`That it was the custom for a high-status widow to remarry seems borne out by the number who actually did so ... the decision was essentially hers ... as the standard for the young upper-class widow'.4 McGinn does not discuss the requirement for the flighty young widows in i Timothy 5:11 to remarry - 'They are wishing to marry' (yupCty 6Uourtv). Furthermore, in the midst of all the commands reflected by imperatives in i Timothy 5:3, 4, 7, 9, ii, 16 that aimed to resolve the problem of the church's support of `real' widows, the matter of the remarriage of young widows was stated differently - `I therefore wish widows to marry' ((3oul,oµat ouv vscoz6pas yaMEiv) (5:14). Given the use of the verb elsewhere in i Timothy, remarriage was not stated as an op- tion.s These three observations provide an added stimulus to search for the cultural Sitz im Leben of the young Christian widows set, as it relates to the wider discussion of widows per se in the Ephesian church, the stated destination of the letter (1:3).
That both young and old widows should be present in such numbers and pose financial problems for the Christian community comes as no surprise. It has been estimated that forty per cent of women between the ages of forty and fifty were widows and that, as a group, they comprised some thirty per cent of women in the ancient world.' Admittedly such figures are at best only estimates.' However, Hopkins has provided significant statistical information based on previous studies of epigraphic data and his own review of the major collection of Latin inscriptions in Rome. It records the chances of women being widowed in different age groups.8
While the age qualification for older widows warranting the support of the Christian community was specified at sixty years, no age parameters defined the `young' widow in i Timothy 5:3-16. The term `young, however, could be understood to apply to those who had not reached menopause and were therefore capable of bearing children; this was one of the stated purposes for remarriage (5:14). According to Soranus, an early-second-century A.D. Ephesian doctor, who wrote an extended treatise on gynaecology, menopause occurred after the age of forty and not later than fifty.9 The lex Julia penalised unmarried women as well as those who were divorced or widowed between the ages of twenty and fifty years who failed to marry or remarry.1° So the secular definition of `young' can be fixed between twenty and menopause or, if Roman law was followed, an upper age of fifty years.11 While there were young married women under twenty, in the case of widowhood that was the minimum age fixed by law that would attract a penalty for failure to remarry. The widow whom the Christian community was to support was to be no less than sixty years old (5:9).
Women came to marriage with a dowry that was accepted by the husband as his guarantee of her support.12 The only legal obligation that the groom had toward the wife upon receipt of the dowry was her maintenance.13 In the event of her husband's death, the laws governing that dowry were clearly defined. 14 The Graeco-Roman world sought to make sure that a widow had security by giving her shelter with her dowry in the household (olKos) of her eldest son, her other sons or her father. Someone in that social unit became `the lord of the dowry' (KUptos or tutor mulierum) and accepted responsibility for her financial support. What Schnaps says of the classical Greek and Hellenistic period was also true of the Roman Empire: `Legally, then, a woman was never as thoroughly protected as she was in her old age."' Only in exceptional cases would a lord of the dowry have escaped legal and even social pressure if he reneged on this legal obligation.16 In Athens there was not only a moral but also a legal obligation placed upon children to care for both parents, and failure to do so rendered them liable to prosecution in which `the prosecutor ran no risk of punishment' .17 The Roman woman had similar security. S. Dixon describes it as `a dowager's life interest in her husband's holdings' based on the understanding that she would, at death, pass it on to children from that issue.18 The Jewish position allowed the wife to hold her own property during marriage, and when made a widow to retain part of her dowry.19
That a Christian as `the lord of the dowry' was not fulfilling this financial commitment underpinned by law is the reason why he was described not simply as `an unbeliever' (artGTos), but as behaving in a way that was `worse than an unbeliever' (5:8). On the other hand, children expressed true Christian piety towards their parents and, in this particular discussion, to the mother or grandmother to whom some return was due, given their support of the children from childhood until adulthood (5:4).
Why was there a need for the church to support any Christian widow when a family member had undertaken to do so? We can rightly assume that most, if not all the widows, were being supported in the Christian community without any means test - either legal, financial or spiritual (5:3-16). The origin of this Ephesian Christian custom is uncertain. In Rome the corn dole that was given to the official plebs was not means-tested in terms of need, nor was the endowment system (which was for the elite) for children reaching adulthood.20 Benefits and exemptions from taxes and liturgies were exploited and abused in the first century.21 However, that widows should be supported by an institution was unprecedented in the Roman world, except for those who were Jewish.
Almost from its inception the Jerusalem church appears to have followed the procedures of the synagogues in charitable distributions to Jewish wid- ows.22 In the synagogues weekly distributions from the money chest were made every Friday to the poor, and among the recipients were the widows .21 The Jerusalem church made a daily distribution (Acts 6:1). The reason for this adjustment may have been connected with its daily corporate activity described in Acts 2:46, which contrasted with the weekly synagogue gatherings and distributions. The latter's tried and tested method of collection and distribution was an appropriate one for the Christian community.
Ephesian converts to Christianity were of Jewish as well as Gentile origin; the former would have expected to be supported by a community that had its origins in Judaism. Had the church's administrative procedures for the distribution of aid to widows in Jerusalem simply been taken over by the Ephesian congregation and hence problems arose because all the widows qualified for the distribution? If so, then it would not be possible to discriminate against Gentile widows.24 The Ephesians appear to have made no local adjustments to the Jerusalem church's distribution system.25
The intention, however, of the injunctions in i Timothy 5:3-16 was to change radically an existing procedure. While it is not possible to determine the number of Christian widows who were being supported, it is clear that some adjustments in the distribution were urgently needed. The church simply did not have adequate financial resources to support them all, nor should it be expected to do so according to the arguments put forward in this passage. The church would adequately honour with financial support those who were `real' Christian widows, i.e., those who had somehow fallen through the established legal system and who also met new criteria. It was in the midst of these wider issues of the age qualification, appropriate conduct and a proven track record of the ministry of the widows that made them eligible for the support of the Christian community, that the discussion of young Christian widows takes place (5:ii-i5). The particular focus in this chapter is on the younger widows who were being supported by the church.
There were some in the church whose conduct was considered entirely inappropriate; they apparently wished to reverse the decision they themselves had made not to marry again. A clue as to why this was happening lies in the charge that those who had changed their minds were behaving promiscuously. Their `passions draw them away from Christ' and, as a result, they had already `strayed after Satan' (5:11, 15). Earlier the spiritual state of the widow, whether young or old, is described as `she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives' (i b5 6ITazaX Ga (wGa zfOvgKEv) (5:6). Polybius also wrote of the self-indulgent and pleasure-loving - in that instance, men of Greece from an earlier period.
Men had fallen into such a state of pretentiousness, avarice, and indolence that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear children born to them, or at most as a rule but one or two of them, so as
to leave these children in affluence and bring them up to be self-indulgent (a7tazaXwvTac,).26
The short passage (5:11-i5) contains descriptive as well as evaluative and prescriptive elements. An examination of them in the light of appropriate external evidence helps reconstruct the Ephesian Sitz im Leben of the young widows.
Cicero wrote of the `widow casting off restraints, a wanton living promiscuously, a rich woman living extravagantly and an amorous widow living a loose life'.27 Her legal position allowed her to throw caution to the wind on being released from the constraints of her marriage; this was a huge concern in the Empire.28
Petronius, a courtier of Nero C. A.D. 65, discussed the promiscuousness of the young widow. He wrote about Eumolpus, who at a dinner party
began to joke about the fickleness of women: how easily they fall in love, how quickly they forget even their own children. Now a woman was so chaste, he stated, that she would not under the right circumstances become insanely infatuated with a total stranger. He did not need the old tragic dramas or mythology as proof. There was something that had happened within his lifetime.29
Eumolpus then recounts a story about a widow in Ephesus who was renowned for her chastity. He records that when her husband died she was so restrained that she did not walk in the funeral procession with dishevelled hair or beat her breast, because every widow did that. She showed her true character by sitting by her husband in the underground tomb for five days with her servant girl, refusing to eat, in spite of the pleas of her parents, relatives and even the city officials who came in a delegation for the same purpose.
On the fifth night a soldier guarding two crucified bandits near the grave of the widow heard her wailing and finding this beautiful young widow guessed that she was `a victim of unbearable grief'. He brought his own rations to share with her, and her maid finally persuaded her mistress to eat and drink. The soldier not only convinced the young widow to abandon suicide but then they `slept together not only that night - their wedding night, so to speak - but the next night and the next'. The widow affirmed her love for the soldier who realized that he would be charged with the dereliction of duty - in this instance a capital offence - because relatives had come and taken away a bandit's body while the soldier was absent on his nocturnal escapades. She cried:
The gods forbid that within so short a time I see the deaths of the two men dearest to me in all the world. I would rather hang the dead man [her deceased husband] up on the cross than be responsible for the death of my living lover.3o
The alleged incident of this young Ephesian widow was meant to substantiate Eumolpus' claim of the sexual fickleness of ostensibly the most pure matron, who could be seduced even in such acute circumstances as grief. The retelling of this incident was meant to stimulate the expectations of the sexual availability of the most seemingly discreet woman, including one so recently bereaved.
Pliny records a dinner setting where `their heavy glances betray it to her husband [the desire to seduce the wife] ; then it is that the secrets of the heart are published abroad ... ' 31 The husband had not only turned a blind eye but also had, in effect, acquiesced to the sexual indiscretions of his wife during the traditional drinking session that followed the meal.32 Horace likewise records dinners where there were opportunities for the seduction of a young wife who learns
Ionic dances, she studies the Arts, and all of her to her tender fingertips dreams of forbidden love. Soon, at her husband's drinking parties, that girl will be ready for younger men. Not that she will be choosing a secret lover, while the lights are out, to share her stolen pleasures; she will be called for openly, and off she will go upstairs, under her husband's eyes ... prosperity [of the seducer] buys her disgrace.33
Petronius writes of an old Roman matron, Philomela, who was apparently a widow. He describes her ironically as
more respectable than most, who by the employment of her youthful charms had squeezed inheritances thick and fast out of susceptible persons. Now she was a crone,34 with her youthful bloom perished, but she managed to teach her trade to the next generation by shoving her son and daughter at old men without heirs.31
We understand that she pushed her daughter at Eumolpus to secure what she saw as the only inheritance she could give her children. She did so on the tacit understanding that this wealthy man would sexually exploit her daughter and she, in exchange, would gain access to his inheritance.36
Society at large endorsed the expectation that men would be promiscuous in their youth and not sexually monogamous in their marriage. What justification was there for the fear that, after the conventional period of mourning, the young widow may replicate the conduct of single and married males? From the evidence in the opening chapters of this book, the explanation in some cases might be the influence of the life-style of the `new' woman who, though still married, copied the sexual patterns of young men, including brothers and husbands. The custom of young women marrying at an early age, in many cases soon after puberty, was meant to ensure that they would almost certainly come to marriage as virgins.
The differential in the age of marriage for women and men, which has been estimated at seven to eight years, may account, in part, for these percent- ages.37 Saller has argued that men of senatorial status married in their early twenties and the lower ranks in their late twenties and early thirties.38 Aristocratic women tended to marry in their mid-teens and others in the Roman West in their later teens.39 As McGinn points out, these figures are based on the senatorial class. Again they are only estimates but it is interesting that the medical text on Gynaecology by Soranus of Ephesus warns against the nuptial bed being consummated before puberty but recognises that with the on set of puberty young girls could marry.40 The age gap accounted, in part, for the number of young widows in the Roman Empire.
Roman law did not specifically deal with the sexual abstinence of young widows; this meant that their sexual experience in marriage and the paradigm of the new woman could result in a promiscuousness of the sort so dramatically emphasised by Cicero. He commented on the wanton conduct of the widow, Clodia, whom he described in the trial of Caelius in 56 B.c. as `not only of noble birth, but also of notoriety'.
If a woman without a husband [a widow] opens her house to all men's desires, and publicly leads the life of a courtesan; if she is in the habit of attending dinner-parties with men who are perfect strangers; if she does this in the city, in her park, amid all those crowds at Baiae; if, in fact, she so behaves that not only her bearing but her dress and her companions, not only the ardour of her looks and the licentiousness of her gossip but also her embraces and caresses, her beach-parties, her water parties, her dinnerparties, proclaim her to be not only a courtesan, but also a shameless and wanton courtesan.41
Treggiari concludes that `Clodia, as a widow who has adopted an openly immoral way of life, has put herself on the same level [as a prostitute] '. 42
i Timothy 5:n notes that the young widows were `behaving wantonly' (KaTc Wzpfvtcd6W(7ty) against Christ, because they desired to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. To date, no instances have come to light from literary or non-literary sources of the use of the verb KaraGTpfvtaco; this is strange that no compound verb nor cognate form has been found on the TLG database or in non-literary sources. One would have expected these sources to throw up at least one or two examples in secular literature or papyri. It is usually assumed that the use of KaTd only serves to re-enforce the action of wantonness ((7Tpgvt6cw).43 In the most recent edition of Bauer and Danker the clause has been translated as, `When they feel sensual impulses that alienate them from Christ.'44 There is no basis for this rendering of the verb in terms of feelings rather than actions. It is not the case of a one-off sexual indiscretion but rather a promiscuous lifestyle that is under discussion.
On the use of the genitive with the compound verb, Robertson notes that `there are occasions when the preposition in the composition gives a distinct change in idea to the verb'. He ci
tes other instances where the genitive is used of the noun in the predicate because of KUTd in the compound verb.45 To be wanton (GTpgvtaco) with someone has µsza, as is the case in Revelation 18:9 where the kings fornicated and were wanton with the prostitute. The idea in i Timothy 5:11 is that the widows were promiscuous and thereby adopted a lifestyle that was against Christ, i.e., in rebellion to his purposes. The use of oTu.v with the aorist subjunctive for indefinite future time suggests that when they became wanton against Christ, there was the inevitable desire to re- marry.46 It is clear from 5:15 that some `have already strayed after Satan'. In their rejection of a chaste life as a widow in favour of wantonness, they will incur judgement because they have `set aside' their first faith.41 It is suggested that it was not the vow or decision to remain unmarried that was the point at issue - it has been shown that it was their personal choice (p. 124) - but it was the rejection of Christ because of their promiscuousness, and hence their abandoning of their first faith. The initiating cause of this was a lifestyle that was in conflict with their Christian profession.
When cognizance is taken of the immoral activities referred to (5:11) and the specific connecting particles `at the same time also' (&.µa R x(Xi) (5:13),48 it is right to draw the conclusion that there was a connection between the promiscuous activities of the indolent widows and what they did in going from household to household.49
They were `learning to be idlers' rather than being industrious; this is stressed twice (5:13). An important public monument in the Forum Transitorium in Rome has a frieze that depicts women spinning and weaving. D'Ambra, in her detailed work on the significance of life represented in statue types, comments, `Rather than depicting weaving as a craft or industry, the wool working motif serves as a topos for the devout matron, the guardian of traditional society' .50 She comments that this is a significant frieze and notes the use of statue types for imperial propaganda purposes. This was just as important at the beginning of the century in the Principate of Augustus as it was at the end under Domitian. `In the Augustan period, the emblematic or iconic subject was employed to convey the proclaimed return to the mores maiorum. In particular, female protagonists ... reflect the Augustan preoccupation with the morality of domestic life, and also cover the need for reform, so urgently desired by Augustus and expressed, in part, through his social legislation .'51 This frieze in Rome was not an isolated instance - a similar portrayal of working women is represented in stone in the port of Ostia which was built by Claudius to facilitate the grain supply to Rome.52
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