Thursday, November 26, 2020

Nathan Nzyoka Joshua on the Meaning of “Husband of One Wife” (1 Timothy 3:2, 12; 5:9 Titus 1:6)

Commenting on the injunction that a bishop should be a “husband of one wife” in the Pastoral Epistles, Nathan Nzyoka Joshua wrote:

 

 

. . . faithfulness before marriage and in marriage is most likely what Paul was proposing for the overseer to adhere to. A prominent biblical example of the great significance attached to premarital faithfulness is the relationship of Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1:18-25. A non-biblical equivalent to that requirement is found in Xenophon’s second-century AD writing, Ephesiaca 1.11.3-5, in which there is a vow of a young couple to remain chaste for each other. Notably also, in the first century AD, marital faithfulness was also portrayed by remaining unmarried after divorce or after the death of a spouse; a practice that was regarded as honourable. There are many inscriptions on tombstones praising women who had been married to one husband only (see Meeks, First Urban Christians, 228n135). It was common to find on epitaphs the epithets, unavira (“married to one man only”), or virginius and virginia, meaning respectively “a husband who never had but the one wife” and “a wife who never had but the one husband.” Kelly supports that interpretation by saying that it was considered meritorious for one to remain unmarried after the death of a spouse or after divorce because remarriage was viewed as self-indulgence. He supports his argument with Paul’s suggestion to abstain from remarriage and even to occasionally abstain from sexual pleasure within marriage (1 Cor 7:1-7, 40). He says that church officers were expected to set a good example to the other people by being satisfied with a single marriage. However, he points out that, second marriages were not absolutely forbidden in the early Christian centuries (J.N.D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles: I & II Timothy, Titus, Black’s New Testament Commentaries [London: Black, 1963], 75-76). Paul supported and encouraged remarriage, especially for young widows, instead of enrolling them for support by the church (1 Tim 5:11-15). Nevertheless, it is likely that those who had remarried could not be chosen to be leaders in the church, just as they could not be enlisted to get benefaction from the church in case they became widows again (1 Tim 5:9). (Nathan Nzyoka Joshua, Benefaction and Patronage in Leadership: A Socio-Historical Exegesis of the Pastoral Epistles [Langham Monographs; Carlisle, UK: Langham Publishing, 2018], 175-76)

 

As an aside, here is the note from Meek’s The First Urban Christians, referenced by Joshua above:

 

In Greek romances of the Roman period, the plot customarily depends upon the chaste devotion of a couple to each other, preserved despite the most bizarre threats. In the Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus, for example, Habrocomes and Anthia vow "that you will abide chaste unto me and never tolerate another man, and I that I shall never consort with another woman" (1.11.3-5, trans. Hadas 1964, 80). That such sentiments were widely cherished is suggested not only by the popularity of such novels, which would hardly have appealed to the well educated, but by the existence of many epitaphs praising women who were μονανδρος or univira. Examples from Jewish tombs in Leon 1960, 129f