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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

A. Andrew Das Open the ORCID record for A. Andrew Das [Opens in a new window]
A. Andrew Das*
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Department of Religious Studies, Elmhurst University, Elmhurst, IL, USA
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Email: adas@elmhurst.edu
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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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univiraoverseerdeaconelderwidowremarriage

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New Testament Studies , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , July 2025 , pp. 380 - 394
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press.

1. Introduction

The Pastoral Epistles require overseers, deacons and elders to be μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ (husband of one wife; 1 Tim 3.2, 12; Titus 1.6).Footnote 1 Those who are ‘real’ widows are to have been the wife of one husband (ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή; 1 Tim 5.8). The two phrases, previously unattested, should be interpreted similarly.Footnote 2 A concern with polygamy is unlikely, since it does not figure elsewhere in the NT or in early Christ-believing communities.Footnote 3 Monogamy was the norm in the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds.Footnote 4 Interpreting the parallel phrases the same way, 1 Tim 5.9 would be targeting polyandry, but polyandry was unknown even among Jews open to polygamy.Footnote 5 A marital requirement is also unlikely.Footnote 6 The Pastorals’ emphasis on ‘one’ spouse suggests something other than simply being married (one, as opposed to more than one).Footnote 7

A growing consensus understands the first phrase, with the NEB, as ‘faithful to his one wife’. As Philip Towner puts it, ‘most’ now believe that the phrasing means only that a person is faithful to a spouse with no implication regarding remarriage.Footnote 8 This emerging consensus may be traced to Sydney Page’s influential 1993 essay and should be challenged.Footnote 9 With Jerome Quinn: ‘It is difficult to interpret the phrase (μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ; Titus 1.6) simply in terms of marital fidelity and avoidance of sexual promiscuity’, since ‘Greek had adequate terminology available, both positive and negative for denoting such conduct.’Footnote 10 Page contends that the phrases mean simply faithfulness in marriage as if that were exclusive of a potential requirement for a single spouse. He underestimates – and at times misunderstands – the Greco-Roman social and cultural awareness of the one-spouse ideal.

Page stresses that the exact phrase μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ is not extant in earlier Greek literature.Footnote 11 Carphyllides (μιῆς ἀπέλαυσα γυναικός; Anth. Gr. 7.260; 3rd cent bce) and Plutarch (μίαν γυναῖκα; Cat. Min. 7.3), however, offer close parallels that evoke a broader array of one-spouse traditions in the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds, from the Latin univira – a woman who had remained married to one man – to Greek inscriptions praising a single spouse, to sectarian Jewish censure of remarriage.Footnote 12 Representatives of the emerging consensus have dismissed the viability of one-spouse traditions, especially the univira.Footnote 13 Others have questioned whether remarriage is even a NT concern. Still others have questioned whether limiting a ‘real’ widow to a single spouse makes sense when the Pastoral Paul urges young widows (5.11) to marry again (5.14). If these difficulties may be resolved, the one-spouse traditions of antiquity render comprehensible the requirement limiting male officeholders and ‘real’ widows to a single marriage.

2. The Faithful Univira in Antiquity

In the early Roman Republic, divorce was uncommon and only if the wife was gravely at fault.Footnote 14 Married women were usually eligible to serve as a univira in certain cults.Footnote 15 With the increasing divorce rate in the late first century bce, a woman no longer necessarily had had a single marital partner. The concept of the univira expanded in meaning to include not just those eligible for the archaic cults but any woman married to only one man during her life.Footnote 16

Augustus’ marital legislation (Lex Iulia et Papia) mandating remarriage for the sake of more children targeted the univira ideal’s lingering influence in some quarters of Roman society. Roman authors would occasionally criticise remarriage, especially while the first spouse still lived. Husbands left inscriptions praising deceased wives having enjoyed a single marriage, or, if a husband had died, an inscription would identify a widow as having remained unmarried.Footnote 17

2.1. Husbands Faithful to One Wife

Philip Towner discounts the univira tradition’s relevance since the Pastorals use such language for both men and women, but ‘the [Roman univira] evidence is limited to women’.Footnote 18 This critique is mistaken. Men left inscriptions swearing to remain widowers (e.g., CIL 11.1491/ILS 8461) or praising an only wife (CIL 1.1221). Valerius Maximus describes Senator C. Plautius Numida who, mourning his dead wife, stabbed himself and died: ‘By so violent a death he testified how mighty a conjugal flame was hidden in that breast of his. … Surely where love is both at its greatest and most honourable, it is far better to be joined by death than separated by life’ (Fact. 4.6.2–3 [trans. Shackleton Bailey, LCL]). Carphyllides, whom many date prior to 90 bce, boasts: ‘I enjoyed the company of one wife (μιῆς ἀπέλαυσα γυναικός) who grew old together with me’ (Anth. Gr. 7.260 [trans. Paton, LCL]). Propertius claims the bond of marriage is eternal, while idealising his relationship with Cynthia: ‘Hers will I be in life and hers in death’ (Eleg. 2.15.29, 36 [trans. Butler, LCL]; cf. Eleg. 2.6.41–2), adding: ‘He errs that seeks to set a term to the frenzy of love; true love hath no bound…. I will abide true to thee, my life, until darkness close my day; one selfsame love, one selfsame hour, shall sweep us both away’ (2.20.17–18). For Plautus (Merc. 824), the good wife (bona) is content (contenta) with a single husband (uno viro), and it should be no different for the husband with his single wife.Footnote 19 One of Germanicus’ virtues was his contentment with a single marriage (uno matrimonio; Tacitus, Ann. 2.73.3), as was Statius’ father (Statius, Silv. 5.3.240–1: ‘You knew marriage by a single torch, yours was a single love’ [una tibi cognita taeda conubia, unus amor; trans. Shackleton Bailey, LCL]).Footnote 20 Laelius enjoyed ‘good fortune’ (εὐτυχέστερος) to have had one wife his entire life (Plutarch, Cat. Min. 7.3: μίαν γυναῖκα).Footnote 21

2.2. The Univira as Faithful and Devoted to the Spouse

Sydney Page contrasts interpretations of the Pastorals’ μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ as referring to marital status with those that refer to being devoted exclusively to one’s spouse, as if the two approaches are mutually exclusive.Footnote 22 They are not. In CIL 6.13303: ‘For Aurelia Domitia, freedwoman of Augustus [the imperial household], univira, a spouse most blessed, most devoted, most proper and respectful to her family. Pompeianus, her husband, with whom she lived twenty years. She was thirty-six years old’ (trans. Lightman and Zeisel). ‘The inscriptions indicate that univira had lost its specifically religious and cultic associations as well as its elite social status, to become one of the many pagan epithets for the good wife.’Footnote 23 CIL 8.11294 is representative, listing a series of virtues for a univira/unicuba exemplar, including her trustworthiness (fides), piety (religiosa), purity (pudica), hard work (laboriosa), frugality (frugi). Inscriptions would praise a woman, for not only being devoted to a single husband but also for her sobriety (sobria), chaste faithfulness (casta fide) and other virtues (e.g., CIL 6.12853/6.34060).

Scapha says in Plautus’ Mostellaria: ‘This giving yourself up to one lover is all right for married women, but not for mistresses’ (Most. 187–9 [trans. Nixon, LCL]). ‘I devoted myself to just one man – and he, oh well, when age came on and changed the colour of this head of mine, he left me, deserted me’ (199–202). The ideal is that ‘he’ll be food for you eternally and be your own fond lover all your life’ as ‘you … put yourself at his sole disposal’ (223–6).Footnote 24

Vergil’s Dido adored (amore) her husband Sychaeus (Aen. 1.343–6). After his tragic murder, she did not want to falter (culpa) in her faithfulness to him (4.18–19, 27–9).Footnote 25 When the gods orchestrated another union (4.45, 123–8, 165–8, 575), she laments: ‘I broke my promise to the dead Sychaeus’ (4.551–2).Footnote 26 Dido repents of her unfaithfulness by committing suicide, joining Sychaeus in the afterlife (6.473–4), and refusing to recognise Aeneas (6.450–75).Footnote 27 Earlier versions of the story describe an ‘Elissa’ fully faithful to her dead husband.Footnote 28 Likewise, Chariton’s Callirhoe (Chaer. 3.6.6) demonstrates faithfulness to a dead spouse by not remarrying. Petronius would satirise the romance genre’s ideal wife, mourning and starving at the grave of the husband (Sat. 111).

Suzanne Dixon cautions: ‘The fact that, in reality, many marriages ended in divorce or in the premature death of one partner and were followed by other marriages need not affect the Roman ideal any more than it affects our own ideal of lifelong devotion.’ The Romans idealised a sentimental attachment and lifelong bond between a man and a woman.Footnote 29 Musonius Rufus thus envisions a competition between husband and wife in selfless mutual devotion as an expression of their love (fragments 13a.20–3). A married couple should enjoy concordia (e.g., Pliny, Letters, 3.16.10; Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.708–10 – all their lives). The faithful univira concept conforms naturally to the lists of exemplary qualities for church leaders and ‘real’ widows in the Pastorals.Footnote 30

2.3. The Application of the Univira Traditions to Widows Was Not a Christian Innovation

Page credits Lightman and Ziesel for having ‘pointed out that it is only in Christian funerary inscriptions that the term univira refers to widows who had not remarried’.Footnote 31 He adds: ‘Apparently pagans did not ascribe to widowhood the virtue that Christians later did.’Footnote 32

Lightman and Ziesel did demonstrate from the novel language in early Christian inscriptions an extolling of committed widows. Roman specialists do, however, recognise similar praise of continent widowhood among the pagans. Susan Treggiari describes ‘an idealization of the woman who had married only once.’Footnote 33 The univira is ‘used in pagan inscriptions to describe a woman who dies in her first marriage or a widow who does not remarry after the death of her husband.’Footnote 34 These women often predeceased their husbands, but not always. That a majority of the inscriptions were left by surviving husbands is to be expected, since widowers enjoyed significantly greater economic means as men to leave funerary inscriptions and epitaphs for their deceased wives. Women do not appear regularly in inscriptions until the second century bce, a century later than men, and they began leaving epitaphs significantly later as well.Footnote 35 Most epitaphs, however, do not identify whether a surviving husband, the woman’s children or other family members left the inscription.Footnote 36 In some inscriptions, widows promised to remain so in honour of deceased husbands (e.g., CIL 6.35050), and in others they were praised for mourning a deceased husband until the end of their lives (e.g., CIL 3.3241; 6.7243, 15806, 15546).Footnote 37 Univira is used alongside terms such as castissima and pudica to indicate that these widows remained unmarried; they would otherwise lose claim to the title.Footnote 38 In CIL 9.5517, a widow had died at the age eighty-five, thirty years beyond the death of her husband; the widow of CIL 11.6281 died a univira at seventy-eight. In CIL 13.2056, a mother and grandmother died at fifty-four years of age, having remained unmarried for eighteen years (sine coniuge vita).Footnote 39

For many ancient Romans, the marital union survived even death (e.g., CIL 10.1310: the couple’s eternal marriage remains [even] now [coniugio aeterno hic quoque nunc remanet]).Footnote 40 Some vow never to marry again (CIL 6.14404; 8.16737) or to remain chaste after the death of the spouse (e.g., CIL 6.25427), with death just a cruel, temporary separation as a spouse mourned to the very end (e.g., CIL 6.7243; 6.7579; 6.12652; 6.15546; 6.15806: flet amissam aeterno tempore coniunx; CIL 6.18817; 12.5193: virum expecto meum). Death permitted the perpetual union to be resumed (coniugi perpetuae; Carm. Epigr. 1571.3).Footnote 41

One should also not overlook literary sources from the period.Footnote 42 Plutarch praises the widow Camma the Galatian for rebuffing several suitors to die expectantly, eager to greet her deceased husband (Amat. 22).Footnote 43 Martial (10.63) extols the ‘honour’ (gloria) of one lifelong partner (fuitque una pudicitiae mentula nota meae). With Propertius (4.11.35–6, 67–8), a woman was espoused ‘to one and one alone’ (uni nupta), and a daughter should likewise marry ‘one and only one’ (fac teneas unum nos imitata virum; trans. H. E. Butler, LCL).Footnote 44 The Roman grammarian Festus (second century ce) describes the once-married’s perpetual union.Footnote 45 Many widows felt the tension between faithfulness to a deceased husband and the prospect of a new marriage (e.g., Apuleius, Metam. 8.8.7).

2.4. The Long-Lasting Influence of the Univira Tradition

Valerius Maximus in the first century ce describes the single-marriage ideal:

Women who had been content with a single marriage used to be honoured with a crown of chastity. For they thought that the mind of a married woman was particularly loyal and uncorrupted if it knew not how to leave the bed on which she had surrendered her virginity, believing that trial of many marriages was as it were the sign of a legalized incontinence (Fact. 2.1.3 [trans. Shackleton Bailey, LCL]).

Antonia, he says, ‘balanced her husband’s love with outstanding loyalty’ (Fact. 4.3.3). Plutarch comments: ‘Now the first marriage is enviable; but the second is to be deprecated, for women are ashamed [αἰσχύνονται] if they take a second husband while the first husband is still living, and they feel sad if they do so when he is dead (Quaest. rom. 105 [289a–b] [trans. Babbitt, LCL]). The ideal is therefore for the widow to remain unmarried (univira). A widow’s wedding should be quiet with only a few witnesses. Even in the face of the excesses of the Julio-Claudians, Pliny’s and Suetonius’ respective commentaries on married life witness to a conservative Flavian reaction.Footnote 46 Keith Bradley concludes that Roman authors in this era were still drawing on the single-spouse ideal in critiquing the imperial household, even though marriages rarely emulated the lifetime – or beyond – ideal.Footnote 47 In comments that say as much about the author, the second century ce Tacitus describes Germanic society and morals: ‘Adulteries are very few for the number of the people’ (Germ. 19.2 [trans. Hutton, LCL]). ‘Better still are those tribes where only maids marry, and where a woman makes a pact, once for all, in the hopes and vows of a wife; so they take one husband only, just as one body and one life’ (Germ. 19.4).Footnote 48

2.5. The Univira Tradition Among the Jews

Occasionally, Jewish inscriptions attest to the μόνανδρος or univira ideal, e.g., CIJ 1.81, 158, 392, 541, 550.Footnote 49 ‘Rebecca lived forty-four years as the wife of only one man’ (μόνανδρος ζήσας ἔτη μδ’).Footnote 50 Nikolaus Müller and Nikos Bees interpret this as having been married to only one man and illumining the similar Greek phrase for the widow in 1 Tim 5.9. The Jewish use of μόνανδρος reflects the influence of the Latin univira concept in their circles.Footnote 51 Harry J. Leon points out that precisely because Jewish widows generally remarried ‘it was apparently regarded as a noteworthy mark of devotion to her dead husband if a widow did not take another husband.’Footnote 52 Although widows could remarry, the term μόνανδρος referred to a woman who had been married to only one man in her youth.Footnote 53 Some believe the absence of μόνανδρος in the Pastorals rules out one-spouse limitations, but the choice of phrasing reflects a need for language applicable also to men (1 Tim 3.2, 12).Footnote 54

2.6. The Univira Ideal and Post-Apostolic Christianity

Christian epitaphs occasionally celebrate the univira in their ranks (e.g., CIL 10.7196; ICLV 1581). W. M. Calder identified an early Christian epitaph from prior to 350 ce that tells of Akakios, a man having married only once, and a widower for thirty years.Footnote 55 Sixte Scaglia notes Christian inscriptional remains honouring widows, univira, consecrated to God in singleness.Footnote 56 They had limited themselves to a single spouse (e.g., ILCV 1.404; 1.1581; 2.4302; 2.4287; 2.4318 A.5; 2.4723) or protogamia (e.g., ILCV 1.1003). Latin Christianity reprised the Roman ideal: Tertullian relies on the univira traditions to deny the possibility for widows of marrying second husbands, including his own wife.Footnote 57 Similarly Minucius Felix: ‘It is our pleasure to abide by the bond of a single marriage; in our desires for begetting children, we know one woman or none at all’ (Apol. 31.5).Footnote 58

3. Comparable Eastern Traditions

Although Pausanias relays how Greek widows in older age would not remarry (2.21.7) and how the priestesses of Gaia Euysternos in Achaia were permitted intercourse with only one man (7.25.13), remarriage was widely accepted among the Greeks. David Instone-Brewer opines that any limiting or denying remarriage in the East ‘would be totally contrary to everything we know about Greek and Egyptian marriages’.Footnote 59 Nevertheless, an ancient marriage certificate reads: ‘It shall not be lawful for Philiscus [the husband] to bring in another wife besides Apollonia [the wife], nor to keep a concubine or boy, nor to have children by another woman while Apollonia lives, nor to inhabit another house over which Apollonia is not mistress.’Footnote 60 This language is identical to that found in several other papyri (P.Freib. 3.30, esp. lines 29–30; P.Giss. 2, lines 16–24; P.Gen. 1.21 [= Chr.M. 284; P.Münch. 3.62], lines 4–6; P.Eleph. 1.2.1–18 [= Chr.M. 283]). Humbert explains that these marriage contracts were introducing the duty of a husband to have neither a concubine nor children with another spouse through a second marriage, while the original spouse still lived – a minority position in the East paralleling the Roman traditions.Footnote 61 Since the idealisation of a wife’s devotion to a single man – and occasionally also the husband’s devotion to a single wife – is more prevalent in Roman circles, many conclude that the Greek parallels may be ‘the product of direct Roman influence’.Footnote 62 If so, these instances bear witness to a pattern of Roman influence in the East. A third century ce astrological papyrus blames men who were not staying with one wife (PSI 3.6 §158.25-26). In Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesian Tale 1.11; 2.7; 4.3 (2nd cent. ce), Habrocomes and Anthia both vow to have a single spouse for their entire lives, and even beyond, thus exemplifying the ideal, even for a man, even in the East, and well after the Roman Republic (cf. Chaer. 3.6.6).

4. A Second-Temple Jewish Aversion to Remarriage

Jewish priests did not marry divorced women or widows (Lev 21.13–14; Ezek 44.22). Judith is praised for her faithfulness to her dead husband (8.4–8; 16.22; cf. Luke 2.36–7). Despite Josephus’ own multiple marriages (Ant. 17.13.4 §352), he relays a disapproval of remarriage in esteeming Antonia: ‘For despite her youth she remained steadfast in her widowhood and refused to marry again although the emperor urged her to do so. She thus kept her life free from reproach’ (Ant. 18.6.6 §180 [trans. Feldman, LCL]). Philo praises Isaac for having only one wife (Congr. 34).Footnote 63

A Damascus Document fragment, 4QDf III.10–15, indicates that some in that community were likely prohibiting remarriage while the first wife remained alive:

Let no man bring [a woman into the ho]ly [covenant?] who has had sexual experience, (whether) she had such [experience in the home] of her father or as a widow [ʾalmānâ] who had intercourse after she was widowed. And any [woman upon whom there is a] bad [na]me in her maidenhood in her father’s house, let no man take her, except [upon examination] by trustworthy [women] of repute selected by command of the supervisor over [the many. After]ward he may take her, and when he takes her he shall act in accordance with the l[a]w [and he shall not t]ell about [her.] (4QDf III.10–15)Footnote 64

A male member of the community may marry an unmarried virgin or a widow if she has not had sexual relations with anyone after the death of her husband. The fragment categorically rejects the possibility that the man might marry a divorcée.Footnote 65 Later rabbinic Hebrew uses the same noun employed in 4QDf III.5 – 10 for widows (אַלְמָנָה) and a different word for the divorced party (גְּרוּשָׁה), regularly distinguishing the two categories (e.g., m. Ketub. 1:2; 5:1).Footnote 66 A similar concern with remarriage is in 11QTa LVII: The wife’s lifetime is the period in which the king may not have a second wife, whether through bigamy or through divorce and remarriage.Footnote 67

In CD IV.19–V.9, the ‘builders of the wall’ are accused of having been snared by זנות, a word that refers to prostitution but that can also refer to other types of sexual infidelity. The opponents were snared by זנות because they had taken ‘two wives/women in their lifetimes’ (IV.21). The third person masculine plural suffix (‘their’) is ambiguous, whether the lifetimes of the men involved (censuring polygamy, remarriage after divorce and/or remarriage after widowhood), of the women involved (by attracting the plural suffix ‘their’ into a masculine form; censuring polygyny and/or marrying a second woman while the divorced wife remained alive) or of a husband and wife (prohibiting polygamy and/or remarriage after divorce). The warning in multiple places against remarriage, especially 4QDf III.10–15, militates against a targeting of polygamy.

Remarriage is the most likely concern of CD IV.20–1. A Jewish man’s marrying another woman after divorce was far more frequent than having multiple wives at the same time. The latter practice was typically only among the wealthy or royalty (e.g., the Herodians).Footnote 68 The text does not say ‘simultaneously’ as one would expect were only polygyny in view.Footnote 69 ‘In their lifetimes’ indicates that more is at issue.Footnote 70 Had only polygyny been in view, the phrase ‘during their lives’ would have been unnecessary.Footnote 71 The Qumran community was emulating priestly holiness with the prohibition of remarriage (Lev 21.7, 13–14). With Elledge: ‘[The Qumran scrolls] exhibit a clear and strong trajectory of the utmost concern for the endangerments posed by remarriage.’Footnote 72 In idealising the avoidance of divorce and remarriage, the Roman univira traditions are not, then, unique in antiquity, although univira traditions often go further in idealising also the avoidance of remarriage for widows.

5. New Testament Considerations

The most common objection to one-spouse traditions as illumining the Pastorals’ language is that: ‘Nowhere in the NT is there an unambiguous prohibition against second marriages, either for Christians in general or for church leaders in particular.’Footnote 73 This objection overlooks several elements in the NT witness. In Mark 10.9, Jesus makes the absolute (and countercultural!) claim that anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and the same applies if the wife divorces her husband and marries another. Luke 16.18 categorically claims that to divorce a wife and marry another woman is to commit adultery, and to marry a divorced woman is to commit adultery. Paul in Rom 7.2–3 constructs an argument based on the premise that a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives, and only if he is dead is she released from him. To marry another man would result in her being called an adulteress.Footnote 74 First Corinthians 7.10–11 requires the wife to remain with her husband but, if she leaves, she is not to marry another. She may remain single or be reconciled to her former husband. In 1 Cor 7.39, a wife is bound to her husband as long as she lives and free to marry another in the Lord only after the husband dies. Matthew 5.32’s exception clause serves only to exonerate a man for divorcing a wife who is already adulterous, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 19.9 may offer an exception to the prohibition of remarriage: ‘Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.’ Some well-regarded Matthean commentators are of the opinion that the exception clause, sandwiched between two verbs, only governs the verb for divorce, thus permitting divorce but not remarriage.Footnote 75 Specialists in historical Jesus research have concluded that one may be as certain as is possible in the discipline that Jesus treated all remarriage as categorically adulterous, relying on multiple criteria, whether or not also relying on the Two-Source Hypothesis.Footnote 76 For E. P. Sanders, the common denominator throughout these traditions is the prohibition against remarriage as authentic Jesus tradition.Footnote 77 The one-spouse traditions in antiquity render such a position comprehensible.

Some have appealed to the Apostle Paul’s assertion that a woman is ‘not bound’ in 1 Cor 7.15, but this passage does not mention remarriage. The language is, more precisely, ‘not enslaved’ (δουλόω), a departure from the ‘bound’ (δέω) language Paul employs for marital ties (Rom 7.1–3; 1 Cor 7.39). In context, a spouse is not ‘enslaved’ to the apostle’s repeated admonitions to maintain the marriage. As the Lord explicitly commands (7.10–11), the divorced are to remain single or be reconciled to their spouses.

Further, even when the Apostle Paul explicitly provides for a woman to marry again after the death of her spouse in 1 Cor 7.39–40, he still prefers that she remain a widow. Just because the ‘remarriage [of widows] is not prohibited in the Pauline churches’ does not mean that it is the preferred state for those who wish to serve the Lord more fully.Footnote 78 Paul explains in 7.32–5 that the married are not focused fully on the Lord, but also on each other. He prefers widows and widowers to remain single, as he is (1 Cor 7.8-9).Footnote 79 The NT’s labelling the remarriage of the divorced as adultery, and Paul’s preference for widows to remain single in the service of the Lord offer a potential approach to the Pastorals’ ‘one-wife’/‘one-husband’ passages. Those serving in church offices or widows receiving support and serving as examples for the younger women should be people who have had or have one spouse but no more. This requirement does not conflict with the anti-ascetic tone of the Pastoral Epistles in confronting those who denigrate marriage (1 Tim 4.1–5), since marriage, children and family are all upheld (1 Tim 2.15; 5.9–10, 14; Titus 2.4–5), even if requiring a single marriage for ‘real’ widows and male church office holders.Footnote 80 Page objects to a requirement for a single marriage since ‘the remarriage interpretation assumes that higher expectations were made of church leaders than of other members of the believing community’, but such a requirement is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10.6–9 that one man and one woman in marriage is to be lifelong – for all Christ-believers, and the single state is to be preferred for all widows and widowers (1 Cor 7.8–9, 39–40).Footnote 81 A one-spouse requirement for church leaders would be at odds with the Pastoral listing of attributes expected not just of leaders but of all Christ-believers. Church leaders and ‘real’ widows would thus be exemplary for all Christians in their single marriages.Footnote 82

Such a position is clearly countercultural in view of the pressures to remarry in the early Empire.Footnote 83 The teaching of Jesus motivated a seismic shift that is then reflected in the ante-Nicene witness. Hermas will express grave qualms about even a widow’s remarrying, requiring an angelic revelation in response (Hermas, 4.4.1–2). The marriage of the divorced is not even an option, only repentance.Footnote 84

6. Excluding Widows Twice-Over from the List of ‘Real Widows’?

The most frequent objection to a limitation of church leaders and ‘real’ widows to a single marriage is the admonition to younger widows in 1 Tim 5.14 to remarry. A second marriage would disqualify them later in life from being counted among the ‘one-man’ ‘real’ widows of 1 Tim 5.8, if one takes the phrase in that manner. The author would be requiring them to become ‘two (or more)-husband women’.Footnote 85

This command may be for a sub-group of younger widows who have taken a ‘pledge’ (πίστις; v. 12) not to remarry, thus dedicating themselves to Christ. The author would not, then, be counselling younger widows in general not to remarry, only those in this sub-group in danger of departing from that original pledge.Footnote 86 Often unnoticed is the fact that it is not younger widows who are being urged to remarry but rather younger women who are urged to marry in v. 14 (νεωτέρας). This may or may not include the ‘young widows’ (νεωτέρας χήρας) mentioned in v. 11 – although it most likely does.

A pledge for younger widows is not a likely resolution of this problem. Πίστις bears overlapping meanings in the Pastoral Epistles, all of which revolve around a relationship with God based on belief and the active practice of that faith.Footnote 87 This pledge is these women’s ‘first’ (πρῶτος), but a pledge to widowhood would be subsequent to the pledge to follow Christ. The passage offers no indication of duties for this group.Footnote 88 The earliest evidence for an ‘order’ of widows is much later (Didasc. 14–15). The concern of the passage is to limit the number of widows receiving financial support.

A χήρα may refer to a woman who has devoted herself to the Lord upon conversion by not marrying (the first pledge; Ignatius, Smyrn. 13.1; cf. 1 Cor 7.25–32), which would resolve the potential tension with the one-spouse requirement.Footnote 89 With John Barclay: ‘Although γαμεῖν (5.14) can mean “remarry” (cf. 1 Cor 7.39), the instructions of this verse give the impression that these are all first-time activities (not, e.g., bearing more children).’Footnote 90 ‘The text does not say explicitly that these women may want to marry for a second time.’Footnote 91 These women are thus not active in any household network labours (5.13) but likely reside in varying households for support.Footnote 92 Virgin-widows would overstress the church’s support system, and so they should marry (for the first time).Footnote 93 Such instructions do not conflict with the requirement that ‘real widows’ to be enrolled (καταλέγω) have married only once (5.9). Although the required double compensation for male church leaders (5.17–18) may call into question the notion that the community cannot support its widows (whether virgins or those having been married), Lyn Kidson explains that the never-married ‘widows’ would require of the church the provision of a dowry for marriage, which is prohibitively costly.Footnote 94

The admonition for younger χήραι to marry suggests that the unusual expression of the ‘one-husband woman’ refers to those older widows who have not remarried (note the parallelism).Footnote 95 Even if the virgin-widow proposal is deemed questionable, the potential conflict between vv. 9 and 14 resolves itself with the recognition that this passage ultimately concerns the requirement to support ‘real’ widows, the neediest, women defined as lacking family or other support (μεμονωμένη; 5.5).Footnote 96 Family members bear the primary responsibility (5.4), to the point that it is a denial of the faith not to help widows in one’s family (5.8).Footnote 97 In v. 9 only a widow over sixty years old, who has been the wife of one husband and known for her good works, is to be supported financially. The discussion closes in v. 16 with how a believing woman’s support of a widow relieves the church from the need to support that person. The need to support widows financially, primarily by family members, frames the discussion.

A much older widow is typically unable to marry again.Footnote 98 A widow who has married into another man’s family is financially better off than the widow of only one husband. If married more than once, the widow is much more likely to have children, multiple family networks, and/or a dowry for her support.Footnote 99 The question in 1 Tim 5, then, is which widows are to be supported financially, and the response is to limit the church’s aid to those economically most vulnerable. Even were the passage referring to younger widows, their remarrying avoids inclusion later on the list of ‘real’ widows who need support.

7. Conclusion

The ‘one-wife husband’ or the ‘one-husband wife’ is not the most intuitive means of expressing merely a spouse’s faithfulness. The grammatical stress on ‘one’ as opposed to more than one defies a limitation of the phrase’s meaning to faithfulness.Footnote 100 Advocates of spousal faithfulness have underestimated the extent of the one-spouse traditions and the need to place the recognisable ‘husband of one wife’ and ‘wife of one husband’ within the Pastorals’ audience’s own cultural setting. One-spouse ideals in antiquity entailed faithfulness to a spouse, including observable behaviours and personal qualities that are ‘above reproach’ (ἀνεπίλημπτον; 1 Tim 3.2), ‘worthy of respect’ (σέμνους; 1 Tim 3.8), and ‘blameless’ (ἀνέγκλητος; Titus 1.6).

One-spouse traditions offer the closest parallels in language, a coherent approach to the Pastoral Epistles consistent across passages, and dovetails with, if not explains, early Christian appropriation of these texts. Influenced, even if indirectly, by the one-spouse ideal and by Paul’s perspective, the Pastorals are requiring the male officeholder to be ‘the husband of one wife’, faithful and devoted to a single woman, likely even after her death. ‘Real’ widows receiving support are to have been faithful and devoted to one man. The immediate post-apostolic generations’ emphasis on one marriage, proscribing remarriage after divorce, often even after a spouse’s death, reflects the NT witness.Footnote 101 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.Footnote 102

Competing interests

The author declares none.

References

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).