The life and work of St. Paul

THE FIBS? EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. 653
After this double digression he expresses his wish that the men l should
pray in every place, " uplifting holy hands, 2 without wrath and doubting ;
that women, with shamefastuess and sobriety, should adorn themselves, not
with plaits of hair, and gold or pearls, or costly raiment, but, in accordance
with their Gospel profession, with good works." Let them be silent and
submissive, not obtrusive and didactic. This rule he supports by the
narrative of the Fall, as illustrative of generic differences between the sexes, 3
adding, however, that in spite of the greater liability to deception and sin,
woman " shall be saved through motherhood, if they abide in faith and love
and sanctification with sober-mindedness." *
The third chapter passes into the qualifications for office in the Church.
It is introduced by a sort of Christian aphorism, " Faithful is the saying, If
any man desires the office of the pastorate, 8 he desires a good work." The
qualifications on which St. Paul insists are irreproachableness, faithful
6 domestic life, soberness, sobennindedness, decorousness, hospitable disposition,
and aptitude to teach. He who is quarrelsome over wine, given to
blows and covetousness, is unfit. Moderation, peacefulness, indifference to
money, a well-ordered household, grave and obedient children, are signs that a
man may aspire to the sacred work ; but he 7 must not be a neophyte, that he
1 TOVS avSpas (ii. 8).
2 The ancient attitude of pra7er (Bingham, Antiq. nil. 8, 10 ; Ps. xxiv. 4 ; xxvi. 6) ;
of. Tennyson " For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a bliiid life within the brain,
If knowing God they lift not Jumds of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend f"
8 This is quite independent of, yet exactly analogous to, his reasoning in 1 Oor. xl.
S, 9 (cf. 2 Cor. xi. 3 Wisd. xxv. ; 24).
4
ii. 8 15. It Will be seen that he is here looking at the question from a wholly
different point of view to that in 1 Cor. vii., which applies not to the whole sex, but to
a chosen few. So, too, in the previous verses, he is considering concrete fact*, not the
abstract abolition of all sexual distinctions in Christ (Gal. iii. 28). The ^ Tewtyoviti is
probably not specific ("the child-bearing" i.e., the Incarnation surely a most obscure
allusion), but generic i.e., a holy married life, with the bearing and training of children,
is, as a rule, the appointed path for women, and it will end in their salvation, in spite
of their original weakness, if that path be humbly and faithfully pursued. Doubtless
St. Paul was thinking of Gen. iii. 16.
6 To translate this "the office of a bishop" is, as Alford says in his usual incisive
way, "merely laying a trap for misunderstanding." Episcopacy proper was developed
after the death of St. Paul, but before that of St. John, as a bulwark against heresy.
6 I am not persuaded that jjufis ywoucbs avSpa. really implies more than this, with
reference to the prevalence of divorce, &c. The early prejudice against second marriages
naturally inclined the ancient commentators to take it exclusively in one way ; but the
remark of
Chryspstoin, TIJX i/meTpww icwAu'ei, seems to me to be nearest the truth. St. Paul's
opinion was not in the least that of Athenagoras, that a second ' '
marriage is specious
adultery," since in some cases he even recommends it (v. 14; 1 Cor. vii. 39; Rom. vii.,
2, 3), but he would possibly have held -with Hermas (Pastor, ii. 4), that though a second
marriage is no sin, it is a better and nobler thing to avoid it. It is as Gregory of
Naziauzus
" "
says, a concession Orat.
(