Saturday, March 13, 2021

Joan E. Taylor on the Debate about the Meaning of σύζυγος ("Yokefellow") in Philippians 4:3

  

That Paul had a female assistant on his apostolic journeys was a common assumption of early Christian scholars (Tertullian, Mon. 8; Clement, Stromg. 4:3; Jerome, Jov. 1.26; Augustine, Op. Mon. 4:5). Indeed, the identity of the person Paul refers to his syzygos or syzygon in Philippians 4:3, asked to help Euodia and Syntyche sort out their dispute, was suggested as being Paul’s “wife” by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 3:6:53:1-2) and Origen (Comm. Rom. 1:1:3; Eusebius, Hist. eccles. 3:30:1). The text reads, ναι ερωτω και σε, γνησιε συζυγε, συλλαμβανου αυταις: “Yes, I ask you too, genuine yoke-mate, take hold of them.” John Chrysostom (Hom. Phil 13, however, rejected the interpretation is not so, but some other woman, or the husband of one of them.” Interestingly either gender was equally plausible in his reading. It does not seem that the partner is male, given that the word συλλαμβανου is second-person singular present imperative middle or passive n masculine or neuter form. However, it is interesting that John Chrysostom did not use this argument from grammar, and the word was no obstacle to Clement or Origen, who identified the συζυγον (neuter, so Clement) or συζυγος as female. Theodore of Mopsuestia (Comm. Phil 4:3a) more plausibly argued from grammar that γνησιε is masculine, which would mean one should read συζυγος as masculine. This was not to diminish the women, as he also suggested that this actually indicated a “genuine yokemate” who was a certain “man joined to those women by affection and faith . . . showing that the women are worthy of much careful attention,” since the women ministered to Paul by “teaching of right religion” like Clement and his other coworkers (4:3b). Still, if this does (or did) refer to a “wife” of Paul, then, it is apparent here that she is not with him, since Paul writes from somewhere else, with Timothy, in prison.

 

Interestingly, Theodore of Mopsuestia’s solution to the συζυγος of Philippians 4:3 creates a pair: of a man “yoked” to at least one of the women, Euodia or Syntyche, as a partner. These male-female syzygoi were well known in the early churches and may be implied in various texts: Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2:42:2 (=8:3) refers to both Clement (of Rome) and Grapte as a king of pair, as authorities in the church. A book will be given to each and “Clement will send it to the cities abroad, because that is his job. But Grapte will instruct the widows and orphans”: their jobs correlate with normatively gendered divisions of Wider Graeco-Roman society. (Joan E. Taylor, “Paul’s Significant Other In the ‘We’ Passages,” in Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, Who Created Christianity? Fresh Approaches to the Relationship Between Paul and Jesus [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2020], 118-48, here, pp. 133-34)

 

Further Reading

 

Thomas A. Wayment and John Gee, Did Paul Address His Wife in Philippi?