 Tim. 2:9, 1 Pet. 3:3), the justification for it is different. Melissa is concerned about the sexual implications of display, and with the need to be attractive to her husband (ll. 20-22), whose will is the good woman's law.' He goes on to suggest that in 1 Timothy 2:1o the `restraint on women's dress is desired because it goes with devotion to God' .108 Our investigation seems to suggest that it was not her spirituality that was the concern but rather her modesty in the home, the Christian gathering and possibly in the public place.
McGinn put the matter succinctly: `Clothing's role as a status maker receives repeated recognition from the jurists' and as a yardstick for morality among women.109 In Roman law there was no culpability if a woman sent the wrong signals by the way she dressed, for `matrons had more protection in law ... only if they looked respectable."° The focus of i Timothy 2:9-15 was not with the limited culpability of someone who made sexual advances towards a woman whose intentions were misread because of what she wore. Rather the Christian matron's modesty was set against the antithetical behaviour of the promiscuous wife in the public place. (See ch. 5.)
The public perception of Christian wives was a critical matter in the community; they would play into the hands of the enemy of the early Christian movement in Ephesus if they dressed like high-class prostitutes. The dress code was proscribed in 2:9b because it sent signals of a lack of moral respectability and sexual availability to those at banquets, other social gatherings or in the public spaces which women frequented, including theatres. i Timothy 2:9a seeks an adornment of the female virtues of modesty and selfcontrol coupled with good deeds rather than the wrong attire.
Outsiders read the activities of any association by Roman authorities from the time of Augustus onwards, including `religious' ones. The problems of associations in the East in subsequent decades would easily explain the concerns about the dress codes of Christian wives in i Timothy 2:9-15.111 Jewish communities were judged to be associations under Roman law,112 but Christian communities in Rome and other places were not thought of as legal associations - ratification by the Emperor and then the Senate in Rome and the provincial governor elsewhere was required. They would be open to private prosecution by their enemies in a criminal action if they could be shown to be seditious or promiscuous."'
The issue of appearance in i Timothy 2:9-15 was not unlike that in i Corinthians 11:2-16 or that to be discussed in the following chapters, i.e., the perceptions of young Christian widows (i Tim. 5:11-15) or young Cretan Christian wives (Titus 2:3-5). Furthermore, the concerns about giving the enemy no occasion to revile the Christian community (5:15) would have applied equally to married Christian women who had elaborate hair styles, decked themselves with jewellery of gold and pearls and wore expensive clothing (2:9-15). Such a dress code would have played into the hands of the opponents of Ephesian Ch
ristians by sending a wrong signal to all who saw Christian wives in public places. They could have concluded that they belonged to a promiscuous cult that endorsed avant-garde behaviour.114 Because in Roman law you were what you wore, the concerns in this new community of Christians were that the values of the `new woman' could intrude into the gatherings in Christian homes, and hence the concern for preventative measures in i Timothy 2:9-15.
At least three issues concerning the widows in i Timothy 5:3-16 resonate immediately with wider societal conventions and concerns about this group in the first-century world. McGinn observes in "Widows, Orphans, and Social History" - his review article of the monumental four volumes by Krause on this subject in the Journal of Roman Archaeology - that in the same way that `Roman law wished to distinguish the good widows from the bad ... the author of i Timothy sets himself... the same task, in the sense that he wished to define deserving widows apart from the rest" The `real' Christian widow had an age qualification and was known for her faithfulness in marriage. She distinguished herself in her service as a Christian; she was `well attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way'. She had no immediate family or relatives to support her financially. This was how the `real' Christian widows were defined in the Pauline community in Ephesus (i Timothy 5:45 9, io, 16).
Secular literature, including that from legal sources, described widows in the same way as did Paul in i Timothy 5:11.15.2 It described their lifestyle as `behaving promiscuously' (KaraGzpgvtaGcorty) (5:11), i.e., they were guilty of stuprum. Roman law used this term to describe the sexual indiscretions of single women, widows and divorcees, rather than adulterium, which was the term reserved for the indiscretions of married women.'