Video Transcript: Women in the Pauline Churches

We've just looked at some basic questions about house churches. So now let's turn our  attention to women in the Pauline churches. I say Pauline churches because that's where we  have the evidence from Paul's letters. But of course, you have to widen that perspective. Paul  is not the only missionary. You know, there are a bunch of missionaries moving around the the Mediterranean world, and they just didn't leave good letters that people saved, that was the  difference. So we're looking at the Pauline churches here. And first of all, I want to make the  point that that this is not something totally unique. There are other religious groups who are  meeting informally, we know about some of them. And the Jews are another case where they  didn't have a big enough community to have a big building as a synagogue. But there are  other groups as well. That would meet in in small groups in private houses. We have a case  actually demonstrated to us from the eastern edge of the Roman Empire in a place called  Dura Europa, in what is today in eastern Syria, along the Euphrates River. And it was the  besieged and destroyed by the Parthians, in 256, CE in order to create a siege wall, before the destruction when when the siege was beginning, they filled in with dirt, the rooms that were  against the eastern wall, so that they would have a solid siege protection. It didn't work, the  city was destroyed, was covered. It was rediscovered in the early 1900s. And excavated. And  along the same city streets, you would say like walking down a block or two of a city was a  Christian house church, a Jewish synagogue and an assembly of the Persian god Mithras. So  not right, not contiguous, not side by side, but in the stretch of about a block and a half. So  that gives us some sense of the fact that there were other small religious groups that were  meeting. In the same way. Remember, when I was showing the house of Diana at Ostia, I also  said in that one corner, there was a meeting of followers of Mithras, who left their remains. So the Christian house churches are part of a pattern of religious interests, religious groups,  informal groups that are organizing. And in the case of Mithras, most of the evidence  indicates that it was strictly a male cult, or only men soldiers, very popular with soldiers. But  all the others, of course, were mixed with men and women and, and the Christian groups as  well. So who attends these meetings? I talked a little bit about that before, but there are two  different patterns, whole families and individuals. And Acts gives us the pattern of whole  families. And you have two examples of that the horse houses Cornelius and at Caesarea. In  Acts 10, the whole household is baptized together. And the story of the jailer in Philippi, the  miraculous jailbreak and the jailer is about to kill himself and they say, Paul says, no, no, no  we're all okay. And he takes them into his house in the middle of the night and, and their  wounds get treated and and they preach to them and everybody gets baptized the whole  household. So, you have two models there of complete households. And in those cases, if that was widespread, it could be in a rather large extended household that they would constitute  themselves house church or in smaller groups that the whole assembly the whole familia,  though See, remember I said that that family can mean everybody who lives in one building,  and one residence that they would all go to somebody else's house as part of their house  church that it's flexible. But time and again, the evidence is that people are making their own  decisions about this independently from their household's unit. I think the ideal was the whole household. And when we get to talking about the household codes a little later, we'll go back  to that. But the evidence is of a mixed family groups. There are members of families that  make their own commitments. I Corinthians 7, Paul talks about wives and husbands who one  of them is a member of the community and the other isn't. And what if the unbeliever doesn't  want to live with the believer, okay, then let them separate. So he's talking about a divorce.  We try to hedge that and say, well, he's only talking about a legal separation, they didn't have such a thing as a legal separation, either you were together or you were divorced, He's talking about divorce. But if the unbeliever is willing to live with the believer, then keep the marriage  together. So there you've got an instance of a couple that are different. In I Peter 2, there's  also an admonition to wives, to be obedient to their husbands, how do you know wife that you might not convert your husband by doing this? So we're talking about Christian wives there  with unbelieving husbands. There is a fascinating discussion by Tertullian in the second  century, in his one of his treatises, to his wife, to Tertullian was married. And he wrote Two  Treatises to his wife, which are not private letters to his wife, their public documents, but he's, he's addressing her. And, and his whole argument is against remarriage, that if he dies, first 

that that she shouldn't remarry, especially, she should not remarry an unbeliever, because  what will happen? If she does, oh, my goodness, when and the details are fascinating, when  it's time for it's a day, for her to fast, he'll schedule a banquet, when she should be going out  to the assembly, he'll have urgent business that she has to do. When it's time for her to be in  mourning for a death of a family member, he'll want to have party at home. It's detail after  detail there of how by that time, Christian customs were growing different from other people's customs. So again, it's a it's a hypothesis, it's an assumption that a Christian wife could marry a non Christian husband. And in the third century, in, in the Apostolic tradition of Hyppolytus,  we have some legislation about slaves who want to join the community. What, what's the  prerequisite for that? And it says, Well, if it's a slave, who is a member of a Christian  household, all you need is a testimony of the slave holder. To that so so there, you've got a  Christian household, but a slave in the household is not Christian. But then it goes on to say, if the household says if the owner of the slave is not a Christian, then well you should testify  about this and this and this. So then you've got the supposition that that an enslaved person  from a pagan household can become a Christian. So these are examples of how we know that  it wasn't smooth. It wasn't that whole, always the whole families were there together. But  rather than that, it was quite different. So in a typical meeting of a house church, you  probably had, folks you probably had whole families whole famelias that is members of the  household, which include the slaves and maybe the free persons as well. And, and you would  have other people coming from households that were not completely Christian, but they are  members of so quite a complicated group. We know of some hosts of house churches. Priscilla and Aquilla, Prisca and Aquila. She's sometimes called Priscilla. Priscilla is a diminutive of  Prisca like Kathy for Kathleen or Catherine. And, and the the interesting thing is that that we  have testimony of there being both in Ephesus and in Rome, which has led the emphasis  references in Romans 16, which has led some to think that Romans chapter 16 was really  written to Ephesus and not to Rome, I don't go along with that but It would explain that that  discrepancy. Otherwise they simply traveled, they moved Acts says that their business was  leatherwork. And perhaps they they moved and Acts 18 says that they left Rome, they were in Rome, and they left Rome with the Edict of Claudius, that the Jews had to leave Rome, the  Jews were expelled from Rome, which, as a historical event is highly dubious. Because there's  so little reference to it, there's one reference in Tacitus. And this in Acts, and maybe some  Jews left Rome at that point but certainly all of them didn't. But anyway, that's Acts  explanation of how they got to, to Ephesus. So in both cases, Paul refers to an ecclesia, that is in their oikias in their their house. So we know that they were people who gave hospitality to  meetings of house churches that had the kinds of activities that that we've already looked at,  that we've already talked about. Phoebe is in Cenchrea. Cenchrea is one of the seaports of  Corinth. It's the eastern seaport of Corinth. And we were going to talk about Phoebe later on  as as patron and as diakonos. But here, let's just mention her as someone who did give  hospitality to Paul himself, and to, therefore, presumably, to the meeting of a house church.  And I should say that we don't know for sure how many people would belong to one of these  house churches, I said that it would depend on the size of the parts of the house. My estimate is certainly no more than 50 for a particular house church. And when you have a place like  Corinth and greater Corinth, which would include Cenchrea, the eastern seaboard and  Lechaio, on which is the North Sea port, you could talk about a whole series, a whole group of  house churches, and how did they communicate with each other. And that's the whole  question of leadership that we'll talk about later leadership and communication. But in a large place like that, or certainly in Rome, or in Ephesus, you need to imagine a number of smaller  groups that are in communication with each other, we hope, but they don't meet together.  Except maybe once in a while. Paul makes one allusion to the whole church when the whole  church gathers together, and that would presumably be all of the the house churches coming  together, in which case, they would rent a big place a hall or something for this. And by the  way, they certainly did not hide. They were not hiding from authorities, they were doing what  they did. And there were plenty of other religious groups that did as well, on occasion here  and there. There's some persecution of other religious groups as well, not only of Christians,  when the authorities got a little too, too suspicious of them, but for the most part, they're 

exercising their their religion quite openly and the neighbors certainly know all about it. So  we'll talk a little bit about that later, too about persecution. And the third one here is  Nymphas and Colossi in Colossians 4:15. She a there's just a reference to her as hosting a  house church in Colossi and Colossi was quite close to a couple of the other cities as well. We  know about missionary couples oh and there was something sorry I'm going to go back  because there was something else I wanted to say here under who attends who attends the  house church. There's there's some possibility that people could wander in and that it could  be someone who's invited your neighbors kind of interested in it and so well come and you  can attend a meeting or there is a possibility that people could just simply walk in. And the  reason the reason I say that is that it was the custom when you held any kind of like a dinner  a formal dinner or something like that in the house, to keep the front door open. So that  people walking by could see what was going on, could see that there was nothing dangerous  going on evil, you know that it was quite innocent. And someone could then just wander in.  And you need to look here at I Corinthians 14:24 where Paul is arguing that if people speak in  tongues, there must be interpretation. And he says otherwise, how would the outsider who  comes in know what you're talking about? And the word he used there is idiotes which does  not mean idiot. It means a non expert. It means someone outsider is a good example of  someone who is not with it, not part of the group. And, and, you know, that suggests that that there were people present who were not regular members of the group, once in a while, at  least. I'm going back now. So we have missionary couples, and just speak of two of them,  Prisca and Aquilla, who are well known if you're if you're reading Acts, and you're reading the  Pauline letters, and Acts says that Aquilla that, that Aquilla is Jewish, and he came from  Pontus, which is north Turkey, North northern Asian minor. And they had this leather working  trade and Prisca. Now, these are also possibly freedpersons, because both have aristocratic  Roman names, and for sure, they are not Roman aristocrats. The Priscus family, and Aquilla is  also a it's an elite Roman name. And the way other people acquired those names was from  being freed by Romans who had those names. So it's quite possible that that they also are  freedpersons, Andronicus and Junia, and in Romans 16:7, Andronicus is a Greek name, but  Junia is a Latin name. And it's possible, again, that she was a freedperson, and I've mentioned them before. But I will, again, that the best reading of that passage is that they are among a  larger group of people who are known as apostles with an apostle then I mean we have, we  have the one understanding of the 12 apostles, but that's Luke basically who puts that in,  constructs that. But Paul talks about Apostles in a wider sense. And, and I think his  understanding apostles are people who are full time missionaries, people who are involved in  evangelization. And he says that Andronicus and Junia are well known in that group. So I think we have two cases there of missionary couples. And then I just wanted to say a word about  Phoebe the diakonos and prostatis, well I'll keep coming back to Phoebe. But her name is  Greek. And she is undoubtedly a householder in Canchrea. We don't know what her business  is. But it's quite possible, it's likely that she is the carrier of Paul's letter to Rome. Because of  the way he says, I commend to you, he's writing to the Romans, I commend to you Phoebe,  who is the diakonos and prostatis, and he's introducing her. So in the fact that he calls her a  prostatis This is a patron This is patronage language, and we'll talk more about that later. But  it means that he's recognizing her as exercising patronage for him. And that puts them in an  in an interesting relationship because certainly as as the apostle, he has patronage to  exercise for her. So it's a kind of a reciprocal thing. Phoebe to me is the, the woman that we  know frustratingly little about, and yet probably more than we do about any other of the the  women in Paul's churches. And she stands out as, as someone who practiced agency who led  in the way that she could and has just an interesting relationship with Paul and with so many  others. There are people to be pursued later