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The One-Spouse Criterion in the Pastorals (1 Tim 3.2, 12; 5.9; Titus 1.6)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2026
Abstract
A growing consensus interprets the Pastoral phrasing μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ (1 Tim 3.2, 12; Titus 1.6) and ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή (1 Tim 5.8) in reference to church leaders and widows as ‘spousal fidelity’, despite this not being an intuitive approach to the phrases. This article contends that one-spouse traditions were widely enough known in the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds – especially once objections and misunderstandings are resolved – to render comprehensible a limitation to a single spouse. The univira traditions, for instance, apply to both women and men and include reference to faithfulness. The application of these traditions to widows was not a Christian innovation, lasted into the imperial era and influenced both Jews and early Christian authors. One-spouse traditions were also extant in the eastern part of the Empire. Some sectors of Judaism attest to such traditions. Jesus-sayings also prohibit remarriage. Lastly, the requirement for χήραι to marry in 1 Tim 5.11, 14 does not contradict this qualification for ‘real’ widows (5.9) since they were likely ‘virgin-widows’, admonished to marry for the first time, and the Pastoral emphasis is on identifying those with less resources, requiring more extensive assistance from the churches. The Pastorals’ insistence on a single marriage for officeholders and ‘real’ widows is yet another example of how Christ-believers are to be exemplars of, if not exceeding, the very best in Roman piety and marital values.
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1 I am grateful for comments on an earlier draft by Profs. Susan Treggiari, Jerry Sumney, and Christopher Hutson.
2 ‘The appearance of such a striking parallel in another list of qualifications in the pastoral epistles is highly significant’; Sydney Page, ‘Marital Expectations of Church Leaders in the Pastoral Epistles’, JSNT 50 (1993) 105–20, here 106.
3 Justin Martyr (Dial. 134); Irenaeus (Haer. 1.28); Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 3.12.82); Tertullian (Ux. 1.2) appealing to God’s Creation of one man, Adam, and his one wife, Eve.
4 Euripides, Andr. 213–20; Caesar, Bell. gall. 6.19; Justinian, CJ 9.18; Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation (2nd ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) 183. Sallust (Bell. Jug. 80.6) expresses contempt of polygamous societies.
Inscriptional evidence confirms the widespread Jewish custom of monogamy (CIJ 1:cxii), consistent with the Greco-Roman environment, despite prominent notes otherwise: Herod the Great’s nine wives (Josephus, Ant. 17.19; BJ 1.562; Josephus’ claim to ancestral customs; Ant. 17.14; cf. BJ 1.477), Justin Martyr’s criticising Jewish polygamy (Dial. 134.1; cf. 141.4) and the Mishnah’s permission (m. Yeb. 1:3; 4:11; Ket. 10:1–6; Soṭ. 6:2; Giṭ 2:7; 3:1; Sanh. 2:4). Polygamy is just not widely enough attested even in Judaism to be a motivating factor; Ulrike Wagener, Die Ordnung des “Hauses Gottes” (WUNT 2/65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994) 174.
5 So objects, e.g., Heinz-Werner Neudorfer, Der erste Brief des Paulus an Timotheus (HTA; Wuppertal: R. Brockhaus, 2004) 140 (‘kaum in Frage’).
6 Although 1 Tim 4.3 identifies false teachers opposing marriage, the phrase μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ is not likely requiring marriage since Jesus and Paul were single (1 Cor 7.7–8; 9.5), Paul advocated for single life and service (1 Cor 7.32–40), and the NT elsewhere does not mention a marital requirement for leadership.
7 Raymond F. Collins, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 81. The preceding genitive is rare in Paul (4%) and a matter of emphasis; Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; BLG 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994) 291; I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999) 155.
8 Philip H. Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 250–1, 251 n. 43. Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann are categoric: ‘There is no reason whatever to infer a prohibition of a second marriage here’; The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) 75. New consensus representatives include George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992) 157–9 (before Page); Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 155–7, 478; Lorenz Oberlinner, Die Pastoralbriefe (HTKNT 9/2; 3 vols; Freiburg: Herder, 1996) 1:120–1; 3:22–3; William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC 46; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000) 170–3; Yann Redalié, Paul après Paul: Le temps, le salut, la morale selon les épîtres à Timothée et à Tite (MdB 31; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1994) 355.
9 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’.
10 Jerome D. Quinn, The Letter to Titus (AB 35; New York: Doubleday, 1990) 86. Such an approach ‘squeeze[s] more out of the Greek than it will bear’; J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) 75.
11 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 106.
12 A few inscriptions have μόνανδρος. Jean-Baptiste Frey: the Greek μόνανδρος and the Latin univira both mean a woman who has (or has had) only one husband; ‘La Signification des Termes μόνανδρος et Univira’, RSR 20 (1930) 48–60, here 48.
13 For the minority view favouring one-spouse traditions as the appropriate backdrop (since 1993 and Page’s essay), Abraham J. Malherbe, ‘How to Treat Old Women and Old Men: The Use of Philosophical Traditions and Scripture in 1 Timothy 5’, Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays 1959–2012 (ed. Carl R. Holladay, John T. Fitzgerald, Gregory E. Sterling and James W. Thompson; 2 vol.; NovTSup 150; Leiden: Brill, 2014) 1:479–505, here 492 n. 61; Christopher R. Hutson, First and Second Timothy and Titus (Paideia Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2019) 90–2, 128–9; Andreas J. Köstenberger, Commentary on 1–2 Timothy and Titus (Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation; Nashville: B&H, 2017) 127; Gordon D. Fee thinks 1 Tim 3.2 disqualifies the divorced and remarried and 1 Tim 5.9 remarried widows; 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988) 80–1, 119. Except for Hutson’s brief discussion, advocates of one-spouse traditions have not responded to the critiques of their position. Among older commentators, see C. Spicq, Les Épitres Pastorales (EBib; Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1969) 1:430, 533. See the documentation of the univira position in earlier scholarship in Wagener, Ordnung, 173 n. 29, 174-5.
14 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 2.25; Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 10.23.3–5; Alan Watson, ‘The Divorce of Carvilius Ruga’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 29 (1965) 243–59.
15 Thus Livy, Ab urbe cond. 10.23.5, 10: uni nuptam ad quem virgo deducta sit; uni viro nupta; ‘wedded to the one man she had been given as a maiden; wedded to one man alone’; trans. Foster, LCL; Celia E. Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006) 147.
16 Majorie Lightman and William Zeisel, ‘Univira: An Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society’, CH 46 (1977) 19–32, here 25; see also Hermann Funke, ‘Univira: Ein Beispiel heidnischer Geschichtsapologetik’, JAC 8/9 (1965–1966) 183–8.
17 Frey, ‘Signification’, 57. Epitaphs identify a woman as married to a single man (solus), e.g., Carm. Epigr. 455; 548.5; 597.3; 652.7; cf. 1142.15–17; A. Andrew Das, Remarriage in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024) 36 n. 77. More frequent are those that describe the woman’s relationship to only one (unus) husband or being ‘content’ with a single husband, e.g., Carm. Epigr. 643.5; 693.4; 736.3; 968.3; 1523.7; 1693.1; Gordon Williams, ‘Some Aspects of Roman Marriage Ceremonies and Ideals’, Journal of Roman Studies 48 (1958) 16–29, here 23; Das, Remarriage, 36 n. 78.
18 Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 251 n. 42.
19 Das, Remarriage, 40.
20 See also 5.1.43–74 celebrating the univira.
21 Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 235.
22 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 113–14, if not 113–19; similarly Ben Witherington III, A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy, and 1–3 John (vol. 1; Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006) 110.
23 Lightman and Zeisel, ‘Univira’, 24; Das, Remarriage, 36.
24 For an analysis of this text as exemplifying the Roman belief in the eternal marriage bond, see Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 25–7.
25 Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 23; Ovid (Ep. 7.123–4) praises the widow Dido’s refusal of countless potential suitors.
26 Vergil, The Aeneid (trans. Sarah Ruden; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
27 Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 23–4; Das, Remarriage, 39.
28 Reportedly in the lost writings of Timaeus of Sicily (c. 356–260 bce).
29 Suzanne Dixon, ‘The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family’, Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (ed. Beryl Rawson; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 99–113, here 105, neatly dovetailing with the Greco-Roman emphasis on marital fidelity documented by Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 117–18.
30 Note the problematic either-or reasoning of, e.g., Peter Trummer, ‘Einehe nach den Pastoralbriefen: Zum Verständnis der Termini μιᾶς γυναικός und ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή’, Bib 51 (1970) 471–84, esp. 473–7. Page’s appeal to Greco-Roman ethical lists, such as Onasander’s, is therefore of little or no value in deciding between marital faithfulness alone and the one-spouse traditions with their conceptual inclusion of marital fidelity. For that matter, Onasander’s ethical list, to which Page (115–16) appeals, does not even mention marital fidelity, only being a father.
31 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 112; Craig S. Keener, And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991) 94; Lightman and Ziesel, ‘Univira’, 19–32.
32 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 113. A. T. Hanson therefore interprets the Pastorals’ language in view of the inscriptions as precluding divorcées but not those remarried after widowhood; The Pastoral Letters (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966) 41.
33 Susan Treggiari, ‘Marriage and Family in Roman Society’, Marriage and Family in the Biblical World (ed. Ken M. Campbell; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003) 132–82, here 174.
34 Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 233 n. 23, emphasis mine.
35 Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity, 49.
36 Some inscriptions are identified as coming from both the husband and the children, e.g., CIL 9.1913/ILS 8437. Others were left by the children; Bernhard Kötting, “‘Univira” in Inschriften’, Romanitas et Christianitas: Studia Iano Henrico Waszink a. d. VI Kal. Nov. a. MCMLXXIII XIII lustra complenti oblata (ed. W. den Boer, P. G. van der Nat, C. M. J. Sicking and J. C. M. van Winden; Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 1973) 195–206, here 197: Where the wife survived the husband, the univira ascription means she did not remarry.
37 Pagan instances include CIL 3.2667, 5.7763, 6.2318, 12405, 13299, 13303, 25392, 26268, 31711, 8.7384, 11294, 19470, 9.5142, 10.3058, 3351, 11.6281. 14.418, 839, 963; Kötting, “‘Univira” in Inschriften’, 203.
38 Kötting, ‘“Univira” in Inschriften’, 197.
39 While in several instances such women remained unmarried for the sake of their children, they are still praised as faithful to the dead husband and to the marital union; Michel Humbert, Le Remariage à Rome: Étude D’Historie Juridique et Sociale (Pubblicazioni dell’Istituto di diritto romano e dei diritti dell’Oriente mediterraneo 44; Milan: A Giuffre, 1972) 67–8; Das, Remarriage, 36.
40 E.g., CIL 6.11082; 6.30111a (aeternum foedus, if reconstructed correctly); 6.434 (dum u[i]ta manet, toto est in corde maritus); 8.648 (semper vivit sibi).
41 Franz Bücheler, ed., Carmina Latina Epigraphica (2 vols.; Lipsiae: B. G. Teubner, 1895–97) 758–9; repub. in vol. 2 (Parts 1 and 2) of Carmina Latina Epigraphica; ed. Francis Bücheler, Anthologia Latina (vol. 2; Part 1; Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1964). E.g., CIL 6.1779 (sed tamen felix, tua quia sum fuique postque mortem mox ero); 6.11252 (quod praecessi sustineo in aeterno toro adventum tuum); 6.13528 (cara iungant corpora haec rursum nostrae sed perpetuae nuptiae); 6.19008 (coniugi perpetuae … nunc mortis iuncti iacent). See also the hopes among Greeks to meet again after death in R. A. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 28; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1942) 58, e.g., IG 12.8.449.12–14: ‘Theodorus, my husband, I pray that, late though it be, you will come and I shall meet you and we shall share our bed, so that we shall forget our misfortunes’; Das, Remarriage, 39.
42 The estimated eighty inscriptions (Kötting, ‘“Univira” in Inschriften’, 197) must be weighed alongside ample literary references as well as Augustus’ legislation combating the older, more conservative attitudes.
43 Plutarch praises Cornelia for refusing remarriage and remaining a widow, in her case for the sake of children; Ti. C. Gracch. 1.4–5. Quite often the praise is simply for the widow having remained unmarried.
44 Plautus (Merc. 824) admonishes contentment with a single spouse. Seneca (De Matrimonio, 72–7) praises univira vowing to remain unmarried as widows; trans. J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London: Bodley Head, 1962) 208, 318 n. 30; cf. 185.
45 Sextus Pompeius Festus, De verborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli Epitome (ed. Wallace M. Lindsey; Leipzig: Teubner, 1913) 282.16–18: pronubae adhibentur nuptis, quae semel nupserunt, ut matrimonii perpetuitatem auspicantes; Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 25 n. 42. The text exemplifies the Roman belief in the eternal marriage bond; Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 25–7.
46 Keith R. Bradley, ‘Ideals of Marriage in Suetonius’ Caesares’, Rivista storica dell’antichità 15 (1985) 91–3. On the continuing influence of the univira traditions in earliest Christianity and the resultant debate over whether widows may remarry, see Jens-Uwe Krause, Witwen und Waisen im Römischen Reich I: Verwitwung und Wiederverheiratung (HABES 16; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1994) 102–7, 153–91.
47 Bradley, ‘Ideals of Marriage’, 93, who emphasises: ‘[T]he ideals of the past had not lost vogue but were still being cultivated in the era of Suetonius’ (91); also Bradley, ‘Ideals of Marriage’, 86–7; Das, Remarriage, 41.
48 The Germans were monogamous ‘much to their credit’, but Tacitus excuses several instances of polygamy, and: ‘No transposition of such an ideal to men seems to have been envisaged’; Mireille Corbier, ‘Divorce and Adoption as Roman Familial Strategies (Le Divorce et l’adoption en plus)’, Marriage, Divorce and Children in Ancient Rome (ed. Beryl Rawson; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 47–78, here 51.
49 B. Kötting, ‘Digamus’, RAC 3 (1957) 1016–24, here 1017. See also Harry J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (rev. ed.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995) 129–30.
50 Nikolaus Müller and Nikos Bees, Die Inschriften der jüdischen Katakombe am Monteverde zu Rom (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1919) 41–2 (inscription no. 33): μόνανδρος means she did not remarry after her husband’s death (p. 42). Μόνανδρος, however, is rare in pagan epigraphy, occurs three times in Christian remains, not much more in the Jewish inscriptions of Rome, and three times in patristic authors; Frey, ‘Signification’, 50–1. Both μόνανδρος and univira appear in epithets extolling the chaste and virtuous wife; Frey, ‘Signification’, 53.
51 Kötting, ‘“Univira” in Inschriften’, 199.
52 Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 232; also Frey, ‘Signification’, 48–60.
53 Hermann Vogelstein and Paul Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rome (vol. 1; Berlin: Mayer and Müller, 1896) 66.
54 Contra, e.g., Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 157.
55 W. M. Calder, ‘Early Christian Epitaphs from Phrygia’, AnSt 5 (1955) 31–3, esp. 32.
56 Sixte Scaglia, Manuel d’Archéologie Chrétienne (Turin: Pierre Marietti, 1916) 394.
57 E.g., Virg. 9; Mon. 8; Exh. cast. 11, 13; Ux. 1.7–8; 2.1; cf. Mon. 13, 17; Pud. 16; Exh. cast. 4–7.
58 Translated by G. W. Clarke, The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix (ACW 39; New York: Newman, 1974).
59 David Instone-Brewer, ‘1 Corinthians 7 in the Light of the Graeco-Roman Marriage and Divorce Papyri’, TynBul 51 (2001) 101–15, here 109–10; so also, e.g., Norbert Brox, Die Pastoralbriefe (4th ed.; RNT 7; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1969) 191.
60 P.Tebt. 1.104 (= Chr.M. 285). Text and translation are available in Select Papyri (vol. 1; LCL; trans. A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959) 6–7.
61 Humbert, Remariage, 67.
62 Williams, ‘Some Aspects’, 24; followed by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975) 161.
63 R. Collins, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, 82.
64 Joseph M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4: XIII The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 175–6.
65 Aharon Shemesh, ‘4Q271.3: A Key to Sectarian Matrimonial Law’, JJS 49 (1998) 244–63, here 246: ‘[T]he halakhah’s omission of the divorcee attests that sectarian halakhah outlawed remarriage subsequent to divorce as long as the former spouse was still living.’ So also Vered Noam, ‘Divorce in Qumran in Light of Early Halakhah’, JJS 56 (2005) 206–23, here 219–20. With Adela Yarbro Collins: ‘The reason for forbidding polygamy and remarriage during the lifetime of the first spouse is probably a concern about purity’; Mark (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 463. So also John J. Collins, ‘Marriage, Divorce, and Family in Second Temple Judaism’, Families in Ancient Israel (ed. Leo G. Perdue, Joseph Blenkinsopp, John J. Collins and Carol Meyers; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 129, 158; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol. 4: Law and Love; AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 93.
66 A. Collins, Mark, 463 n. 41.
67 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ‘The Matthean Divorce Texts and Some New Palestinian Evidence’, TS 37 (1976) 197–226, here 220; Raymond F. Collins, Divorce in the New Testament (GNS 38; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992) 84.
68 The illiterate Babatha in remote, rural Nahal Hever married twice and was to inherit some of her late second husband’s property, but had to go to court for it. She asked a certain Miriam to accompany her before the governor and referred to ‘my and your [Miriam’s] husband’ without mentioning divorce, an apparent reference to polygamy; The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Region in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri (ed. Naphtali Lewis; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989) 22–6. John Collins qualifies that one cannot generalise about the frequency of the practice; J. Collins, ‘Marriage, Divorce, and Family’, 122. Inscriptional evidence indicates that polygamy is otherwise rare among Jews.
69 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, ‘An Essene Missionary Document? CD II, 14–VI, 1’, RB 77 (1970) 201–29, here 220 (even after the death of the spouse); Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, ‘Remarques sur l’expose du Professeur Y. Yadin’, RB 79 (1972) 99–100; followed by Philip R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 76.
70 Paul Winter, ‘Ṣadokite Fragments IV, 20, 21 and the Exegesis of Genesis 1: 27 in Late Judaism’, ZAW 68 (1956) 71–84.
71 Winter, ‘Ṣadokite Fragments’, 77–8.
72 C. D. Elledge, ‘“From the Beginning It Was Not So…”: Jesus, Divorce, and Remarriage in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, PRSt 37 (2010) 371–89, here 386. He adds: ‘Remarriage is the most frequently attested concern among the Qumran writings that pertain to this question’ (388).
73 Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 113; he defines ‘second marriage’ as ‘regardless of how the first marriage ended’ (p. 112).
74 He assumes this as non-controversial in a cultural milieu where not only death but also divorce ‘freed’ a woman from her marital obligations; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 8.10.11–12.
75 Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14—28 (WBC 33B; Dallas: Word Books, 1995) 549; Charles H. Talbert, Matthew (Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010) 233; Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000) 380-2; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 493; Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 377: ‘Matthew does not let the husband remarry.’
76 John P. Meier does; Law and Love, 74–181. E. P. Sanders does not; E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1989) 324–8 (Sanders authored the historical Jesus chapters); cf. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993) 198–201.
77 Sanders and Davies, Studying, 324–8; Richard B. Hays: ‘A divorced woman … could never remarry under the terms of this teaching without committing adultery,’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) 356–7.
78 Contra Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 251 n. 42; with Neudorfer, Erste Brief des Paulus an Timotheus, 194–5, but stressing varying situations.
79 On 1 Cor 7.8–9 as addressed to widows and widowers, see, e.g., Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (rev. ed.; NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) 319; R. Collins, Divorce, 236 n. 33.
80 Contra Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 113. Page confuses matters to label an aversion to second marriages a matter of asceticism (see 111–12). Extreme asceticism would have been averse to any marriage at all; cf. 1 Tim 4.3.
81 Contra Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 113; Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 251 n. 42; Oberlinner, Pastoralbriefe, 3.23 n. 25; Redalié, Paul après Paul, 355; Wagener, Ordnung, 171–2.
82 Page assumes that a legitimate divorce included the right to remarry (109–10); so also Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 251 n. 42. Redalié (Paul après Paul, 355) and Oberlinner (Pastoralbriefe, 1.119) both stress the exceptions permitting divorce in Matt 5.32; 19.9; and 1 Cor 7.15, but these exceptions do not also permit remarriage; Jürgen Roloff, Der Erste Briefe an Timotheus (EKKNT 15; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger/Neukirchener, 1988) 155–6.
83 Thomas McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 74.
84 On the uniform ante-Nicene aversion to remarriage after divorce, see Das, Remarriage, 232–81.
85 Thus object most commentators, e.g., Witherington, Titus, 1–2 Timothy, and 1–3 John, 110; Page, ‘Marital Expectations’, 112; Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 156; Oberlinner, Pastoralbriefe, 1.118-19; Neudorfer, Erste Brief des Paulus an Timotheus, 141. On the other hand, that the qualification denies remarriage after divorce or perhaps also after widowhood, see Roloff, Erste Briefe an Timotheus, 293–4, citing the univira traditions.
86 For Kelly (Commentary, 117), ‘Christ is thought of as a spiritual bridegroom (cf. 2 Cor. xi. 2). Hence the desire to marry again, natural enough in young women who have lost their husbands, is in effect an act of unfaithfulness to him.’ On a ‘pledge’ for widows not to marry again, see, e.g., David G. Horrell, ‘Disciplining Performance and “Placing” the Church: Widows, Elders and Slaves in the Household of God (1 Tim 5,1–6,2)’, 1 Timothy Reconsidered (ed. Karl Paul Donfried; Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum 18; Leuven: Peeters, 2008) 109–34, here 119–22, 121–2 n. 63.
87 Of the thirty-three Pastoral uses of πίστις, the word refers to the content of what is believed, the activity or process of conversion (coming to faith), the new situation or sphere brought about by conversion, a quality promoted by Christian teaching, or the attitude that is necessary for the presence of Christian virtues; Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 213–17; more briefly, Peter G. R. de Villiers, ‘Heroes at Home: Identity, Ethos, and Ethics in 1 Timothy within the Context of the Pastoral Epistles’, Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament (ed. Jan G. van der Watt; BZNW 141; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006) 357–86, here 367–9.
88 Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 578–9.
89 Jouette M. Bassler, ‘The Widows’ Tale: A Fresh Look at 1 Tim 5:3–16’, JBL 103 (1984) 23–41, here 35; Hutson, First and Second Timothy and Titus, 132: ‘It would be plausible to read this verse as recommending first marriages, not necessarily second marriages’, adding that young women who had been widowed ‘do not seem to be those primarily in view’; contra, e.g., Stanley E. Porter, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2023) 278.
90 John M. G. Barclay ‘Household Networks and Early Christian Networks: A Fresh Study of Timothy 5.3–16’, NTS 66 (2020) 282–3 n. 60.
91 Charlotte Methuen, ‘The “Virgin Widow”: A Problematic Social Role for the Early Church?’, HTR 90 (1997) 285–98, here 291.
92 Barclay, ‘Household Networks’, 281–2; cf. 2 Tim 3.6–7; Titus 1.11.
93 For Barclay, the Pastoral Paul wanted to integrate these women into the network of Christian households.
94 These are χήρα who have made a pledge and later ‘wanted’ to marry (5.11–12). ‘A dowry for a daughter was one of the greatest economic problems that a family faced in antiquity’; Lyn M. Kidson, ‘Real Widows, Young Widows and the Limits of Benefaction in 1 Timothy 5:3–16’, ABR 70 (2022) 83–100, here 84; so also 98.
95 First Timothy 5.11–14 may be identifying situational concerns that override the Pauline preference for widows to remain single: the influence of false teachers targeting widows, their desire and their behavior; Dillon T. Thornton, ‘“Saying What They Should Not Say”: Reassessing the Gravity of the Problem of the Younger Widows (1 Tim 5:11–15)’, JETS 59 (2016) 119–29.
96 Barclay, ‘Household Networks’, 271 (and not in luxury; 5.6). Women were less likely to be married the older they were, only 48 per cent at age fifty, unlike men; Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 121–7. Thirty per cent of adult women were unmarried widows; Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 73. ‘Real widows’ would be worthy of greater financial support, an influential group; Kidson, ‘Real Widows’, 87, see also 92–3: Needy widows would have been supported even if not in the category; e.g., Lucian of Samosata, Peregr. 12.
97 B. W. Winter, ‘Providentia for the Widows’, TynBul 39 (1988) 83–99, here 84–5, 88, 92–3: including the care of a son or the return of a dowry.
98 Genuine need includes age, the ability to remarry (unlikely for those sixty and older), good works and wealth; see Towner’s overview (Letters to Timothy and Titus, 334–8). The requirement of an age of sixty (1 Tim 5.9) seems late but encompassed seven percent of the Roman population; Tim G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 280–1. Most women’s family support networks would be disintegrating at that age in view of mortality rates.
99 Although a second wife did not adopt the husband’s children from his first marriage, a new network of family relations was effected with the father and the half-siblings (if there were children from the earlier marriage); Corbier, ‘Divorce’, 47–78, esp. 62, 76–8. 47–78, esp. 62, 76–8. In the context of the Pastorals, a remarried widow should be supported by the children of her husband (1 Tim 5.4, 8). She is less vulnerable.
100 See n. 7 above.
101 E.g., Athenagoras, Leg. 22; Clement, Strom. 3.1; Tertullian, Ux. 1.7; Exh. cast. 8, 9, 13, Mon. 17. Post-apostolic teaching reflects the very balance in the countercultural NT and naturally appeals to NT texts in denying an extreme, anti-marital asceticism banning marriage and family, in denying remarriage after divorce and in discouraging remarriage for widows and widowers.
102 Bassler, ‘Widows’ Tale’, 31; T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety: The Rhetoric of Pietas in the Pastoral Epistles and the Roman Empire (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2017).