Mutual Submission Frames the Household Codes
Craig S. Keener
Half of a book I wrote in 1992 dealt with mutual submission in
Ephesians’ household codes. More recently, a PhD student here
at Asbury Theological Seminary, Murray Vasser, has defended
an excellent dissertation arguing for mutual submission in
Colossians,1 and I have discovered something related to the
same mutuality pattern while writing a commentary on 1 Peter.2
Neither Colossians nor 1 Peter is as explicit as Eph 5:21–6:9, but
the collocation of such passages, all among mid-first-century
Christians (on my dating), suggests that early Christians were
on the more progressive edge of gender relationships in their
world. (My implied ethical subtext is that we should be also,
within biblical constraints. But my focus in this article is the raw
material that I believe leads to that conclusion.)
Scholars often note that Paul (or, on some other scholars’
view, one of Paul’s disciples) adapts the contemporary literary
form of household codes, following even the overall structure in
place since Aristotle.3 More surprising are the adaptations Paul
makes. Such adaptations include addressing not only the male
householder but also the wife, children, and slaves; instructions
to the husband to love; and the grammatically clear linkage of
submission with not only wives but all believers in 5:21–22. Paul
also relativizes the slaveholder’s authority in 6:5–9.
Most significantly, Paul frames the household codes with
mutual submission in 5:21 and 6:9. Although some ancient
writers (such as Xenophon of Athens or Musonius Rufus, a
first-century AD Stoic philosopher) were more “progressive”
and interested in mutuality than were others, I know of no
other household codes in antiquity that frame their discussion
with mutual submission. This raises the questions of why Paul
adopts the household-code framework to begin with, and why
he adapts it in light of Christian teaching (stemming from Jesus)
on servanthood. Similar adaptations appear in Colossians and 1
Peter, suggesting a dynamic in early Christianity that differs from
most of its contemporaries.
Mutual Submission Frames Ephesians 5:21–6:94
The Slave Narratives are replete with sentiments from former
slaves who loved Jesus but hated Paul, because slaveholders
regularly quoted Eph 6:5: “Slaves, obey your masters.” What the
slaveholders did not bother to quote was the context, which goes
on to admonish, “Slaveholders, do the same things to slaves”
(6:9). That is, if slaves have to obey their masters, masters also
must obey their slaves.
Did anyone in the first century take Paul literally on that
point? Probably not. But that does not change the fact that what
he actually said expressed one of the most radically antislavery
sentiments of his day. He was not talking about violently
overthrowing the institution; even the failed slave revolts of his
era had never attempted that. But he was talking ethics, and ethics
that went beyond mere theory. Some early Stoic philosophers
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had advocated human equality, but Stoics had backed off from
this and Stoics who could afford it held slaves. Paul and Stoics
concurred in principle: Paul affirmed that slaves and slaveholders
share the same master in heaven (Eph 6:9). But Paul’s instruction,
“Do the same things to them,” goes beyond theory to practice.
This is not an accident, a slip of Paul’s tongue or his scribe’s
pen. Paul frames his entire section of household codes with
mutual submission. What are household codes, you ask? In his
work on governance, the Greek thinker Aristotle had a large
section on family roles. In it, Aristotle instructed the male head
of the household how to rule his wife, children, and slaves.
Subsequent thinkers adopted the same schema, often in the same
sequence. Because Rome was suspicious that minority religious
groups undermined these traditional values, such groups often
labored to reaffirm their belief in such values.
Paul presents a series of household codes in the same sequence
as Aristotle: the relation of the male head of the household (as it
was assumed in his day) to wives, children, and slaves. Paul may
be thinking like the member of a minority religious group—after
all, he is writing from Roman custody, and probably in Rome
(Eph 3:1, 4:1, 6:20).
Yet Paul changes the standard formula. Instead of addressing
only slaveholding men, he also addresses the wives, children,
and slaves, who probably comprised the majority of the church.
(In Paul’s urban congregations, the slaves would have been
household slaves, who had more freedom and, frequently, more
opportunities for manumission than other slaves. Nevertheless,
they were still slaves.) Moreover, he never instructs the male
householder to rule; instead, he is to love his wife, serving her
by offering his life for her (5:25), to avoid provoking his children
(6:4), and to treat slaves as fellow servants of God (6:9).
Most importantly, Paul frames his entire set of instructions
(5:21–6:9) by enjoining mutual submission: submitting to one
another (5:21) and doing the same things to them (6:9). This sets
submission in a new context: the example and teaching of our
Lord, who invited us all to serve one another (Mark 10:42–45; cf.
John 13:14–17, 34–35; Gal 5:13–14).
Some patriarchal husbands today quote Eph 5:22 (“Wives,
submit to your husbands”) out of context, much the way
slaveholders quoted Eph 6:5. But in Greek, there is no verb in
5:22; it simply says, “Wives, to your husbands. . . .” Of course,
Paul is not saying, “Wives, just do to your husbands whatever you
want.” Greek grammar presumes that we will carry over the verb
from the preceding verse, and that verb is “submit.” But because
the verb is carried over from 5:21, it cannot mean something
different than it meant in 5:21. The wife’s submission is merely an
example of mutual submission, as is the husband sacrificing his
life for his wife.
Some object, “But submission is explicit only for the wife!” The
command to love, however, is explicit only for the husband (5:25),
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yet we understand that all Christians should love each another
(5:2). Likewise, all Christians should submit to one another (5:21).
Although Paul is not trying to cover every circumstance, he
offers us a general principle for how we should live: looking out
for one another’s interests, listening to one another, loving others
more than ourselves. Such advice is in keeping with his explicit
teaching elsewhere (e.g., Rom 12:10, 13:8–10, 15:2–3; 1 Cor 13:4–7;
Gal 5:14, 6:2), including in the preceding context (Eph 4:32).
A few other thinkers in antiquity taught some sort of
mutual submission; like Paul, they were among antiquity’s
most progressive thinkers. Four or five centuries before Paul,
Xenophon argued in Oeconomicus for partnership (koinōnia)
between spouses (7.18, 30). Still, Xenophon did not envision
complete mutuality; he contended that nature has suited wives’
bodies better for indoor work and husbands’ for work outdoors
(7.22–23, 30). The husband has more courage (7.25), but both are
equals in memory and self-control (7.26–27). The first-century
Stoic thinker Musonius Rufus viewed women as equal to men in
nature and virtues.5 Although he distinguished their roles,6 he
also often disagreed with the restrictive roles to which his society
had limited women.7 Yet none of these writers thought to frame
household codes with explicit mutual submission, including
even slaves and slaveholders.
More common was the model originally promulgated by
Aristotle himself, simply telling the male householder how to
rule his household;8 the male was by nature superior to and
ruling over the female.9 Against Socrates, he doubted the animal
analogy in arguing for gender equality; lower animals, Aristotle
insisted, do not have households requiring careful management!10
Others appealed to nature to show that males were superior to
females.11 Physical differences were used to justify divergent
social treatment.12
Despite women’s considerable progress in Roman society,
older Greek ideologies continued to influence elite thinking and
writing.13 On one view, women exist only to make men miserable
(Eurip. Or. 605–6); a misogynist might wish that women did not
exist, apart from bearing children (Ps.-Lucian Affairs 38). One
example of tactlessness is a guest denouncing women when
invited to speak at a wedding (Theophr. Char. 12.6). Juvenal
longs for the old days of cave-women, before adultery had been
invented (Sat. 6.7–8).14 Because of their supposed immaturity,
women were often linked with minors, slaves, and the like,15
not least insofar as Socrates or Thales was said to have praised
fortune for not making him a woman, beast, or barbarian,16 a
saying eventually adapted into a Jewish benediction as well.17 I
will not even repeat some of the harsher views about women’s
character here.
And while the Stoic Musonius held friendlier views toward
women, not all Stoics agreed. His predecessor Seneca, a Roman
contemporary of Paul, while allowing that women were capable
of the same virtues as men,18 often portrayed women as unstable
and irrational,19 and a later Stoic emperor could regard a man’s
soul as different from a woman’s.20 In contrast to Epicureans
and Pythagoreans, Stoics had few if any women pupils.21 The
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Stoic egalitarian trend moving beyond Aristotle’s chauvinism
was not meant to disrupt the hierarchical roles already existing
in society.22 Thus “Roman Stoics were egalitarian in theory but
Aristotelian in practice.”23
While later rabbis were more diverse and nuanced in their
views, some first-century Jewish writers in Greek mirrored
classical Athenian prejudices more directly: Philo always portrays
male as superior to female;24 he contends that masculinity is
closer to divinity than femininity is.25 When he praises the
empress Livia, he claims that her training made her virtually
male in her intellect.26 Josephus claims that courts should not
accept the testimony of women because of their instability.27
Commenting on the death of the Levite’s concubine, who was
gang-raped in Judg 19:24–28, Josephus claims that she died from
shame, doubting that her husband would forgive her!28 Josephus
believes that men who heed the folly of women merit judgment,29
and cites approvingly the Essene suspicion of women’s infidelity.30
Aside from such ideology, some men were simply brutal: for
example, to obey the priests and not be defiled, Sulla divorced his
sick and dying wife and had her carried away while she lived.31
Plutarch reports that when Alcibiades’ good wife asked for a
divorce, in response to his behavior with courtesans, he dragged
her home forcibly; she died soon after, while he was away (Alc. 8.3–
4). This was not cruel, Plutarch explains, because the law requires
the wife to go to court precisely so that, if the husband wants
her, he may take her (8.5). Abuse was sometimes sanctioned,32
especially in earlier times,33 though even the “ancients” had
their limits.34 Another man ordered his freedman to beat his
eight-months pregnant wife; she died in childbirth, but he was
not guilty because he grieved and was not seeking her death.35 A
certain man who was found to have killed his wife by throwing
her out the window after a struggle, however, did face death.36
Colossians
Colossians 3:18–4:1 also follows the traditional Aristotelian
outline, addressing wives, children, and slaves, while emphasizing
mutual responsibilities of both. (For that matter, 1 Cor 7:1–5 also
emphasizes mutual, and in that case the same, responsibilities of
both husbands and wives.)
The more concise passage in Colossians begins more abruptly
than its parallel unit in Ephesians. Whereas Eph 5:21’s functional
imperative is really a subordinate participle dependent on the
imperative, “Be filled with the Spirit” in 5:18, Col 3:18 has a
genuine imperative, the connection of which to the invitations
in 3:16–17 is less grammatically explicit: “Wives, submit to your
husbands.” Each of the admonitions in 3:18–21 is stated concisely,
like simple parenesis. They address in immediate succession
wives, then husbands; and children, then fathers. The difference
in admonitions to wives in 3:18 and to children and slaves in 3:20,
22 is nevertheless evident in the different choice of verbs: whereas
wives submit (hupotassō), children and slaves obey (hupakouō).
Only the slave section is expanded beyond brief comment,
which in turn allows fuller observation of Paul’s intention. As in
Ephesians, slaves are called to obey masters not with the masters
PRISCILLA PAPERS | 35/3 | Summer 2021 • 11
themselves in mind, but for Christ (Col 3:22–25). More stark is
the command to masters in Col 4:1, which, as in Eph 6:9, suggests
mutual submission. Most translations say something like,
“Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you
also have a Master in heaven” (NRSV). But that is because Paul’s
instructions here, if taken literally, sound too radical for a firstcentury setting. Literally, Paul says, grant them justice (dikaion)
and equality (isotēta). Through a thorough lexical search of
this language, Vasser has recently shown that isotēs normally
means “equality,” especially in slavery contexts where it typically
contrasts with slavery.37 That is, Paul’s admonition to slaveholders
is on the most radical edge of ancient thinkers on the subject.
1 Peter
In the context of his call for wives to submit (3:1), Peter explicitly
addresses human institutions, such as kingship, slavery, and
patriarchal marriage (2:13). Thus 1 Pet 2:13–14 states: “For the
Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution,
whether of the emperor as supreme or of governors, as sent by
him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do
right” (NRSV).
Peter then addresses slaves in 2:18: “Household slaves, submit
to masters with all respect.” So also wives in 1 Pet 3:1, which he
introduces with the Greek term homoiōs (“likewise,” “in the same
way”). And consider 5:5: “Likewise, you who are younger, submit
to the elders.” Indeed, 5:5 follows an admonition to the elders not
to lord it over the flock but to be examples to them (5:3), treating
their overseeing role as a role for service (5:2).
While supporting submission to governing authorities, Peter
does not fix for all cultures what such institutions must be or look
like. This observation is implicitly recognized by all interpreters
today who do not mandate monarchical government or slavery,
although some prove inconsistent regarding authority structures
in marriage.
Given cultural expectations, it is not surprising that Peter does
not feel a need to repeat the term for submission (2:13, 18; 3:1) here
in the instructions to husbands that also begin with homoiōs; but
he does speak of showing the wife honor, just as believers must
show to rulers and everyone else (2:17). The husband must thus
respect his wife,38 who shares with him the same standing before
God as an heir of resurrection life.
I believe that by “weaker vessel” (3:7) Peter refers to showing
considerateness for the person in the socially weaker position,
hence my translation “the more vulnerable member” (husbands
were often more than a decade their wives’ senior). The socially
weaker member was in greater need of mercy or attention (cf.
1 Cor 12:22).39 Whatever sphere of weakness is specifically in view,
part of the point is that the husband should be sensitive to his wife
(cf. Eph 5:25). This would not exclude the wife seeking to protect
her husband when necessary and possible, but the assumption is
presumably that the wife, being weaker in the sphere(s) in view,
has need for her husband’s considerate attention.
Philosophers often affirmed women’s equality in principle,
though apparently only Epicureans achieved this ideal in
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practice.40 Socrates claimed that a woman’s nature was not
inferior to a man’s (except in strength and intellect!);41 one Cynic
writer more generally denied that women are worse by nature
than men.42 Such “weakness” could mean vulnerability and
might merit protection or invite sympathy.43
Conclusion
The qualifications of ordinary household codes that appear in
Colossians and 1 Peter make all the more likely that Paul did
indeed want his hearers to take seriously his framing the Ephesian
codes with mutual submission. Indeed, even as late as the letter
of Clement of Rome to the Christians of Corinth (written toward
the end of the first century), more than the usual emphasis on
mutuality appears in such discussions.44
Yet applying Paul’s teaching on mutual submission literally
would have been unheard of. That it was rarely attempted,
however, does not make it any less significant. Even today,
husbands and wives and people in other kinds of relationships
often seek our own interests more than those of others (cf. Phil
2:4, 21). What would happen if we took Paul at his word? What
may happen if we actually begin to put mutual submission into
practice?45 Let’s try it and find out.
Notes
I adapted this article from a paper I presented at the Society for
Pentecostal Studies conference, March 19, 2021.
1. Murray Vasser, “Slaves in the Christian Household: The Colossian
and Ephesian Haustafeln in Context” (PhD diss., Asbury Theological
Seminary, 2021).
2. Craig S. Keener, 1 Peter: A Commentary (Baker Academic, 2021).
3. See Arist. Pol. 1.2.1, 1253b; David L. Balch, “Household Codes,”
in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament (Scholars, 1988) 27.
For Greek-speaking Jewish circles, see Josephus Apion 2.201–17; see esp.
Balch, “Household Codes,” 28–29; see also discussion in Craig S. Keener,
Paul, Women & Wives: Marriage & Women’s Ministry in the Letters of
Paul (Baker Academic, 1992; new preface, 2004) ch. 4, where I include
fuller documentation for this section.
4. Here I adapt my blog post from May 2016 (https://craigkeener.
com/mutual-submission-ephesians-521/), emphasizing how 5:21 and
6:9 frame the Ephesian Haustafeln, while filling in information from
my earlier book, Paul, Women & Wives, and some material from ch. 18
of my commentary, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 1 of 4 (Baker
Academic, 2012).
5. On virtues being the same for both, see, e.g., “Musonius Rufus:
The Roman Socrates,” trans. Cora E. Lutz, YCS 10 (1947) 4, p. 44.10–35; 4,
p. 46.31–37; p. 48.1–26; see also Antisthenes (in Diogenes Laertius Lives
6.1.12); Pseudo-Crates Ep. 28; Seneca Y. Dial. 6.17.1; Wayne A. Meeks, The
First Urban Christians: The Social World of Paul the Apostle, 2nd ed. (Yale
University Press, 2003) 23 (noting also a book by Cleanthes in Diogenes
Laertius, Lives 7.175).
6. For role distinctions in expressing virtue, see, e.g., Lutz, “Musonius
Rufus,” 3, p. 40.25–28; cf. Seneca Y. Dial. 6.7.3.
7. He was not egalitarian by modern standards, but in another
setting his understanding might have supported a more fully egalitarian
direction.
8. See Beate Wagner-Hasel, BNP, “Roles: Greece,” 5:742 on Aristotle.
He denied that virtues were the same for both genders, though
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both genders could express virtue; thus, a man displays courage by
commanding, and a woman by obeying (Mary R. Lefkowitz and
Maureen B. Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in
Translation, 4th ed. [Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016] 64, §86).
Stoics would agree in principle with assigning virtue according to each
entity’s appropriate nature (Lutz, “Musonius Rufus,” 4, p. 46, lines 3–4),
though their conclusions differed from Aristotle’s.
9. Arist. Pol. 1.2.12, 1254b.
10. Arist. Pol. 2.2.15, 1264b. Aristotle did derive the husband-wife
relationship from nature and instinct (Arist. N.E. 8.12.7, 1162a); virtues
differed by gender (Arist. Pol. 3.2.10, 1277b). Some advocated marrying
equals but intended this in terms of the same social class (Aesch. Prom.
901–2).
11. Aelian Nat. an. 11.26 (among his analogies is the dragon,
fortunately not ants or bees). Xen. Oec. 7.33 uses the queen bee analogy
for wives staying inside.
12. In Hippocratic writers, see Helen King, BNP, “Gender Roles:
Medicine,” 5:745. Soranus, by contrast, avers that both have analogous
characteristics despite differences in particulars (Gynec. 3. prol. 1–5;
3.12.45). For a survey of medical writers on women, see e.g., Lefkowitz
and Fant, Life, 85–97, 215–34.
13. Although I have drawn my examples from various periods, this
remained true in much Roman literature of the early Empire, such as
the portrayal of mothers (perhaps reacting against new freedoms); e.g.,
in Propertius, Ovid, and Statius. See Barbara K. Gold, “How Women
(Re)Act in Roman Love Poetry: Inhuman She-Wolves and Unhelpful
Mothers in Propertius’ Elegies,” Helios 33/2 (2006) 165–87; Donald
Lateiner, “Procul este parentes: Mothers in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” Helios
33/2 (2006) 189–201; Carole Newlands, “Mothers in Statius’s Poetry:
Sorrows and Surrogates,” Helios 33/2 (2006) 203–26.
14. See Catherine Keane, “Juvenal’s Cave-Woman and the
Programmatics of Satire,” Classical Bulletin 78/1 (2002) 5–20.
15. E.g., Cic. Off. 2.16.55–57; Ael. Arist. Def. Orat. 130, §41D; with
barbarians and uneducated persons in Sen. Dial. 6.7.3; cf. Jewish laws
in m. Suk. 2:8; Hag. 1:1; cf. especially Sipre Num. 39.6.1 (where women,
proselytes and slaves do not belong to Israel proper).
16. Diog. Laert. 1.33. In Plato, see Michael Avi-Yonah, Hellenism
and the East: Contacts and Interrelations from Alexander to the Roman
Conquest (Hebrew University, 1978) 136; Richard N. Longenecker, New
Testament Social Ethics for Today (Eerdmans, 1984) 70.
17. E.g., tos. Ber. 6:18; b. Men. 43b–44a, bar. “Gentile” naturally
replaced “barbarian.” The saying is often noted (e.g., Wayne A. Meeks,
“The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest
Christianity,” HR 13/3 [Feb 1974] 167–68; Joseph Bonsirven, Palestinian
Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ [Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1964] 134;
Eduard Lohse, The New Testament Environment, trans. John E. Steely
[Abingdon, 1976] 150; Marcus Barth, Ephesians, AB 34 [Doubleday,
1974] 2:655–56), although the sentiment is gratitude for the privilege
of observing more commandments, with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza,
In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian
Origins (Crossroad, 1983) 217.
18. Sen. Dial. 6.16.1. Some of his portrayals of women’s virtue may
be designed to support male virtues or challenge male vice (cf. Amanda
Wilcox, “Exemplary Grief: Gender and Virtue in Seneca’s Consolations
to Women,” Helios 33/1 [2006] 73–100).
19. See Gerald B. Lavery, “Never Seen in Public: Seneca and the
Limits of Cosmopolitanism,” Latomus 56/1 (1997) 3–13; cf. J. N. Sevenster,
Paul and Seneca, NovTSup 4 (Brill, 1961) 192–96; Sen. Dial. 6.7.3.
20. As that of children, tyrants, or animals also is (Marc. Aur. 5.11).
The image need not imply a universal; Xenophon thought that Greeks
had better “souls,” i.e., were better equipped for battle, than Persians
(Xen. Anab. 3.1.23). In the mid-second century BCE, Stoics had begun
moving away from their earlier political egalitarianism (Andrew Erskine,
The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action [Cornell University
Press, 1990] 181).
21. Meeks, Urban Christians, 23. (This claim involves disciples, not
aristocratic girls in households where Stoics could be hired to teach.)
22. Wayne A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians, LEC
6 (Westminster, 1986) 60–61 (also noting that the Stoic emphasis on
Stoic wisdom—which only the elite could afford to pay for—supported
hierarchy of a different sort).
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23. Balch, “Household Codes,” 31; see further David L. Balch, Let
Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in I Peter, SBLMS 26 (SBL, 1981)
143–49.
24. Sharon Lea Mattila, “Wisdom, Sense Perception, Nature, and
Philo’s Gender Gradient,” HTR 89/2 (1996) 103–29. Philo may even adapt
grammatical gender to raise male over female (Leslie Baynes, “Philo,
Personification, and the Transformation of Grammatical Gender,”
SPhiloA 14 [2002] 31–47); on his negative use of female terminology, see
also Richard A. Baer Jr., Paul’s Use of the Categories Male and Female,
ALGHJ 3 (Brill, 1970) 65–66. Male is more complete than and superior
to female (Baer, Categories, 41, citing Spec. Laws 1.200–1); female is “an
imperfect male” (Baer, Categories, 41, citing QE 1:7; QG 1:25); and nature
places men before women (Spec. Laws 2.124).
25. Cf. Colleen Conway, “Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of
Alexandria,” JSJ 34/4 (2003) 471–91; Baer, Categories, 55–64.
26. Meeks, Urban Christians, 24, citing Philo Embassy 319–20; on
females becoming more male, see Baer, Categories, 45–49, 69 (esp. 45).
Similarly, Seneca praises his mother for her manliness (Michael Grant,
A Social History of Greece and Rome [Scribner’s, 1992] 34, citing Sen.
Consol. 16), and Porphyry encourages his wife that she can be virtually
male (Porph. Marc. 33.511–16). It is this line of tradition, rather than a
Galilean Jesus, that is echoed in G. Thom. 114.
27. Jos. Ant. 4.219; in later rabbis, see Sipra VDDeho. pq. 7.45.1.1;
Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person?: The Status of Women in the
Mishnah (Oxford University Press, 1992) 120–23 (esp. 122). Elsewhere in
antiquity, see Justinian Inst. 2.10.6 (though contrast Gaius Inst. 2.105);
Gottfried Schiemann, “Intestabilis,” BNP 6:875.
28. Jos. Ant. 5.146–47.
29. E.g., Jos. Ant. 18.252–55.
30. War 2.121.
31. Sulla 35.2; likewise, in 33.3, he ordered Pompey to divorce his wife
and then gave him his daughter, already pregnant by another husband;
she died in childbirth. In a fictitious work, one man, unwilling to accept
the widow’s refusal of his pursuit, raped her (Alciph. Farm. 35 [Epiphyllis
to Amaracinē], 3.37).
32. Not least by Zeus’ example with Hera, hanging her from Olympus
(Apollod. Bib. 2.7.1). Augustine’s mother Monica told wives to endure
such beatings with servility (Aug. Conf. 9.9); Quint. Curt. 8.8.3 portrays
wives having to endure husbands’ beatings as a matter of course (set in
Alexander’s day).
33. E.g., Val. Max. 6.3.9 (where a man cudgeled his wife to death
for drinking wine). A tyrant like Periander (who allegedly killed his
pregnant wife in anger, then slew his concubines for goading him on,
Diog. Laert. 1.94) is exceptional, however; the context shows Periander
ready to kill men no less cheaply. They also knew of the Indian custom
of widow burning (Diod. Sic. 17.91.3; Cic. Tusc. 5.27.78).
34. In the myth in Apollod. Bib. 3.15.1, the Areopagus banished a man
who accidentally killed his wife.
35. Philost. Vit. soph. 2.1.555–56.
36. Tac. Ann. 4.22.
37. Vasser, “Slaves in the Christian Household.”
38. Here mutuality goes beyond even Eph 5:33. Kurt C. Schaefer,
Husband, Wife, Father, Child, Master, Slave: Peter through Roman
Eyes (Wipf & Stock, 2018) 125, views this instruction as reversing
the expectations of Aristotelian codes. At the very least, it suggests
mutuality (see Shively T. J. Smith, Strangers to Family: Diaspora and 1
Peter’s Invention of God’s Households [Baylor University Press, 2016] 79).
39. Ancient political theory often emphasized guarding “the
interests of the weak” (Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric
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of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and
Composition of 1 Corinthians, HUT [J. C. B. Mohr, 1991] 126–27); some
other societies share this principle (John S. Mbiti, African Religions and
Philosophy, 2nd ed. [Heinemann, 1990] 277), though in practice power
often grows selfish.
40. Meeks, “Image of the Androgyne,” 170–73 (esp. 170).
41. Xenophon Symp. 2.9, reporting Socrates’s view (if, as is likely,
gnōmē involves intellect and not simply decisiveness).
42. Pseudo-Crates Ep. 28. Diogenes, though, treats women’s nature as
inferior in some sense in the tradition in Diogenes Laertius Lives 6.2.65.
43. E.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus Rom. Ant. 8.24.4–5; Livy Hist.
34.7.14; Plutarch Rom. Q. 108, Mor. 289E; Quintilian Decl. 272.3–5,
9; 338.8; see note on court petitions above. In Greek mythology, cf.
Cornutus Greek Theology 32, §66.12–15; Mary R. Lefkowitz, Women in
Greek Myth, 2nd ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) 134–35.
44. As I suggested in 1997: see Craig Keener, “Woman and Man,”
1205–15 in Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments, ed.
R. P. Martin and P. H. Davids (InterVarsity, 1997).
45. I am not referring to abusive relationships here. Also, there is
much less mutual submission in the instruction to fathers: children do
need guidance.
CRAIG S. KEENER holds a PhD in NT and Christian
Origins from Duke University as well as MA and
MDiv degrees from Assemblies of God Theological
Seminary. He teaches biblical studies at Asbury
Theological Seminary near Lexington, Kentucky.
Well over a million of his thirty-plus books are in
circulation. His award-winning, popular-level IVP Bible Background
Commentary: New Testament (now in its second edition and available in
several languages) has sold over half a million copies. He is ordained by
the National Baptist Convention, an African-American denomination.
Craig is married to Médine Moussounga Keener, who holds a PhD from
University of Paris 7. Craig and Médine work for ethnic reconciliation in
the U.S. and Africa. Their story together is told in their book, Impossible
Love: The True Story of an African Civil War, Miracles, and Hope Against
All Odds (Chosen Books, 2016).
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