Wives & Widows

AMC SAID:
Steve,

Your post makes a lot of sense to me and was entirely accepted without reservation until yesterday, when I happened to read 1 Timothy 5 (my church is preaching through 1 Tim at the moment).

What is going on in verses 11 and 12?

" 11As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. 12Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge."

It looks as though it refers to a class of people (in this case some widows) who made some pledge not to marry and who, if they do, are breaching that pledge and bringing judgment upon themselves.

If this is what it is talking about - and I'd be grateful for your comments - then it would seem to be a counterexample to a general proposition that it is immoral to vow not to marry.

3/14/2010 3:54 PM

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/03/vow-of-celibacy.html#8741238055126943098

That’s a tricky passage to interpret. This is due in part to the fact that the passage contains a couple of semantic ambiguities. Also because Paul presumes some insider knowledge of what’s going on. The original recipients would be privy to his allusions. By contrast, a modern reader has to reconstruct the background from the context as well as parallel passages in other Pauline epistles. So the correct interpretation is somewhat conjectural.

1. The word kataspreniao is a hapax legomenon. It apparently denotes sexual promiscuity.

2. Pistis could either denote “faith” or some sort of commitment (e.g. “pledge,” “vow”).

3. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that a vow to refrain from remarriage is in view:

i) The passage doesn’t sanction a vow of celibacy for younger widows. Quite the contrary, it prohibits a vow of celibacy because their youthful libido and eligibility will tempt them to break the vow.

Put another way, the point of the passage is not that it is licit for younger widows to take a vow of celibacy, but illicit for them to break their vow. Rather, the point of the passage is that it is illicit for younger widows to take such a vow in the first place.

So, if we construe the passage as having reference to a vow of celibacy, then it direct undercuts the Catholic position.

ii) In addition, what it would make it illicit to break such a vow (continuing with this interpretation), is not the vow, per se, but the fact that widows took this vow in exchange for financial support from the church. This is not a vow they made to God. Rather, that’s a contract. They forgo remarriage to perform some service or another for the church in return for the church’s financial assistance.

4. However, this isn’t the most likely interpretation:

i) Pistis generally denotes “faith” (e.g. 5:8).

ii) If the word denoted a vow, then it would carry that same denotation in reference to younger and older widows alike. However, older widows wouldn’t have much occasion to take a vow of celibacy inasmuch as poor, aging widows wouldn’t be all that eligible for remarriage in the first place.

iii) What the passage more likely envisions is that younger widows were tempted to abandon their former religious affiliation (i.e. Christianity) by getting married to a pagan (cf. 1 Cor 7:39). It was a cultural expectation that the wife would adopt the religion of her husband.

For detailed exegesis, cf. I. H. Marshall, Pastoral Epistles (T&T Clark 1999), 598-601; P. Towner, The Letters of Timothy and Titus (Eerdmans 2006), 349-52; B. Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows (Eerdmans 2003), chap. 7.