Wives and Husbands

1 Peter 3:1–7

Submission of Wives; Mutuality with Husbands (3:1–7)

3:1

In the same way, wives, submit to your own husbands, so that even if any are disobedient to the message, they may be won without speech through their wives’ behavior.

3:2

This can happen as they observe your pure behavior and respect.

3:3

Don’t let your adornment be merely external, such as braiding your hair, wearing gold, or putting on clothes.

3:4

Instead, let your adornment be the inner person, by the imperishable character of a gracious and quiet spirit, which is what God deems invaluable.

3:5

For this is how the women of the past, who were consecrated to God and placed their expectation in him, used to adorn themselves. They submitted to their own husbands;

3:6

for example, Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him, “My lord.” You have become her children if you do good and are not frightened by any terror.

3:7

In the same way, husbands, live together with your wife, taking into account what you know. Thus treat her as the more vulnerable member, granting her the honor appropriate to a fellow heir of the grace of life. Do this lest your own prayers be hindered!

3:1

As in other ancient household codes (cf. Eph. 5:22–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1), expectations for submission relate not only to slaves but also to wives (though the Christian codes, unlike those of Aristotle, address the slaves and wives as moral agents directly).1 The relation of Peter’s instructions to wives of unbelievers (1 Pet. 3:1–6) to the preceding instructions regarding submission to rulers (2:13–17) and slaves (2:18–25) is made explicit in 3:1 with in the same way (homoiōs).2 All of these instructions exemplify the initial exhortation of 2:13: Submit to every human system for the Lord’s sake. Peter’s motivation is a specifically Christian one. These power relations are human institutions, but for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of witness (most explicit in 3:1) and silencing hostile talk (2:12), believers in these various roles submit.

Other ancient codes of relations, while obviously not grounded in Christian values, also considered instructions to particular parties elements of a larger whole. Unlike Peter, they also often grounded wives’ submission in the intrinsic superiority of the male gender. Thus, for example:

Aristotle (fourth century BCE): “The friendship between husband and wife again is the same as that which prevails between rulers and subjects in an aristocracy; for it is in proportion to excellence, and the better party receives the larger share [of good], whilst each party receives what is appropriate to each.”3

Aelius Aristides (second century CE):

That the master’s (despotēs) role is to command and the servant’s is to obey was a commonplace, used to illustrate other points.4
Thus the wife should be pleased with whatever the husband says; her place is to be “ruled,” and he will command her; she will also seek his help, “as a better person would treat an inferior one.”5
“Then by as much as God is superior and more perfect than man, and the ruler than the private citizen, and the master than the slave and the husband than the wife . . .”6

In ancient ideology, all these forms of submission were linked. Thus, as David Balch points out, “The ‘governors’ mentioned in 1 Peter 2:14 demanded such household relationships, for many of them certainly thought that ‘the house is like a small city,’ that insubordination in one led to insubordination in the other.”7 “Improper rule, e.g., a woman ruling her husband, would corrupt the constitution of the state, as happened in the case of the Spartans.”8 It may be no coincidence that our lengthiest early Christian exhortations for such submission appear in sources addressed to the heart of the empire (Rom. 13:1–7) or, according to the likeliest provenance, from there (Eph. 5:21–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1; 1 Pet. 2:13–3:7).

One must submit to the government for the sake of peace and accept society’s role expectations for the same purpose. But does this submission to authorities legitimize those particular authority structures permanently? In other words, does Peter’s letter prescribe monarchy, slavery, and patriarchal marriage structures?9 Or does he counsel those within such situations? Considering the character of ancient social structures may help readers today who respect Peter’s counsel decide whether they should consider such structures universals or merely culturally conditioned.

A CLOSER LOOK

Marriage Expectations in Greco-Roman Antiquity

While most of the world today shares with Greco-Roman antiquity the custom of monogamous marriage, some expectations for marriage have changed significantly. Indeed, they may vary from one region to another. Even today, in much of the Mediterranean region once dominated by the Roman Empire, cultural expectations differ from typical expectations in, say, most of North America. In traditional Mediterranean areas, one dissertation notes, “Women do not expect companionship from their husbands, but expect men to indulge themselves in their free time.”10

One will note both similarities and differences from many modern Western values in the following, probably partly because women had less of a voice in articulating elite values in antiquity. Christians today generally support chastity and cooperation for both genders, but antiquity tended to emphasize such values particularly for the wife.11

One Latin inscription praises a deceased mother for her “modesty, uprightness, purity, and obedience, wool-working, diligence, and faithfulness.”12 Pliny the Younger praises an “exemplary” wife who lived nearly four decades with her husband “without a quarrel or misunderstanding. She always treated her husband with the greatest respect.”13 One should not divorce an “obedient” wife.14 The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius thanks the gods that he was “blessed with a wife so docile, so affectionate, so unaffected.”15 Pythagorean letters emphasized women’s chastity and modesty and their focus on child-rearing.16

Jewish tradition also valued such traits:

Jubilees (second century BCE): Leah honored Jacob, “and in all of the days which she lived with him he never heard a harsh word from her mouth because she possessed gentleness, peace, uprightness and honor.”17

Sirach (second century BCE): An ashamed (i.e., meek, shy) woman is “a double grace” (an extra blessing);18 but if a wife does not obey (following as one’s hand directs), cut her off.19

Josephus (first century CE): “The Law declares that in everything the wife is worse than the husband. So let her be obedient, not for her harm, but so that she may be governed; for God granted the authority to the husband.”20

Modesty21 and meekness22 were among the chief virtues traditionally expected for women, although these aristocratic ideals had outlived actual practice in much of Roman society (and may sometimes reflect male nostalgia for an idealized past).23 Traditional Roman matrons were portrayed as submissive, supportive, and subservient.24 In traditional Greek values, a shameless, bold woman was bad;25 in earlier Roman times, an aristocratic woman who spoke too arrogantly could be fined,26 and a strict husband might divorce a wife who went to the games without his knowledge.27 Seneca the Elder advised a wife to walk around looking at the ground; if a man greeted her with too much interest, it was better for her to respond rudely than immodestly, and if she must respond to the greeting, she should act confused and blush, so guarding her honor.28

At least some aristocratic women must have proved less docile. In the year 21 CE, a Roman senator protested that (aristocratic) women, corrupted by luxury, “rule our houses, our tribunals, even our armies.”29 Writing in the very early second century CE, Juvenal, whose satirical misogyny30 must have sounded less humorous to Roman matrons, complained that marriage can lead to suicide, for women are always wrangling and complaining and asking for more presents!31 They want to contend with manly strength, though wishing to remain female for its superior joys,32 savagely bickering with husbands in bed.33 Indeed, although the first emperor, Augustus, told men to command their wives as they wished, especially in dressing and behaving modestly, people knew that he himself did not genuinely admonish his wife this way.34

Such practices had declined further in the first century CE,35 yet remained an ideal. Thus Plutarch urges that sensible wives wait silently for their husbands’ fits of rage to subside before comforting them.36

Marriage Roles

The Greek and Roman world carefully defined gender roles,37 especially when children reached maturity.38 Regarding gender roles, Dio Chrysostom believed that “everyone would admit that man is stronger and more fitted to lead. Consequently, to her falls the larger share of the household tasks”; yet this does not make women’s lot more fortunate than men’s.39

Funerary inscriptions appear to attest many happy marriages.40 Yet, despite exceptions for some prominent women, funerary inscriptions also attest that the vast majority of women were honored solely for their roles as mothers, wives, and daughters.41 Although no one will dispute the transcultural importance of such roles, the typical absence of many other features appears striking.

In one fictitious dialogue, workers ask their landlord to let their daughter come spin with the servant women to prevent their shame when she would marry; this would help school her “in propriety and modesty.”42 The wife ruled the domestic sphere (caring for home, children, and, in some homes, servants) as the husband ruled in public;43 some philosophers proposed to instruct women in the virtue of proper household management.44 A classical Greek author could note that husbands chose wives not from lust but for childbearing and childrearing;45 indeed, in classical Athens a bride became a gunē (“woman,” “wife”) only after bearing her first child.46

Jewish women’s roles in Judea were also especially domestic (e.g., cooking and childrearing).47 Concern for household and children should be paramount.48 Thus a wife’s “beauty” involved the ordering of her house (Sir. 26:16), and a rabbi could claim that he would endure a difficult wife so long as she kept him from sin and reared the children.49 Early Diaspora Christians followed the same distinction between public (masculine) and private (feminine) spheres (1 Tim. 5:14, addressing a Hellenistic setting), even though their biblical canon allowed considerably greater freedom (e.g., Gen. 29:9; Prov. 31:16, 20, 24, 31).50

Inscriptions also praise wives who are obedient and sacrificial,51 and numerous texts show us this expectation in ancient sources. The ancient Greek expectation was of the wife’s subordination and submission to her husband;52 a truly prudent wife should “yield in all things” to her husband.53 This was certainly clear in Homer, the most widely recited of Greek poets: Telemachus reminds his mother that he holds the authority in the house and warns her to leave speaking in public to men.54 Aristotle emphasized that the sort of “friendship” a husband and wife share is analogous to that shared by rulers and subjects, appropriate equity requiring the superior party to receive the greater share.55

Xenophon, one of the more progressive authors of the fourth century BCE, praised his wife for obeying even his mere word (adding that she was so skilled in managing the household that she had “a masculine mind”).56 He notes that if a wife misbehaves, it is his own fault if he has not properly instructed her, just as it is the fault of one who tends animals if the animals are poorly trained.57 Hellenistic marriage contracts granted new rights to women, but reflect the older conventional expectations about wives’ restrictive roles in marriage, including the wife’s submissiveness.58 In Philo’s symbolism, male naturally rules female;59 in his ethics, the wife “serves” the husband and the husband-wife relationship is comparable to father-child and slaveholder-slave relationships.60

Disparity in age naturally affected Greek marriages. (This observation is relevant because Greek culture influenced much of urban Anatolia.) Indeed, throughout the Mediterranean world men married women who could be significantly younger,61 and this “must have encouraged a psychological subordination of wife to husband.”62 Younger mothers could be viewed as still somewhat “childish”;63 their husbands would have to put up with new brides’ childish antics until they matured.64 Greek men married around thirty,65 marrying a young woman on average about eighteen,66 but potentially much younger.67

Although the age disparity was not as great as among Greeks,68 similar expectations obtained in Roman society (relevant to 1 Peter’s provenance).69 Among the aristocracy, for whom we have the most information regarding such matters, wives should be knowledgeable enough to encourage their husbands’ opinions, but they were not encouraged to offer their own; “In public they were best seen—nodding in agreement or smiling appreciatively at their husbands’ wit—but not heard.”70 Roman men often looked wistfully to marriages in the “good old days” of the republic or the beginning of the empire.71 Thus Marcus Cato preferred a wife of noble birth to one who was merely rich, because the former cared about her honor and hence would prove more obedient to her husband.72

In the early second century BCE, one critic of women’s advancement warned of a social slippery slope.73 He opined that if the state eased up on women’s subjection, wives would not settle for equality but even become their superiors;74 after all, they had already gone so far as to publicly speak to other women’s husbands.75 Marcus Cato was particularly offended about them speaking in public to other women’s husbands, insisting that they should have made their requests to their husbands at home.76 He could only imagine that these women had come to make their requests in public because they thought they were more attractive to men other than their husbands.77 The opposing side of the debate, however, won out.78

Roman laws changed in the early empire, as wives passed from husbands’ to (nonresident) fathers’ authority.79 Some scholars contend that wifely subordination had even ceased to be the norm among Romans before the imperial period.80 This is true only by way of comparison with earlier practice, however, not in the sense of modern egalitarian marriage.81

A husband “bossed around” by or compliant to his wife or freedpersons remained an object of ridicule.82

A first-century Roman Stoic could insist that a virtuous, philosophically knowledgeable woman serves her husband by her own hands, doing even servants’ work.83

In the early second century, Pliny the Younger praises his wife, noting that her devotion to him confirms her virtue.84

An orator of second-century CE Rome opines that even the backward Cyclopes at least ruled their wives and children.85

A late second-century Stoic emperor praises the gods for an obedient wife.86

Another later Roman writer (albeit writing about earlier times) could present a wife promising to obey her husband.87

One should not divorce an “obedient” wife.88

The ideal may have persisted more fully in the east, where a wife could call a husband “master” much later than this.89 Thus:

Josephus claims that the law of Moses regards women as inferior to men in every respect; the authority belongs to the husband, and the wife should be submissive.90 Heeding the wife can even merit punishment.91

In the late first century, Dio Chrysostom regards it as common knowledge that men are stronger than women and hence more suited to lead.92

Likewise, Plutarch, writing in the late first and early second centuries, advises a wife not to cultivate her own friends or religion, but to accept those of her husband.93 In public male perception, to choose a different religion was to challenge the husband’s honor.94 Wives are praised if they “subordinate themselves to their husbands”; the husband meanwhile ought to control his wife not as one controls property, but as the soul controls the body, to “govern” (archein, “rule”) it lovingly without being enslaved by its desires.95 Plutarch does advocate harmonious consent, but while also insisting on the husband’s leadership.96

In the second century CE, a writer in Asia Minor takes for granted that wives, children, and slaves should obey.97 Aelius Aristides declares that the wife “should be pleased with whatever the husband says; her place is to be ‘ruled,’ and he will command her; she will also seek to be girded by his nature, as a better person would treat an inferior one.”98 The second-century Stoic Hierocles agreed with the dominant perspective in placing wives over domestic and husbands over public activities, but protested against making these distinctions absolute.99 Later still, a Pythagorean writer could contend that the wife should not oppose her husband;100 and Cynic writers (of less certain date) could portray virtuous wives as those who carry out their husbands’ wishes as an unwritten law.101

What is clear is that the confrontation of old and new values created tension.102 Advancements that had occurred could provoke a backlash,103 illustrated most readily by satirical complaints from the early second-century CE satirist Juvenal (as noted above): because women are always complaining and demanding more, marriage may lead to suicide (Sat. 6.30–37); wives contended with husbands violently (6.111–12), and bickered with husbands even in bed (6.268–85).104 These wives order slaves crucified, regardless of their husbands’ sentiments, and change husbands frequently (6.219–24).105

For many, marriage was not just about subordination, of course. Mutual love is common in the sources;106 not only the wife,107 but the husband,108 could demonstrate love for the spouse. Even centuries earlier, progressive Xenophon depicted marriage as sharing and partnership.109 A late first-century Greek author describes a wife as a partner in sharing a husband’s entire life.110 Another progressive first-century author depicts an ideal marriage as “perfect companionship and mutual love,”111 and summons the husband to the same measure of fidelity demanded for the wife.112 A moralist from this period emphasizes that husband and wife should feel that they shared everything;113 the wife must supply “conversation, character, and comradeship.”114

Even a Qumran text warns against disdaining the wife, one’s “closest companion.”115 Unlike many Greek philosophers, many rabbis emphasized husbands’ sexual appreciation for their wives.116 It was said that Rabbi Akiba consulted his wife before accepting an office, and she gave her advice.117 Not everyone agreed with such perspectives. Thus, for Josephus, God punished Adam for being so weak as to have heeded his wife;118 God likewise punished Antipas for listening to a woman’s talk.119 That different rabbis even in a later period retained diverging views is clear: one Babylonian Amora charged hyperbolically that a man “who follows his wife’s counsel will descend into Gehenna,” and another responded with the saying, “If your wife is short, bend down and hear her whisper!”120 Some wives proved ungodly, such as the wife who objected to her husband’s generosity to the poor during famine;121 for such circumstances, however, divorce remained an option.122

Later rabbis insisted that the husband must respect his wife123 (that the reverse was also true goes without saying).124 He could not prevent her from visiting her parents, going to the bathhouse, or visiting the grieving.125 Mutuality is clear in the lists of marital duties, although they are mostly divided by gender and need not indicate equality.126

Yet Jewish women were mostly under the authority of either husbands or fathers.127 Women do not control their lives, early rabbis noted, since they are under others’ dominion.128 A Qumran text reminds the husband that he holds authority over his wife;129 he alone may govern her,130 and he may rule her so she lives the way he wants her to.131 A man governed by his wife would be held miserable.132 Philo opines that wives are under their husbands’ authority and obey their commands,133 and Josephus claims that wives should be submissive since the Jewish law granted the husband the authority over the wife for her good.134 Samaritans also expected wifely obedience.135

That these husbands are disobedient to the message means that they are nonbelievers (2:8; 4:17). Ideally, believers were not supposed to marry nonbelievers (1 Cor. 7:39; cf. 2 Cor. 6:14), but many were converted to their faith after their marriage, or had limited input into whom they married (1 Cor. 7:12–15).136 To some extent, the problem mirrors what Jews sometimes faced where their Diaspora communities were small.137 On the ground, some Jews probably overlooked intermarriage.138 Some sought to whitewash Solomon’s marriage to pagan wives as a proselytizing venture.139

For the most part, however, Jewish people merely rejected intermarriage with varying degrees of vehemence. Even a gentile king had to be circumcised to marry a Jewish princess, though he might apostatize afterward if the marriage failed.140 Although Jewish men’s marriages to gentile women were sometimes viewed as acceptable,141 intermarriage was normally very negative.142 The book of Tobit, for example, emphasizes endogamy within Judaism, as well as within the clan (Tob. 1:9; 6:12; cf. 5:11, 13).143 More dramatically, Jubilees prescribes death for any man who marries off a daughter to gentiles; the daughter should also be burned.144 Jews traditionally regarded intermarriage with pagan women a horrible sin,145 and even Scripture warns against it.146

Gentiles sometimes criticized Jews for their thoroughgoing abstinence from foreign women, viewing it as part of their separatism.147 Jews were more accepting of intermarriage, of course, if the gentile converted;148 some women who married into Israel, accepting Israel’s faith, are presented nobly, whether Ruth, Rahab, or sometimes Tamar.149 Centuries later, Christians in government passed legislation forbidding marriage between Jews and Christians, a union that had long been occurring.150

In 3:1–2, Peter continues to emphasize the role of behavior (anastrophē) in favorable witness, as he did in 2:12 (also 3:16; cf. 1:15, 17–18). Wives’ submission carries on the theme of submission from 2:13–17, already applied to other social subordinates (slaves) in 2:18–20. Insofar as Peter defines submission, it involves respect (3:2), gentleness (3:4), and avoiding attention-getting attire (3:3). Peter underlines the point with an extreme example (further than would usually be expected of Greco-Roman wives) of calling husbands “lord” (3:6). The forms of submission Peter encourages here are ones that would appeal to typical nonbelieving husbands. The wife’s submission to her husband contrasts with the husband being disobedient to the message (3:1). That is, its purpose is to prioritize bringing the nonbelieving partner to submission to Christ.

The message (logos) that the husbands disobey is the gospel, as in 1:23–25 and especially 2:8 (where unbelievers disobey the message). But because logos has a wider semantic range, Peter plays on another sense of it later in the verse.151 Husbands are won not without the gospel, as if they never heard about it even once; otherwise, how would they know the cause of their wives’ honorable behavior? Rather, they are won without152 continuing speech (aneu logou).

The language of “winning” or “gaining” (kerdainō) someone can apply to winning back a believer (Matt. 18:15) and, more relevantly here, to winning new believers (1 Cor. 9:19–22).153 Wives’ nonverbal witness here contrasts with the broader exhortation to be ready to speak (1 Pet. 3:15).154 Slaves and wives were social subordinates who could not as readily initiate conversation on such matters with social superiors, and even in 3:15, believers in general respond to inquiries rather than initiating proclamation directly. Rather than teaching a universal subordination of wives,155 Peter’s exhortation to submission here becomes an expression of mission, of evangelism, in a setting in which verbal evangelism became impossible.156 Peter is even more explicit about this purpose here than in his other exhortations to submission, such as to slaveholders. While Peter may accommodate social expectations for the sake of witness, his ideal of the wife winning her husband to faith differs starkly from Greco-Roman male expectations of the wife sharing her husband’s gods.157

Given ancient marital expectations, the wife’s faith may constitute an apologetic issue both for her husband and for the honor of the larger Christian movement. Husbands expected wives to share the husbands’ religion, not least by participating in the worship of household gods.158 The Greek moralist Plutarch expresses this sentiment, reflecting a traditional concern with cults subverting household order: “A wife ought not to make friends on her own, but to enjoy her husband’s friends in common with him. The gods are the first and most important friends. Wherefore it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods that her husband believes in, and to shut the front door tight upon all queer rituals and outlandish superstitions. For with no god do stealthy and secret rites performed by a woman find any favour.”159

In light of concerns about cults from outside the Greek and Roman sphere subverting family values, the behavior of women in such cults became an apologetic issue. A range of ancient texts reveals “that the lack of submission of wives to their husbands would be a source of slander or blasphemy against Christianity.”160 David Balch explains that public suspicion of minority cults, such as that of Isis,161 focused on “how wives were to relate to husbands. The way Jewish slaves related to their Roman masters was resented. These social situations set important precedents before the rise of Christianity.”162 Romans stereotyped all new, foreign cults as immoral and grew upset when Jewish slaves (and later Christian ones) refused to worship their Roman gods.163

Later sources show that such criticisms continued to apply to Christians. Thus Porphyry attacked Christianity for the faith of Christian women, including especially women who refused to renounce their faith in Christ.164 Women in Porphyry’s time held positions in the church denied them in society, a situation that Porphyry denounced as scandalous.165 Ironically, Porphyry’s accusations essentially invert one non-Christian feminist critique of Christianity today, a critique that is too often based on early Christian texts that were designed to assuage the opposite critique in order to protect a minority faith from persecution.166

While it is easy for armchair professors in stable settings to criticize a persecuted minority’s accommodation to power, in some conditions it is a necessary strategy for survival. As Petrine scholar Shively Smith notes, “1 Peter strategized survival for a scattered population facing real threats of verbal attack, physical harm, and the looming chance of genocide.”167 She further emphasizes that the letter comes “from the underclass for the underclass, not the overlord.” Keeping them alive was itself a pragmatic form of resistance in that setting, one of the only forms viable.168

3:2

Husbands observe their wives’ behavior, here recalling the same verb (epopteuō) in 2:12, its only other use in the NT. Both verses suggest that observing honorable behavior typically leads to conversion or at least respect and honor. Thus it continues the thought of the context by way of a specific example.

The respect here differs from the negative sort of fear,169 which Peter expressly opposes (3:6). Negative fear could characterize an abusive relationship, which Peter certainly would oppose (cf. 3:7).170 Whereas slaves could escape their own situation (apart from the slaveholder’s choice) only by running away or purchasing their freedom, nothing legally forced the wife to stay in an abusive situation.171 In the Greco-Roman world, a wife could escape such an extreme situation by divorcing the husband.172 Thus abuse is not mentioned here, in contrast to its mention with regard to slaves (2:20). Still, a Christian wife’s action could provoke a hostile nonbelieving husband to accuse her to the authorities on whatever charges might seem plausible for suspect Christians,173 making cooperation the most prudent course so long as it remained safe. Here, pure can indicate moral purity; when applied specifically to women, it often focused on sexual chastity.174

Some Stoic thinkers also recommended the strategy of winning over detractors by one’s behavior. If a philosophy student’s father disagrees with philosophy and is not “persuaded by argument,” “yet even then the conduct of his son will win him over if his son is truly putting his philosophy into practice.”175 If your brother is hostile to your philosophic way of life, you “must show yourself to be better and to conquer his cruelty with your good deeds. For it is no great grace to behave decently toward those who are well-disposed, but it is the task of a man and worthy of great approbation to make a crude and stupid person gentle by what you do toward him.”176

3:3

Moralists often commented on adornment, and how women should dress modestly so as not to excite male interest. Standards of beauty were and are culturally relative.177 Thus it was thought that Nubians preferred women as dark as possible, and Persians as light as possible.178 For Greeks and those influenced by them, features of this beauty typically included tall stature,179 white skin180 and golden hair.181 Stoics regarded complexion as a matter of complete indifference, so that neither paler nor darker skin was preferable.182

Cosmetics were widespread,183 often being medicines that doubled as cosmetics.184 Many women had jewels or earrings;185 those with sufficient means could use gold,186 such as a gold ornament hooked to a wire as an earring.187 Women who could afford them had mirrors, heated irons to curl their hair, and the like.188 First-century remains from Pompeii illustrate the common use of jewelry.189 Egyptian mummy portraits often include “jewellery—earrings, necklaces, tiaras made of flowers or precious metals and gems,”190 and finds from Judea reveal that cosmetics were valued there as well.191 Some cultural variations existed; thus Greeks and Romans found to be unusual male earrings and children’s expensive nose rings, practices more common in the east.192 Some intellectuals also criticized the piercing of ears for earrings, as if “it was not enough for jewels to be worn on the hands and neck and hair” without piercing one’s flesh.193

Most rabbis supported wives painting their eyes, rouging themselves, and dressing colorfully around the house to stay attractive to their husbands.194 But some early Jewish tradition attributed eye makeup, ornaments, and colorful dyes to the instruction of fallen angels, leading to more immorality.195 Some Hellenistic Jewish moralists insisted that women were more promiscuous than men, and that they scheme and “then by decking themselves out they lead men’s minds astray.”196 Pious women therefore should not “adorn their heads and their appearances so as to deceive men’s sound minds.”197 Such moralists might reduce a patriarch’s culpability by emphasizing how the pagan women to whom he succumbed decked themselves out.198

Women commonly braided their hair,199 at least sometimes with an alleged interest in enticing men.200 One notoriously lustful male observer insisted that gold and other decorations would not make a woman beautiful without beautifully arranged hair.201 A common first-century Roman matronal hairstyle was braided hair bound at the back of the neck, with many loops of plaited hair hanging from it.202 In much of the eastern Mediterranean world, wives were expected even to cover their heads,203 though some wealthier women preferred to display their lavish hairstyles.204

Elite culture in this period was heavily fashion-conscious.205 Women were thought to deck themselves out with rouged cheeks and the like not simply to impress other women206 but to secure male interest,207 sometimes in a promiscuous manner.208 Seneca the Younger complains about clothing in his own day, clothing that “will conceal nothing” and that affords no “protection to the body” or “to modesty!”209 Women thought to dress immodestly were considered less respectable and more deserving of aggression or accusations.210

Another criticism of excessive adornment was its ostentatious display of luxury rather than simplicity.211 Among marks of a self-controlled, virtuous woman, a Stoic thinker included “not lavish in expense nor extravagant in dress.”212 Some elite writers complained about excessive makeup.213 Many church fathers joined such criticisms, often appealing to 1 Tim. 2:9–10 and/or 1 Pet. 3:3–4, though at least some noted that the ornaments were not immoral per se, but should be avoided because believers should live simply.214

Peter’s disinterest in gold surfaces earlier (1:7, 18). Here he starkly warns against outward adornment such as putting on clothes; pressed literally, his words could entail eschewing not only braids and gold jewelry but also clothing altogether. Given the shame of nakedness, especially among Jews and other eastern peoples,215 and that this would entail much greater immodesty and attention-getting than the practices Peter opposes here, he certainly does not mean that.216 Rather, he urges focusing on the beauty of the heart rather than outer adornment. How many of Peter’s audience would be in danger of wearing gold or expensive adornment? Perhaps not many,217 but these stock features of polemic against extravagance, to which most less financially endowed women would have easily consented, would win them favor in the culture, not least with husbands who preferred to preserve their wives’ beauty privately.

Peter’s emphasis on inner versus outer adornment would have appealed to ancient moralists and those who respected their values.218 Many thinkers recognized that beauty is transient219 and not a woman’s most important trait.220 Some men even contended that ornaments were attempts to compensate for lack of beauty.221 Physical beauty must be augmented by gentleness and other virtues.222 For both genders, thinkers often valued character more than appearance,223 so that the greatest adornment was virtue.224

Many ancient thinkers emphasized inner versus outer adornment, including Pythagoreans:

Pythagoras reportedly taught “married women . . . chastity and obedience to their husbands.”225 This instruction proved so successful “that the married women cast off their gold-embroidered robes and the other finery of their rank as being the promoters of extravagance, . . . thus declaring publicly that the real finery of married women was chastity, not clothes.”226

One Pythagorean saying was, “Do not beget children with a woman wearing gold.”227

A pre-Christian Pythagorean work declares, “As far as adornment of her body is concerned . . . she should be dressed in white, natural, plain. . . . In this way she will avoid being overdressed or luxurious or made-up, and not give other women cause to be uncomfortably envious. She should not wear gold or emeralds at all; these are expensive and arrogant towards other women in the village. She should not apply imported or artificial colouring to her face—with her own natural colouring, by washing only with water, she can ornament herself with modesty.”228

Pseudo-Melissa: “The temperate, freeborn woman must live with her legal husband adorned with modesty, clad in neat, simple, white dress without extravagance or excess. . . . The adornment of a woman who wishes to please only one man, her own husband, is her character and not her clothing. For the freeborn woman must be beautiful to her own husband, not to the men in the neighborhood.”229

Cynics, who eschewed possessions themselves, were not always equally severe with others, but were ready to critique excessive ornaments:

According to tradition, whenever Antisthenes saw a woman “decked out with ornaments,” he told her husband that he had better be able to defend himself.230

Pseudo-Crates: “Do not abstain from the most beautiful ornament, but adorn yourself every day so that you may stand out. The most beautiful ornament is the one that decorates you most beautifully, but the one that decorates you most nobly is the one that makes you decorous, and it is decorum that makes you decorous.”231

Pseudo-Socrates: “And in the same manner those who have destroyed their natural complexion adorn themselves with artificial colors, and those who have lost the true fame that derives from virtue . . . flee to the fame which results from flattery.”232

Compare also some Stoics:

Musonius Rufus: A virtuous woman is herself an adornment to her kin.233

Epictetus: Once girls come of age at fourteen, “when they see that they have nothing else but only to be the bedfellows of men, they begin to beautify themselves. . . . It is worth while for us to take pains, therefore, to make them understand that they are honoured for nothing else but only for appearing modest and self-respecting.”234

And some male thinkers more in line with the Platonic tradition:

Plutarch, regarding “most women”: “When their husbands try forcibly to remove their luxury and extravagance they keep up a continual fight and are very cross; but if they are convinced with the help of reason, they peaceably put aside those things and practise moderation.”235

Porphyry: Some women have adopted “shackles made of gold”—attractive ornaments, but really heavy fetters for the soul.236

Given moralists’ denunciations of luxury and attractive apparel, modest apparel may serve an apologetic function of its own,237 alongside its role in honoring husbands (1 Pet. 3:1–2).238

3:4

Rather than putting on (endusis) costly outward array (3:3), believers should put on, by antithetical implication, virtues of the heart (3:4). This image of putting on virtues fits first-century Christian paraenesis. Just as Peter earlier speaks of putting off the ways of the former life (2:1), he implies putting on virtues here, as Paul does (Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:22–25; Col. 3:8–12).

Inner person is more literally the “hidden person of the heart.” The heart was hidden to outsiders, and thus was associated with what is secret or hidden;239 it offers a ready contrast with outward apparel. Greek thought sometimes defined the soul (cf. 1 Pet. 1:22; 2:11; 4:19) as the “inner person.”240 Although Peter’s Bible (cf., e.g., Gen. 24:16; Song 1:8–10, 14–16; 2:2–3, 13; 4:1, 7) and Jewish tradition241 in no way devalue external beauty, it is fleeting and far less important than beauty of spirit (Prov. 31:30). As always, Peter is interested in what is imperishable (3:4; cf. 1:4, 23), which Greeks often identified with the inner person.242 Outer beauty might become overripe by aging or physical decline, but inner beauty, at least for one born from imperishable seed (1:23), would last forever.

Peter specifies a gracious and quiet spirit. A gracious disposition is appropriate for all believers (3:16),243 and being quiet, also a general virtue (1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:12; 1 Tim. 2:2), is relevant here not least in the context of winning husbands without speech (1 Pet. 3:1). But also, as documented in the excursus on wives’ roles (“Marriage Expectations in Greco-Roman Antiquity”), modesty and meekness were among the chief virtues traditionally expected for women.244 Traditional Roman matrons were portrayed as submissive, supportive, subservient, and sometimes silent.245

Not all women followed the male-designed social conventions for their silence,246 but it was clearly a dominant tradition.247 “Silence,” one gruff warrior in a classical text informs his concubine, “makes a woman beautiful.”248 In much of classical Greece, precautions were taken (at least among the well-to-do who could afford this) to keep women in the private sphere and to keep them from being heard.249 In the early first century CE, Valerius Maximus emphasized that ancestral custom prohibited women from speaking in a public meeting, with only the rarest of exceptions.250 Granted, he mentions some women who pleaded cases before magistrates despite Roman custom,251 but he does so precisely because it was unusual,252 and offers only three examples.253

By the late first or early second century CE, Plutarch insists that a wife ought to reserve her speaking for her husband, or through him.254 Pliny the Younger praises his young wife for enjoying his readings—as she sits privately behind a curtain.255 A virtuous woman in a possibly third-century CE novel prefers that the man accompanying her do the speaking, “for I think it proper for a woman to be silent, and for a man to make answer, before a company of men.”256 Conventional “wisdom” opined that women’s words were untrustworthy.257 Judean tradition opposed men engaging in unnecessary conversation with women, to guard against unchastity258 or folly.259 Some even applied this rule to speaking with one’s own wife.260

Gracious (praüs; “meek, gentle”) overlaps in semantic range with epieikēs, a description of the kinder slaveholders, in 2:18. It also overlaps with the expectation for all believers in 3:8 (tapeinophrōn). “Meekness” (evident in a broad cluster of terms) was a fitting designation for leaders who used their power mercifully.261 God could turn a king’s heart toward such gentleness (LXX Esther 15:8). Although often expressed in different words, a sort of meekness also was considered appropriate feminine behavior in its day.262 Although in some cases spirit with terms for gentleness may signify the activity of God’s Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 4:21; Gal. 5:22; 6:1),263 here Peter probably refers instead to an attitude or emotion, a familiar use of the term spirit (pneuma) in Hellenistic Jewish literature.264

In contrast to gold array (3:3), internal beauty is what God counts as invaluable (polutelēs).265 One might compare Prov. 31:10: a courageous and strong wife is more valuable (polutelēs) than jewels.266 This term also describes God’s chosen cornerstone in the LXX of Isa. 28:16, although Peter omits it in his quotation of that verse in 1 Pet. 2:6.

3:5–6

Jewish tradition often appealed to the ancient matriarchs as models of virtue.267 Note that the examples Peter offers here are not examples of abusive relationships, in contrast to the example offered to slaves. Unlike most slaves, wives in the Greco-Roman world did have the option of leaving a marriage268—though normally they would have to give up any children (cf. 1 Cor. 7:14).269

Peter naturally appeals to the side of the evidence needed to make his point, here that the matriarchs were submissive to their husbands, as he urges Christian wives of nonbelievers to be in 3:1. Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him “lord” (3:6; cf. LXX Gen. 18:12), following cultural conventions in which wives sometimes called their husbands “lord.” Although Sarah speaks thus of her husband once in Genesis, some later Jewish tradition recalled and multiplied the title.270

Nor was the address limited to Sarah. For example:

In ancient Israel, a husband could be called “master.”271

Virgil speaks of a husband as “lord”;272 Dido could serve Aeneas as her husband.273

In one novel, Anthia, grateful to see her beloved, calls him “husband and master.”274

Later rabbis could depict Eve regularly calling Adam “My Master,” even before the fall.275

Such respectful titles also appear for others of superior social rank, including in families.276 It could be used even by a father addressing a son of higher rank socially.277 Even such a title did not always guarantee respectful or submissive speech.278 Apart from the title, and perhaps providing a parallel to accommodating nonbelieving husbands in these instances, Sarah also apparently accommodated some of Abraham’s problematic requests (Gen. 12:13; 20:2)279 (though these situations were probably dangerous either way).

What Peter does not mention, since it is not germane to his point, is that Genesis explicitly recounts also that Abraham obeyed or complied with Sarah’s words (Gen. 16:2,280 5–6), once at God’s command (21:12)!281 (This example would be more relevant in the counsel to husbands in 1 Pet. 3:7, which suggests, in language less provocative for an ancient audience, that they also accommodate their wives.) The examples need not logically demonstrate that all wives must obey their husbands or speak of them with honorable titles, but they do at least entail that this behavior is a virtuous option, which might be Peter’s point in the citation.

Being explicit on Abraham heeding Sarah, however, would hardly help Christian wives to commend themselves to non-Christian husbands. Insofar as we may gather from how Philo and Josephus sidestep or reinterpret Genesis’s depiction of the couple’s relationship,282 however, it seems clear that by the first century Jewish tradition had idealized the relationship in ways more amenable to their frequent Hellenistic context. For Philo and Josephus, Adam heeding his wife justifies God’s judgment on him;283 though decrying abuse, both insist that wives should obey their husbands.284 Philo thus allegorizes Sarah’s obedience,285 distances her from normal womanhood,286 or changes or omits such offensive features.287 When Josephus recounts the action of Gen. 16:2, he omits Sarah’s initiative.288

Ancients often spoke of people who walked in ancestors’ ways as their “children,” speaking of figurative or spiritual descendants as well as genetic ones.289 (Ancients often employed fictive kinship terminology in an honorary manner,290 sometimes in direct address,291 sometimes for teachers and their disciples,292 benefactors,293 generals,294 rulers,295 including Rome’s emperor,296 and senators.)297 Thus one could attribute fictitious negative ancestry to someone who behaved badly;298 when people did not act like their ancestors, others could deny that they were genuine descendants in what mattered.299 Descent from Abraham was no different; thus courageous Jewish martyrs, for example, were deemed children of Abraham (4 Macc. 9:21; 15:28; 17:6; 18:23). Israelites were children of Abraham and Sarah (Isa. 51:2).

Here Peter’s addressees are Sarah’s children if they do good (3:6 [cf. Isa. 51:1–2, a “rock” passage]); or perhaps their doing good may be simply assumed, given their status as Sarah’s children.300 (All believers are Sarah’s children in Gal. 4:31,301 a context in which they are also born from the Spirit [4:29], as in 1 Peter.) The motif of doing good runs through 1 Peter (2:14–15, 20; 3:6, 17; 4:19); for Peter, submitting to husbands constitutes one example of doing good. Jewish tradition often appealed to Sarah, extolling her beauty302 and normally viewing her respectfully.303 How does not being frightened relate to Sarah’s example? Perhaps it means being motivated internally, rather than by fear of punishment, in contrast to those who conform behavior to such norms (see 1 Pet. 3:13–14; cf. 1 John 4:18). Certainly Peter thinks here of fear in a negative sense (1 Pet. 3:14), not merely of respect (2:18; 3:16; here esp. 3:2) or awe of the Lord (1:17; 2:17).

Some thinkers expected wives to fear their husbands,304 but most ancient philosophers would have appreciated Peter’s discouragement of fear. When questioned by a tyrant, one philosopher allegedly summarized his philosophic lifestyle as being “able to converse with all men without fear and anxiety.”305 Stoics in particular emphasized tranquility and lack of internal disturbance;306 the ideal wise person was tranquil.307 Truth liberates from error and fear and hence provides tranquility in the soul.308 Epicureans claimed to establish peace of mind by banishing superstition and fear of death.309 Many thinkers claimed that the fear of death was irrational,310 including Stoics311 and Epicureans.312

Most people felt that women in general, despite notable exceptions,313 were more prone to fear and less prone to courage than men.314 But one Stoic explains that a woman trained in philosophy will not “be intimidated by anyone because he is of noble birth, or powerful, or wealthy, no, not even if he be the tyrant of her city.”315 Pointing out the courage of a dancing girl doing perilous acrobatics with swords, Socrates reportedly insisted that such courage can be taught, since even a woman could do this.316

Peter’s basis for not fearing, however, is not philosophy but Isa. 8:12–13, which he will quote in 1 Pet. 3:14. Isaiah 8:12 warns Isaiah not to fear what they fear or be troubled; Peter blends this contextual allusion with exact wording from LXX Prov. 3:25: “Do not fear terror.”317 Like some philosophers, however, he would differ from some other ancient marital ideals, such as are expressed in one Roman poet. Catullus insisted that the wife should be happy at home “even till hoary old age, shaking a trembling head,” and nodding “assent to all for all.”318 Peter might believe that under ordinary circumstances (in v. 14 he shows his awareness that not all circumstances are ordinary), one who acts honorably need not act fearful of (ordinary) benevolent authorities. But his point in verse 14, and thus likely also here, is that even if they prove unjust,319 it is Christ (v. 15), not mortals, whom we fear. In view of ancient usage of the terminology, “fear attributes to the object greater relative power,” here believers are to deny this power to the other.320

3:7

As Peter elaborates the general Christian practice of submission to authorities (2:13–14) with respect to slaves (2:18) and wives of nonbelievers (3:1: homoiōs, “in the same way”), so he elaborates a sort of submission or humility (cf. 5:5) now with respect to husbands (3:7, homoiōs, “in the same way”). He may elaborate more briefly because Christian husbands were fewer than Christian wives, a situation that obtained in Judaism.321 (This disparity seems likely, since he seems to take for granted that the husbands’ wives are believers [3:7].) Or he may do so because he assumed that husbands, in the socially less difficult position, required less encouragement or instruction.

Despite ancient social hierarchy emphasized in household codes, enough thinkers spoke of a degree of mutuality for it to be intelligible to an ancient audience.322 Sometimes it appears mere sympathy:

In the late first or early second century CE, Plutarch insists that if women “subordinate themselves to their husbands, they are commended, but if they want to have control, they cut a sorrier figure than the subjects of their control. And control ought to be exercised by the man over the woman, not as the owner has control of a piece of property, but, as the soul controls the body, by entering into her feelings and being knit to her through goodwill.”323

Still, Plutarch does encourage mutual honor, at least to the extent of avoiding infidelity:

A husband and wife show honor to one another.324 His attitude affects her behavior, so he should “show no greater respect325 for anybody than for his wife, seeing that their chamber is bound to be for her a school of orderly behaviour or of wantonness.”326

Some other thinkers allowed for more complementarity.

Four or five centuries before Peter, Xenophon argues in Oeconomicus for partnership (koinōnia) between spouses (7.18, 30), yet he also contends 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).327

The first-century Stoic thinker Musonius Rufus viewed women as equal to men in nature and virtues,328 though their roles were different;329 yet he also often disagreed with the restrictive roles to which his society had limited women.330

The later Neoplatonist Porphyry made Marcella his “partner” (koinōnon) in life when he married her.331

Sentences of Sextus, a second-century, mildly ascetic but possibly Christian work, suggests, “If you respect your wife, you will keep her respect.”332

Some early Christians appear in this progressive stream, and some may have gone beyond it. Ephesians, for example, frames the household codes with a call to mutual submission (5:21; 6:9). Peter explicitly addresses human institutions (2:13);333 while supporting submission to these, he does not fix for all cultures what such institutions must be or look like.

Given cultural expectations, it is not surprising that Peter does not repeat the term for submission (2:13, 18; 3:1) here; 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,334 who shares with him the same standing before God as an heir of resurrection life. Scholars often speak of women’s public honor in ancient Mediterranean society in terms of “shame” or modesty.335 Privately, women probably related to one another more in terms of “mutual confidence” rather than agonistic competition,336 and women could exercise considerable influence in the home.337 Nevertheless, ancient society attributed greater honor to men than to women.338 Honoring one’s wife here is a particular expression of honoring all (2:17), which in turn expresses the respectful behavior expected of all believers of either gender (cf. 2:13–18).

What does Peter mean by treating the wife as (literally) “the weaker vessel”? The term “vessel” is skeuos (which can also mean “object” or “thing”), which I render here as member (in the sense of “member of the family”). The term has a wide range of meaning, including, for example, people who are divine instruments (Acts 9:15; 2 Cor. 4:7) or, in figurative contexts regarding pottery, people God honors or endures (Rom. 9:21–23; 2 Tim. 2:20–21).339 Some commentators believe that, in 1 Thess. 4:4, “vessel” refers to the wife;340 others believe that it refers to the husband’s own body.341 Sometimes “vessel” can refer to the wife in later rabbinic sources,342 but a range of sources uses the image (using various terminology) for the human body.343 If Paul refers to the body in 1 Thess. 4, that passage does not provide direct background for this one. Peter may thus use skeuos in a generic sense as an object to which to attach the adjective “weaker.”

I believe that by “weaker vessel” he refers to showing considerateness for the person in the socially weaker position, hence my translation the more vulnerable member. (Keep in mind the excursus “Marriage Expectations in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” regarding women’s roles, and that Hellenized 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).344 Whatever sphere of weakness is specifically in view, it appears that 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 special need for her husband’s considerate attention.

Nevertheless, a range of options for understanding “weaker” exists; certainly most men viewed wives as weaker in various respects, so I offer a wider range of sources below. Some appealed to nature to show that males were superior to females.345 Physical differences were used to justify divergent social treatment.346 Not all allowed such distinctions to be thoroughgoing; for example, though hunting was traditionally a male role, some men allowed that Artemis had gifted some women for it.347 Normally, however, for a man to be shown up by a woman was considered shameful.348 Women were held to be weaker physically,349 emotionally,350 intellectually,351 and socially.352 (I sample some of these passages in the excursus “Women’s ‘Weakness’ in Ancient Sources.”) Female “weakness” explained, for example, why one first-century woman could not attend court.353 Such “weakness” could mean vulnerability, and might merit protection or invite sympathy.354

Philosophers often affirmed women’s equality in principle, though apparently only Epicureans achieved this ideal in practice.355 Socrates claimed that a woman’s nature was not inferior to a man’s except in strength and intellect;356 a Cynic writer more generally denies that women are worse by nature than men.357

A CLOSER LOOK

Women’s “Weakness” in Ancient Sources

Men usually viewed women in general as weaker; they were the “weaker gender.”358 Many men in antiquity did note (and often marvel at) individual exceptions, which, when added up, are many. Nevertheless, they were the minority, and many women then, like many people in general, filled the social roles assigned to them.359 Even Plato, allowing for some superior women and being more sympathetic to women than were many of his contemporaries, thought that most “were less valuable, ‘imperfect men,’ of less strength.”360

As Roman historian Jane Gardner notes, the idea of “women’s supposed weakness of judgment or, more generally, weakness of their sex (imbecillitas sexus) . . . possibly deriving from Greek philosophy,” gained credence from their exclusion from many public activities, which was then circularly justified by their weakness.361

Some spoke of women’s average tendency to be physically weaker than men.362

The first-century Stoic Musonius Rufus: Women are physically weaker by nature and hence in general tend toward traditional women’s roles;363 but most work is equally for both genders,364 though men are by nature more fitted, in general, for hard labor and women for weaker things like spinning.365

Others, however, focused on alleged cognitive or leadership weaknesses.

Cicero (first century BCE): “Our ancestors have willed that all women, because of their lack of judgement,366 should be under the power of guardians.”367

Valerius Maximus (early first century CE): “Women . . . are encouraged by their mental infirmity368 and the denial of opportunity for serious work to put all their efforts into the refining of their personal adornment.”369

Dio Chrysostom (late first or early second century CE): Compare men and women: “Now everyone would admit that man is stronger and more fitted to lead. . . . Every man whose weakness and lack of virility have led him to emulate their life . . . is to this day branded with the shame of it.”370

Still others combined some physical and intellectual weakness.371

Socrates comments, “Woman’s nature is really not a whit inferior to man’s, except in its lack of judgment and physical strength.”372

Livy, writing in the very early Roman imperial period: “Women and children also helped beyond their powers of mind and body.”373

Some supposed women emotionally and/or morally weaker.

The fifth-century BCE dramatist Aeschylus opines that to be weak in implementing punishment could be viewed as “playing the woman.”374

The pre-Christian Roman statesman Cato warns that women are of weak natures,375 and if one lets them do what they will, they act in license.376

Philodemus, a first-century BCE Epicurean: Women do not easily accept criticism because “they are too impulsive and too vain and too fond of their [reputation],” and believe their weakness should “be pitied and that they meet with pardon and not be intentionally ridiculed by those who are stronger,” and thus they come to “tears, believing that they are being reproved out of contempt.”377

A first-century BCE historian claims that Augustus failed to inform his mother of his plans, lest she prevent him on account of her womanly and motherly concern and weakness.378

An early first-century CE senator complains, “Not only is the sex feeble and unequal to hardship, but, when it has liberty, it is spiteful, intriguing and greedy of power.”379

The pre-Christian, Hellenistic Jewish Letter of Aristeas: “The female sex are rash and energetic in pursuing their desires and fickle through fallacious reasoning.”380

The Hellenistic Jewish source 4 Maccabees: “For mothers are weaker in their being than fathers, and the more children they bear, so much the more do they love their children.”381

Josephus, in the late first century CE, speaks of women’s characteristic “levity and audacity,” such that it makes them unfit as witnesses.382

Some others envisioned women using a different kind of strength, exploiting men through men’s passions.383 While men often looked down on alleged feminine weakness, such weakness was often viewed as inviting assistance, mercy, or compassion, appropriate to a milieu where women were generally more vulnerable, certainly socially and often physically.

Aeschylus reports suppliant women’s hopes that others will show compassion toward their weakness;384 they plead that a woman alone is powerless, is nothing, unable to fight.385

Plutarch: “Women by reason of their weakness need many protectors.”386

Quintilian: The woman’s case deserves more help, “both because a woman is a weak thing and because the fact that she has lost a husband adds no small weight to her natural infirmity”;387 nature joined males “to females so that the weaker sex gain support from the mutual partnership.”388

Letter of Aristeas: One can live peacefully with one’s wife by recognizing women’s rashness, fickleness, and weakness, and so dealing “with them sanely, and not, by opposing them, provoke quarrel.”389

Most couples naturally valued marital harmony.390 A later Jewish story attributed fights and feuds in homes to a particular demon,391 and early Christians also surely viewed such strife as demonic (cf. 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 2:10–11; Eph. 4:26–27; 1 Pet. 5:8).

As God chose believers kata prognōsin, “according to foreknowledge” (1 Pet. 1:2), so husbands, limited to knowledge of the present, should love their wives according to knowledge (kata gnōsin). This could mean knowledge of their wives personally,392 of their wives’ status as the weaker vessel, or of the principles that invite them to treat their wives rightly. Since “as a weaker vessel” immediately follows the phrase, it could refer to recognizing women’s weaker position.393 Alternatively, it could depend on the knowledge that Peter goes on to provide:394 they are fellow heirs, thus children of God equal in his sight. The grammar allows both rationales.395

As a child born from God, she, no less than her husband, is an heir (3:7) of the eschatological inheritance (1:4; 3:9),396 the eschatological grace of salvation (1:10, 13).397 This is the grace that involves life, inaugurated for believers by Jesus’s resurrection and consummated eschatologically at their own (1:3, 23; 2:24; 4:6).

Failure to deal graciously with his sister in Christ would hinder the husband’s prayers (3:7), a dangerous situation in view of the eschatological urgency that demanded prayer (4:7). Jesus, who urged that his followers bless even those who curse them, taught that unforgiveness could hinder prayers (Mark 11:24–25);398 Paul recognized that unforgiveness played into Satan’s schemes (2 Cor. 2:10–11). Peter explains his own reasoning by quoting Ps. 34:12–16 (LXX 33:13–17) in 3:10–12: the Lord hears the prayers of those who seek peace, who avoid speaking evil or deceitfully, but God refuses to hear the prayers of the wicked. Dealing graciously with a spouse is part of righteousness. Other passages suggest the same demand: God attends to the prayers of those who keep covenant with him (e.g., Prov. 15:8, 29; 28:9; cf. Gen. 4:4–7).399 Peter’s choice of passages is clear here, however; he has already begun quoting from Ps. 34 (LXX 33) in 1 Pet. 2:3.

1. Cf. also Jobes, Peter, 185 (contrasting also Xenophon, Oec. 7–10), 203.

2. Such language could be used in analogies in ethical argumentation, e.g., Arius Didymus, Epit. 2.7.7d, p. 46.26–28; 2.7.11m, p. 88.10–11. Achtemeier (Peter, 209) sees submission here as explaining how wives fulfill honoring all (2:17).

3. Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.11.4, 1161a (trans. Rackham, LCL, 19:495).

4. Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 128, §40D.

5. Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 129, §41D (trans. Behr, LCL, 1:357).

6. Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 130, §41D (trans. Behr, LCL, 1:357).

7. Balch, Wives, 94.

8. Balch, Wives, 117. Aristotle’s followers preserved these ideas, which were detailed by the Stoic Arius Didymus but widely known, and were used by Philo even as an interpretive grid for the biblical Decalogue.

9. Though Peter in 3:1–6 explicitly addresses only wives of unbelievers in any case.

10. Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 48; also Pizzuto-Pomaco, Shame, 41.

11. One should note, however, that Peter twice mentions submission to wives “own” husbands (3:1, 5); “there is no question of a general subordination of women to men” (Selwyn, Peter, 106).

12. CIL 6.10230 (trans. Sherk, Empire, §184, p. 242).

13. Pliny Y., Ep. 8.5.1 (trans. Radice, LCL, 2:11). His affection for her seems genuine (8.5.3).

14. Quintilian, Decl. 327.5.

15. Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 1.17.7 (trans. Haines, LCL, p. 23). The lexicon defines the Greek term here translated “docile” as “obedient,” used, for example, of a horse to reins.

16. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 82, comparing 1 Tim. 2:9; Titus 2:4–5; 1 Pet. 3:3–4; 1 Clem. 1:3; 21:7; Polycarp, Phil. 4:2. On pp. 83–85 he quotes Pseudo-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta; and Pseudo-Theano, Letter to Eubule.

17. Jub. 36:23 (trans. Wintermute, OTP 2:125).

18. Sir. 26:15.

19. Sir. 25:26.

20. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.201 (AT); cf., more gently, Thackeray, LCL, 1:373.

21. E.g., Thucydides, Hist. 2.45.2; Lysias, Or. 3.6, §97; Demosthenes, Meid. 79; Aristocr. 141; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 7.1.1 (pudicitia); Lucan, Civ. W. 2.360; Plutarch, Bride 17, Mor. 140C; cf. self-control in Sent. Sextus 237. A respectable matron was ashamed to go by herself among men (Homer, Od. 18.184). Cf. even in the novels (Wiersma, “Heroines”). In Alciphron, Fish. 4 (Cymothoüs to Tritonis), 1.4, ¶3, modesty includes staying home with the husband rather than being with elite women; in Aelian, Let. Farm. 9 (Chremes to Parmenon), a hardworking farmer complains that even courtesans pretend coyness. For ancient valuing of modesty, see Winter, Wives, 101–2; cf. female shame in Delaney, “Seeds,” 40.

22. Certainly in the classical era—e.g., Aeschylus, Suppl. 202–3; Xenophon, Lac. 1.3 (most Greek city-states, except Sparta in 1.4); an inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, p. 11, §22; also Pomeroy, Goddesses, 74; Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise, 165; for gentleness, see, e.g., Jub. 36:23. Also expected in Hellenistic marriage contracts (Verner, Household, 65); cf. also later rabbis (Gen. Rab. 18:2).

23. I greatly condense the rest of this material from Keener, Acts, 1:597–638.

24. Hallett, “Role,” 241–42.

25. So Homer, Od. 19.91 (on Melantho’s cruelty). Later rabbis felt that a husband not angry with such a wife was a sinner (Num. Rab. 9:12).

26. Aulus Gellius, Att. 10.6. In the early empire, the perception of Agrippina the Elder’s arrogance and ambition would prove fatal (Tacitus, Ann. 4.12).

27. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.3.12. For the ancient prejudice against “‘headstrong and arrogant’ women,” see Winter, Wives, 65–66.

28. Seneca E., Controv. 2.7.3. Spartan boys also displayed modesty by looking at the ground (Xenophon, Lac. 3.4).

29. Tacitus, Ann. 3.33 (trans. Church and Brodribb, 120), warning of their susceptibility to corruption.

30. Some contend that he satirizes misogyny itself (Watson, “Flight”); in any case, his depiction is unrelenting and extreme.

31. Juvenal, Sat. 4.30–37 (trans. Ramsay, LCL, pp. 85–87). “Better a boy-bedfellow than they!” he exclaims, and then mocks that as well. He is not against all women; he praises the chaste, hard-working, humble wives of the past (6.286–305).

32. Juvenal, Sat. 6.246–67. For the idea of feminine pleasures, cf. the myth of Tiresias in Hesiod, Melam. 3 (from Scholiast on Homer, Od. 10.494; Hesiod, LCL, pp. 268–69); Ovid, Metam. 3.316–38; Lucian, Dial. D. 445 (9/28, Menippus and Tiresias 1).

33. Juvenal, Sat. 6.268–85.

34. Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 54.16.4–5. Cicero’s wife was not meek, but acted with noble demeanor (Plutarch, Cic. 20.2). Galen’s mother was ill-tempered, shouting and fighting (Toner, Culture, 168).

35. See Winter, Wives, passim.

36. Plutarch, Bride 37, Mor. 143C; cf. 1 Sam. 25:36–37.

37. Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece”; Stahlmann, “Roles: Rome”; cf. Keener, “Marriage,” 687–91. Even when comedy inverted such roles, it played on them (James, “Constructions”).

38. Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 740; age seven in Rome (Stahlmann, “Roles: Rome,” 743). Cf. the strong differentiation in rearing boys and girls (including girls’ obedience) among the Garrese in Sicily in Giovannini, “Chastity,” 67.

39. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.70 (trans. Cohoon, LCL, 1:137).

40. Balsdon, “Women,” 31. Although Romans often viewed marriage as unhappy, a happier perspective of mutual affection grew from the late republic into the empire (Stahlmann, “Roles: Rome”). Unhappy marriages are the majority in some societies (e.g., Schapera, Life, 277).

41. See Kleiner, “Women”; e.g., CIL 6.10230 (= ILS 8394; FIRA 3.70) (Sherk, Empire, §184, p. 242); cf. Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 133–47.

42. Alciphron, Farm. 39 (Dryades to Melionē), 3.41, ¶2 (trans. Benner and Fobes, LCL, p. 147).

43. With, e.g., Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741; cf. Winter, Wives, 160; Reden, “Work,” 743; earlier, Xenophon, Oec. 7.33, 39. For such domestic activity, see, e.g., the distaff or loom in Prov. 31:19; Homer, Il. 3.126–27; Virgil, Aen. 8.407–15; Ovid, Metam. 4.35; 6.26–145; food preparation in T. Ab. 4:3 B. Xenophon (Oec. 7.17–22) notes that wives do indoor tasks and husbands outdoor tasks, but both are necessary.

44. E.g., Pseudo-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 83); Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.10; 3, p. 42.26; 4, p. 44.14.

45. Xenophon, Mem. 2.2.4. However, we must weigh this with Demosthenes, Neaer. 122: high-class prostitutes are for pleasure, concubines or attendants for daily needs, but wives to bear and rear legitimate offspring.

46. Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741. In some modern Mediterranean cultures, see Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 48, 50–51.

47. Goodman, State, 37; Safrai, “Home,” 761, 764; see esp. m. Ketub. 5:5. For washing, cf. Jeremias, Jerusalem, 18.

48. Perhaps even in LXX adaptation of the Hebrew (so Brayford, “Shame,” though not all concur).

49. b. Yebam. 63ab.

50. The Pastoral Epistles’ social ethics do reflect an explicit apologetic concern (1 Tim. 5:14; 6:1; Titus 2:5, 8, 10); see esp. Padgett, “Rationale.”

51. Horsley, Documents 3, §8, pp. 33–34. Indeed, she was ready to find him another wife when she could not bear (p. 36). Cf. similarly Horsley, Documents 3, §11, p. 40 (although obedience is not explicit here).

52. Cf. the common view of the virtue of wifely obedience in Plato, Meno 71 (in Allen, Philosophy, 98); Quintilian, Decl. 262.8; see further Verner, Household, 30–33. Dibelius and Conzelmann (Pastoral Epistles, 47) cite the New Comedy poet Philemon: “It is a good wife’s duty, O Nikostrate, to be devoted to her husband, but in subordination; a wife who prevails is a great evil.” Spartan women could be viewed as exceptional (Gorgo 5, in Plutarch, S. Sp. Wom., Mor. 240E), but even they obeyed their fathers and husbands (Anonymous 22, in Plutarch, S. Sp. Wom., Mor. 242B).

53. Euripides, Elec. 1052–53 (in this case opposing Clytemnestra killing her husband to avenge his killing of their daughter).

54. Homer, Od. 1.356–59; she complies with his wise saying in 1.360–61. Arthur (“Early Greece,” 15), however, emphasizes the “mutual respect and affection” in the marriage of Telemachus’s parents. Ajax expects his bed partner to obey “in everything” (Sophocles, Ajax 526–28), but in this case she is also his slave.

55. Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.11.4, 1161a.

56. Xenophon, Oec. 10.1. For Aristotle on the husband ruling, see, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 63, §86.

57. Xenophon, Oec. 3.10. She must be taught (3.14–16); once a particular man found his wife teachable (7.10), he began to teach her (7.11–22).

58. Verner, Household, 38, 64–65 (some as late as the first century BCE). “Wives are expected to be domestic, socially retiring, chaste, and submissive to their husbands” (65). Collins (Corinthians, 521) cites first- and second-century BCE marriage contracts, which list first among duties subjection to her husband (P.Giss. 21; P.Tebt. 1.104). She could not spend a night or a day away from home without his consent (P.Tebt. 104.27–28; BGU 1052.25–27).

59. Baer, Categories, 69.

60. Philo, Hypothetica 7.3, 14, as noted by Meeks, “Androgyne,” 177.

61. Girls could marry at thirteen (Ovid, Metam. 9.714); at fifteen (Xenophon, Oec. 7.4–5). Soranus (Gynec. 1.8.33) suggests that fourteen is the natural age for first intercourse (cf. also Nin. Rom. frg. 1, A–3); others considered it an ideal age for beauty (Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 1.2). Palestinian Jewish women apparently married initially between twelve and eighteen (Jeffers, “Families,” 134–35; Chapman, “Marriage,” 186), but men often around eighteen to twenty (m. ʾAbot 5:21; b. Qidd. 29b–30a; Eccl. Rab. 3:2, §3; Lam. Rab. 3:27, §9; cf. Safrai, “Home,” 748); cf. a Diaspora Jewish marriage around the age of twenty-two (CIJ 1:409, §553), but some surely married later (cf. Thornton, “Bachelors”). Girls might be betrothed virtually from birth (Cohen, Law, 297–98), and rabbis ideally wanted them married as soon after puberty as possible (e.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:6; cf. also T. Levi 9:10). Some claimed age fifteen for Assyria (Nin. Rom. frg. 1, A–3) and seven for India (Arrian, Ind. 9.1).

62. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 131.

63. Soranus, Gynec. 2.12.19.

64. Plutarch, Bride 2, Mor. 138D.

65. Hesiod, Op. 695–97; also Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 55. For a younger marriage, see Demosthenes, Boeot. 2.12; not all young women were happy with considerably older men (Alciphron, Farm. 7 [Phoebianē to Anicetus], 1.28; Court. 17 [Leontium to Lamia], 2.2; Eccl. Rab. 11:9, §1). Some appealed to astrology to decide relative ages for marriage (Ptolemy, Tetrab. 4.5.182–83)!

66. Hesiod, Op. 698.

67. See, e.g., Ovid, Metam. 9.714, and other sources above.

68. Some argue that Roman men averaged about five years older than their wives, who usually married between twelve and eighteen (Jeffers, “Families,” 134; Jeffers, World, 238), and that girls usually married “in their early teens” (Ferguson, Backgrounds, 55, and Hopkins, “Age at Marriage,” which he cites; cf., e.g., Quintilian, Inst. pref. 4). Others argue that lower-class Roman women married in their late teens and men in their mid- to late twenties, with a ten-year gap on average (larger among aristocrats) (Shaw, “Age”; for men marrying at twenty-five or later, see Saller, “Age”).

69. Cf. Verner, Household, 33–34. One woman desires to “serve” a husband as her “master” (Virgil, Aen. 4.103, 214); the Roman matron rules the domestic sphere through obedience to her husband (Publilius Syrus, Sent. 108). Valerius Maximus (Mem. 6.7.1) even praises a wife for submissively feigning ignorance of her famous husband’s affair with a slave; Dionysius Cato (Dist. 3.12, 20) criticizes a wife who is uncooperative and unsubmissive.

70. Shelton, Romans, 299.

71. In the first century BCE, Catullus (Carm. 61.154–56) noted that a wife should stay home, nodding her assent to everyone; out of obedience to her parents, she should not strive with her husband (62.59–65). Literally or figuratively, a married woman’s husband (cf. Tibullus, Eleg. 1.2.41, 55–56) is called her dominus, “lord” (Tibullus, Eleg. 1.2.7). Livy (Hist. 34.7.12) claims that in 195 BCE a male speaker argued that wives will remain subject so long as men live, and women themselves prefer it so.

72. Plutarch, M. Cato 20.1. One of his few regrets was trusting his wife with a secret (9.6). Nevertheless, he was said to be kind to his wife (20.1); he thought it terrible for a man to strike his wife, and that it was better “to be a good husband than a great senator” (20.2 [trans. Perrin, LCL, 2:361]).

73. The issue, actually, was restrictions on well-to-do women’s apparel (Livy, Hist. 34.1.2–5; cf. 1 Pet. 3:3).

74. Livy, Hist. 34.3.1–3 (playing on conventional expectations of women’s instability, 34.2.13).

75. Livy, Hist. 34.4.18. Livy (writing shortly before the NT era) indicates that their husbands had ordered them to stay home, but the wives ignored “modesty” (34.1.5).

76. Livy, Hist. 34.2.9; even at home, however, they should leave business to men (34.2.10). Women were not to conduct business without a male guardian (34.2.11), but now, he complains, we have allowed them into the Forum (34.2.11).

77. Livy, Hist. 34.2.10.

78. Livy, Hist. 34.7.1–3.

79. See Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 130–31; also Gardner (Women, 5), who compares sons under their fathers’ authority and notes that not all men would have taken all the power that the law in principle granted.

80. Winter, Wives, 113 (following Treggiari, Marriage, 261). Cf. Carcopino, Life, 84–85 (cf. also 90–95); for upward mobility among aristocrats, Meeks, Urban Christians, 23–24.

81. Certainly we do not read of the public approving of husbands murdering their wives for alcohol consumption in this period (as earlier in Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.3.9), though in at least some regions abuse must have continued (Augustine, Conf. 9.9; y. Ketub. 11:3, §2; cf. the implicit contrast in Plutarch, M. Cato 20.2). We may also suspect that men often did not get their way, given the number of love spells meant to induce women to love men (e.g., PGM 36.69–101, 102–33, 134–60, 187–210, 295–311); some were to lure them from their husbands (PDM 61.197–216 = PGM 61.39–71).

82. Even an emperor (Suetonius, Claud. 25.5).

83. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 42.7–8. Musonius, who may be guarding against anti-egalitarian criticisms, lectured in the same basic era as Luke.

84. Pliny Y., Ep. 4.19.2. He praises a wife who would have been a model even in earlier times, always respecting her husband greatly (Ep. 8.5.1).

85. Maximus of Tyre, Or. 15.7. He praises a wise ancient Greek who knew properly how to “run his household” (25.1).

86. Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 1.17.7.

87. Apuleius, Metam. 5.5. Woman has man over her in Severian of Gabala, Paul. Comm. (NTAbh 15:261; Bray, Corinthians, 107).

88. Quintilian, Decl. 327.5.

89. Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 5.14 (probably second century CE, though perhaps recalling earlier mores in the narrative world).

90. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.200–201.

91. Josephus, Ant. 1.49; 18.255; cf. similarly the emphasis in L.A.E. 26:2.

92. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.70.

93. Plutarch, Bride 19, Mor. 140D. Elliott (Peter, 557) notes also Xenophon, Oec. 7.8; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 2.25.1; Cicero, Leg. 2.8.19–22. Keeping to ancestral religion was a traditional value (cf. Cicero, Inv. 2.22.65–66).

94. Watson, “Peter,” 78, suggesting that wearing jewels would appear further provocation.

95. Plutarch, Bride 33, Mor. 142E (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 2:323). Plutarch criticizes the Persian king for ruling others as slaves but not his own wife, of whom he should have been “master” especially (Plutarch, Uned. R. 2, Mor. 780C).

96. Plutarch, Bride 11, Mor. 139CD. And in this Plutarch, as Garnsey and Saller (Empire, 134) remind us, was more benevolent than many.

97. Artemidorus, Onir. 1.24.

98. Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 129, §41D (trans. Behr, LCL, 1:357). He compares the husband’s superiority to the wife with God’s superiority to mortals, the ruler’s to the citizen’s, and the master’s to the slave’s (130, §41D, undoubtedly in different ways).

99. Hierocles, Household 4.28.21 (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 98–99).

100. Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 11.54.

101. Pseudo-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 83). To ground wifely submission in a general mutual submission of believers, as Ephesians does (5:21–22), was unusual and characterizes a distinctively Christian ethic of servanthood.

102. With, e.g., Verner, Household, 81; Winter, Wives.

103. Cf. the early second-century revival of conservative values in imperial households (Boatwright, “Imperial Women”). Women’s exaltation could cause male complaints even in myth (e.g., Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.8.2).

104. Even some of Juvenal’s authentic examples about women (like women gladiators) are extreme cases (Friedländer, Life, 1:249).

105. For her cruelty to slaves, see also Sat. 6.474–85. In the late republic, Cicero complained that a man who cannot deny his wife anything is no better than a slave (Cicero, Parad. 36).

106. For conjugal love in general, see, e.g., Cicero, Off. 1.17.54; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.6; Philostratus, Her. 11.1; Dixon, Roman Mother, 2–3; CIJ 1:CXVI; particularly moving, Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 12, §26 (despite the formulaic character of epitaphs [e.g., Rawson, “Family,” 26], they can reflect genuine sentiment, as today).

107. For wives’ love, e.g., IG 14 (1890) 1976 (in Horsley, Documents 4, §10, p. 35); Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.12.6; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.6.5; 4.6.ext. 1, 3; Petronius, Sat. 111; CIJ 1:118, §166; 1:137, §195; Horsley, Documents 3, §14, pp. 47–48.

108. For husbands’ love for wives, see, e.g., Homer, Il. 9.341–42; Dionysius Cato, Coll. Dist. 20; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.3.3; 4.6.1–3; Pliny Y., Ep. 8.5.3; Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 18.84; Gr. Anth. 7.340; Ps.-Phoc. 195; b. Yebam. 62b, bar.

109. Xenophon, Oec. 7.18, 30. Xenophon clearly articulated distinct natures for distinct roles (7.16–42 passim), but he seems more progressive than most of his contemporaries. He could emphasize their “partnership” while assigning men outside work and women indoor work (7.30).

110. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.122.

111. Musonius Rufus, 13A, p. 88.17–18; cf. “partnership” and “harmony” in Musonius Rufus, 13B, p. 90.6–8, 13–14.

112. Musonius Rufus, 12, p. 86.33–40; p. 88.1 (arguing on pp. 86.39–87.1 that surely we should not expect men “to be less moral than women” [trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 89]). Porphyry (Marc. 2.21) later claims that he married Marcella to be his “partner,” his sharer in life.

113. Plutarch, Bride 34, Mor. 143A (explaining what he thought the point of Roman law forbidding conjugal gifts).

114. Plutarch, Bride 22, Mor. 141AB. They should avoid all conflicts, but especially on their marriage bed (Bride 39, Mor. 143E).

115. 4Q416 frg. 2 (+ 4Q417), col. 2, line 21 (trans. Wise et al., Scrolls, 384).

116. See Satlow, “Love” (including the one-sided emphasis on the wife’s beauty).

117. y. Peʾah 8:7, §3. For traditions about R. Akiba’s relatively high view of women, see Finkelstein, Akiba, 187–91 (though Akiba allowed for easy divorce). R. Meir also was said to have virtuously heeded his wife’s good counsel (b. Ber. 10a).

118. Josephus, Ant. 1.49.

119. Josephus, Ant. 18.255; cf. 18.240–55.

120. So b. B. Meṣ. 59a (Soncino trans., 351); their successors harmonized the sayings by applying the harsher view to external (as opposed to domestic) matters, or to religious as opposed to secular matters.

121. ʾAbot R. Nat. 3A.

122. Sir. 25:26. But one should never divorce a good wife (Sir. 7:19, 26).

123. Safrai, “Home,” 763–64 (a value also in Plutarch, Bride 47, Mor. 144F–145A); on treatment of wives, see further Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 507–15. God cares about peace between husband and wife (b. Ḥul. 141a; R. Ishmael in b. Šabb. 116a); some later sources even attribute family conflicts to a demon (T. Sol. 18:15).

124. One rabbi helped another rabbi to divorce his wife for disrespecting him (y. Ketub. 11:3, §2). For mutual respect or honor, see also Plutarch, Bride 36, Mor. 143B; Sent. Sextus 238.

125. Safrai, “Home,” 762.

126. E.g., m. Ketub. 5:5–9; y. Ketub. 5:3–9:1 (e.g., 5:8, §1); Gen. Rab. 52:12; Falk, “Law,” 516; Safrai, “Home,” 761; Wegner, Chattel, 11, 74–76; Witherington, Women, 4. For Greek lists of reciprocal duties, see, e.g., Lewis, Life, 55; Verner, Household, 37–38; for mutual language used in nonequal ways, see 1QS 5.23 (though it is less emphatic than the language in Eph. 5:21; 6:9).

127. Fiensy, “Composition,” 225 (citing Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.201; m. Ketub. 4:4); even wealthy Babatha depended on a man for “contacts with authorities” (Fiensy, “Composition,” 226). See also Chapman, “Marriage,” 206–10.

128. Sipra Qed. par. 1.195.2.2. Some argue that the rabbis held that Miriam was punished for seeking to lead (Graetz, “Miriam”).

129. 4Q416 f2.4.2–8.

130. 4Q416 f2.4.2–3, 6–7.

131. 4Q416 f2.4.7–9.

132. b. Beṣah 32b, bar.; the wife having authority should be avoided (Sir. 33:20).

133. Philo, Creation 167.

134. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.201.

135. Bowman, Samaritan Documents, 311.

136. Many Christian women were married to pagan husbands, a situation that caused serious difficulties (see MacDonald, “Married to Unbelievers”).

137. Following here Keener, Acts, 3:2312–16. On the relevance of ancient treatments of mixed unions in antiquity, see here Horrell, “Fear”; Horrell, “Ethnicisation”; on intermarriages in 1 Cor. 7, see Keener, Marries Another, 56–61; Keener, “Interethnic Marriages.”

138. So Werman, “Jubilees 30” (surveying different approaches).

139. A minority opinion in y. Sanh. 2:6, §2.

140. Josephus, Ant. 20.145–46. A Jew marrying an idolatrous woman was bad in Josephus, Ant. 18.344–45, 349 (undoubtedly made worse in this case because she began as an oppressor’s wife, 18.340–43).

141. Joseph in Josephus, Ant. 2.91–92; 17.20; J.W. 1.181. On interethnic marriages in the OT, see also Hays, “Perspective.” It appears negatively in Gen. 26:34–35; 27:46, 28:1; but, for various reasons, there is no judgment against it in Gen. 41:45; Exod. 2:21; Ruth 4:13 (Bar, “Intermarriage,” 103–4; Keener, “Interethnic Marriages,” 4–11).

142. E.g., Jub. 20:4; 22:20; Philo, Spec. Laws 3.29; T. Levi 9:10; McKnight, “Proselytism,” 839–40; Lange, “Daughters”; cf. also Conzelmann, Acts, 125, following Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar, 2:741 on rabbinic evidence; Le Cornu, Acts, 860, citing Jubilees.

143. See Skemp, “Αδελφός.” Endogamy appears in various societies; cf., e.g., caste endogamy (Béteille, “Race” [although this is nonracial, 444–45, 448, 461]; cf. Barnouw, “Customs,” 16–17), a practice known in Greco-Roman antiquity (Arrian, Ind. 12.8).

144. Jub. 30:7 (on Jub. 30 but also other sources, cf. Werman, “Jubilees 30”). Religious intermarriage is equivalent to giving one’s children to Molech (Jub. 30:10). The Lord opposes such behavior (30:11).

145. E.g., 1 Esd. 8:68–96; 9:7–9; Tob. 4:12; 2 Bar. 42:4; T. Jud. 11:3–5; b. Qidd. 68b; Gen. Rab. 65:2; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 17:6; Hayes, “Intermarriage”; Le Cornu, Acts, 861; cf. Esther Rab. 8:3; Sharp, “Zeal”; DesCamp, “Women”; Kalimi, “Esther”; Morisi, “Origine.” Some Pharisees went further, prohibiting women from Hillelite households from marrying Shammaite men (y. Qidd. 1:1, §8); priests also had stricter connubial standards (t. Sanh. 4:7; y. Yebam. 6:1–9:8; y. Šeb. 6:1, §9).

146. Deut. 7:3–4; Ezra 9:12, 14; 10:2, 10–11; Neh. 10:30; cf. Gen. 24:3, 37; 28:1; Num. 25:1. The concern was especially pagan religious assimilation (see, e.g., Bar, “Intermarriage,” 100–102; Keener, “Interethnic Marriages”; though Lange [“Intermarriage”] argues that the issue in Ezra is especially cultic). Islam later warned against mixing believers and nonbelievers (Qur’an 60.10).

147. See Tacitus, Hist. 5.5 (though presenting it as a contrast with supposed Jewish promiscuity among themselves). By contrast, Tacitus (Germ. 4) more favorably presents the Germans as “untainted by intermarriage with other races” (explaining their distinctive blue eyes and red hair).

148. Jos. Asen. passim; m. Qidd. 3:5; b. Yebam. 92b; b. B. Meṣ. 16b; Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 38:2; see McKnight, “Proselytism,” 844; cf. the tradition that Job married Jacob’s daughter Dinah (L.A.B. 8:8; T. Job 1:4–6; Gen. Rab. 76:9; b. B. Bat. 15b).

149. E.g., L.A.B. 9:5; ʾAbot R. Nat. 45, §125 B; Pesiq. Rab. 40:3/4; 49:2; Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 38:25–26; Tg. Neof. 1 on Gen. 38:25; Tg. Ruth to 3:15; Bamberger, Proselytism, 195–99; Johnson, Genealogies, 159–66; cf. Heb. 11:31; b. B. Bat. 91a; Daube, New Testament and Judaism, 33. Ruth was a model proselyte (Butting, “Bedeutung”); in some traditions many prophets descended from Rahab (Sipre Deut. 357.2.1; cf. Pesiq. Rab Kah. 13:5).

150. See Sivan, “Rabbinics.”

151. Recognized also by others, e.g., Green, Peter, 96n77.

152. Especially Petrine in our earliest Christian sources; aneu appears in 3:1; 4:9; and elsewhere in the NT only at Matt. 10:29 (though it appears twelve times in the Apostolic Fathers and often in the LXX).

153. Winning people in Proverbs (Prov. 11:30; perhaps 18:19, according to the textual tradition in the KJV, ASV, NASB, NET, WEB; contrast NAB, NRSV, TEV) uses a different Greek word in the LXX but may have to do with making friends or allies.

154. For the contrast with 3:15, see Brown, “Wives.”

155. Commentators often emphasize the special circumstances (e.g., Achtemeier, Peter, 211, noting that it fits “any Christian forced to live in unsympathetic, even threatening, surroundings”). Although Schreiner (Peter, 148–49) applies the passage more directly to wives’ submission today, he does not believe that Peter endorses “the patriarchal institution that enforces submission.”

156. Cf. here Dinkler, “Submission”; Horrell, “Fear”; Khobnya, “Won”; cf. also Rensburg, “Submissiveness.” For 1 Peter and mission or witness, see, e.g., Boyley, “Mission Document”; Manzi, “Memoria”; Stenschke, “Mission”; Stenschke, “Reading”; Steuernagel, “Community.”

157. Smith, Strangers, 75.

158. Rabello, “Condition,” 697, noting that this could be denounced as the crime of “atheism”; cf. Meeks, Urban Christians, 30.

159. Plutarch, Bride 19, Mor. 140D (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 2:311).

160. Balch, Wives, 90–92. Wives of superior social status might treat husbands arrogantly (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.79–81), but husbands were warned to marry within their own (or of lower) rank (Euripides, frg. 214 [P.Oxy. 3214.5–6; Stobaeus, Anth. 4.22.93]; Euripides, Melan. frg. 502.1–4; frg. 503 [Stobaeus, Anth. 4.22.94]; Callimachus, Epigr. 1 [a proverb]; Seneca E., Controv. 1.6.5, 7; Plutarch, Educ. 19, Mor. 13F14A [a proverb]; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.92; Ps.-Phoc. 199–200; b. Yebam. 63a; Tg. Šen. to Esther 1:16; cf. Aeschylus, Prom. 887–93, 901–2; Euripides, Elec. 931–33; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.4.25; Quintilian, Decl. 257.7; 301.20–21; Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 2.12; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.200; the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, in Manthe, “Lex Iulia”).

161. Cf. later apologetic for Isis, with its chaste priests (Apuleius, Metam. 11.19) and prayers for Rome (11.17).

162. Balch, Wives, 63.

163. Balch, Wives, 118, noting esp. Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius; Josephus, Against Apion.

164. Cook, Interpretation, 113–14, noting Porphyry frg. in Augustine, City 19.23.

165. Cook, Interpretation, 166–67.

166. Note Jobes, Peter, 209: “How ironic it is that words that first-century slaves and wives would have read as affirming and empowering are criticized by some today as enslaving and oppressive.” Cf., similarly, Elliott, Peter, 597: Peter never urges women to suffer, instead assigning the lot of suffering to all believers. Elliott goes so far as to call this hostile feminist critique a “sadly erroneous and arbitrary interpretation,” and “an egregious example of ideologically driven exegesis.”

167. Smith, Strangers, 165.

168. Smith, Strangers, 165.

169. As in, e.g., Catullus, Carm. 61.154–56. Regarding masters’ just treatment of slaves, one declares “the person who is respected is also loved: love cannot be mingled with fear” (Macrobius, Sat. 1.11.12 [trans. Kaster, LCL, 1:117]).

170. Taking account of the differences between the letter’s first-century context and today, see Bauman-Martin, “Women”; Tracy, “Domestic Violence”; Reeder, “Authority.” For honoring a husband, see, e.g., Jub. 36:23; Eph. 5:33. But some recognized the value of mutual respect in marriage; see, e.g., Plutarch, Bride 36, Mor. 143B; 47, Mor. 144F–145A; Sent. Sextus 238.

171. For physical abuse, see Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.3.9 (in the legendary past); Quintus Curtius Rufus, Alex. 8.8.3; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 2.1.555–56; Libanius, Invect. 7.8; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 2.1.555 (with regret afterward); y. Ketub. 11:3, §2 (not approved); Augustine, Conf. 9.9; threats in Homer, Il. 1.565–69, 587–88; Sallust, Catil. 23.3; severe emotional abuse in Plutarch, Alc. 8.3–4; Sulla 35.2; for women as objects of sexual violence, see, e.g., Alciphron, Farm. 35 (Epiphyllis to Amaracinē), 3.37; Quintilian, Decl. 262 intro.; Josephus, Ant. 5.146; 18.64–80; Exod. Rab. 1:32 (Moses intervenes); McNally, “Maenad,” 107–8; Curran, “Rape,” 270–72. Many scholars today cite especially the references to Valerius Maximus and Augustine (e.g., Shelton, Romans, 47–48; Toner, Culture, 68). This was apparently more common among Romans than Greeks (Dossey, “Wife Beating”), though in myths, see Homer, Il. 15.16–22 (also in Cornutus, Summary of Greek Theology 17, §26.11–18); Apollodorus, Bibl. 2.7.1; 3.15.1 (accidental); Seneca Y., Herc. fur. 1022–26 (during insanity); also note a Plutarch reference in Fitzgerald, “Egnatius,” 129; the objection in Heraclitus, Hom. Prob. 40.1; and reports about tyrants (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.94), most notably Nero (Suetonius, Nero 35.3). Nevertheless, it is attested far less than beating of sons and slaves. In an earlier, archaic site, male skull injuries outnumbered those of females four to one (also outnumbering children [Grmek, Diseases, 59]). Later Christian sources, pastorally concerned with addressing abuses, offer many of the most explicit reports, in this case of pagan husbands abusing Christian wives for their faith (Williams, Persecution, 321; note esp. his citation of Clark, “Women,” 120).

172. Sarah did remain in dangerous situations (Gen. 12; 20 [see Kiley, “Sara”; Spencer, “Method”]), but Peter writes in a setting where wives, unlike slaves, often could leave their situation. For wives’ ability to divorce in the Diaspora, see, e.g., Verner, Household, 40; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 144; Hardy, World, 88; Pomeroy, Goddesses, 158; O’Rourke, “Law,” 181.

173. Justin, 2 Apol. 2.

174. Philo, Joseph 43; Spec. Laws 1.107; 2.30; Rewards 159; Contempl. Life 65; 4 Macc. 18:7–8; 2 Cor. 11:2; Titus 2:5. For praises or appreciation of chastity, see, e.g., Justinus, Epit. 20.4.9, 12; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.1.1; Seneca E., Controv. 2.7.3; Seneca Y., Lucil. 95.21; Quintilian, Decl. 247.13; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 1.5.6; Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 1.19.45; T. Jos. 4:1–2; b. Soṭah 22a; Horsley, Documents 3, §8, pp. 33–34; for traditional Mediterranean culture, cf. Gilmore, “Shame,” 4.

175. Musonius Rufus, 16, p. 104.15–16 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 105).

176. Hierocles, Siblings (Stobaeus, Anth. 4.84.20 [trans. Ramelli, 87]).

177. E.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or. 21.16–17. Note the proper lament in Marshall, Peter, 101–2, for girls indoctrinated in the West to internalize particular standards of outward beauty.

178. Sextus Empiricus, Eth. 3.43.

179. E.g., Homer, Il. 3.167; Od. 1.207, 301; 3.199; 6.276; 8.19–20; 10.396; 15.418; 18.195; Xenophon, Cyr. 5.1.5; 5.2.7; Anab. 3.2.25; Cornelius Nepos, Gen. 17 (Agesilaus), 8.1; Cicero, Cael. 15.36; Ovid, Am. 3.3.8; Catullus, Carm. 86.1; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 36.8; Plutarch, Alex. 21.3, 5; Div. V. 33, Mor. 568A; Tacitus, Ann. 15.48; Arrian, Anab. 5.19.1; Longus, Daphn. 1.16; 2.23; Chariton, Chaer. 2.5.2; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 1.21.515; 1.25.450; Her. 10.4; Eunapius, Lives 467, 481, 487; Herodian, Hist. 4.9.3; Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 1.4.2–3; Artapanus in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.27.37; Jos. Asen. 1:4–8. Ancient Greek women augmented their apparent height with cork soles in their shoes (Cosgrave, History of Costume, 48).

180. E.g., Lysias, Or. 1.14; Euripides, Med. 30, 923; Xenophon, Oec. 10.2; Pindar, Paeans 6.87; Pyth. 3.98–99; Hymns 1.29.5–6; Virgil, Aen. 10.137; 12.67–69; Ecl. 2.15–17; Ovid, Am. 2.4.39–43; 3.3.6; Her. 16.251; Metam. 1.743; 2.607, 852; 3.423; 4.354–55; 13.789; Babrius, Fab. 141.7; Plutarch, Thes. 23.2; Chariton, Chaer. 2.2.2.

181. E.g., Homer, Il. 1.197; 19.282; Euripides, Elec. 515, 521–23; Iph. Aul. 758, 1366; Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. 1.1084; 4.1303, 1407; Virgil, Aen. 4.590; 10.138; Ovid, Metam. 9.715; Tibullus, Eleg. 1.5.44; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 1.4.3; Apuleius, Metam. 5.22.

182. Arius Didymus, Epit. 2.7.7b, p. 46.5.

183. E.g., Lucian, Affairs 39; Esther 2:3, 9, 12. For details, see, for Greeks, Cosgrave, History of Costume, 50; for Romans, 77–78.

184. Olson, “Cosmetics”; Nutton, Medicine, 176, 181.

185. Lucian, Affairs 41; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 98–99; Cosgrave, History of Costume, 48–49, 76. Cf. contributions in Exod. 35:22; Polybius, Hist. 1.72.5 (Libyan women’s jewels).

186. For gold decorations, see, e.g., Artemidorus, Onir. 1.78; Lucian, Affairs 41; girls’ old earrings, Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.3. For gold rings of aristocrats, see, e.g., Cicero, Verr. 2.3.76.176; 2.3.80.187; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 2.2.7; Silius Italicus, Pun. 8.675–76; Pliny Y., Ep. 8.6.4; Suetonius, Galba 10.3; Tacitus, Hist. 2.57; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.22.18; James 2:2; Croom, Clothing, 72–73; Thompson, “Rings.” For reference to gold delimiting the author’s ideal audience, see Grant, Christianity and Society, 80; Verner, Household, 168, 180.

187. Hurschmann, “Ear Ornaments,” 766; note one found at the Herodium (Shoemaker, “Earring”).

188. Varro, Ling. lat. 5.29.129.

189. Massa, Pompeii, 55.

190. Evans, World, 149. Cf. Jos. Asen. 3:6; 4:1 (Burchard, OTP 2:205–6) = 3:9–11; 4:2 (Philonenko, Joseph et Aséneth, 138, 140).

191. Harrison and Yamauchi, “Cosmetics,” 371. Such ornamentation is naturally absent at Qumran (Fritsch, Community, 11).

192. Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 3.203; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.3.

193. Pliny E., Nat. 12.1.2 (trans. Rackham, LCL, 4:3); on necklaces, see 33.10.37.

194. b. Šabb. 64b; Safrai, “Home,” 2:761–62. Women, created from men’s flesh (unlike men created from earth), need adornment or perfume, lest they go bad like meat without spices (Gen. Rab. 17:8; ʾAbot R. Nat. 9, §24 B).

195. 1 En. 8:1–2. In Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 6:2, the women painted eyes, wore rouge, and walked naked to deliberately provoke lust.

196. T. Reu. 5:1–5, esp. 5:3.

197. T. Reu. 5:5.

198. Cf. T. Jud. 12:3; 13:5.

199. E.g., Artemidorus, Onir. 2.6; cf. 3 Macc. 1:4; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 66–67. Male braiding was deemed effeminate (Seneca E., Controv. 1.pref. 8). Later rabbis said that God himself plaited Eve’s hair for her wedding to Adam (b. Ber. 61a; Eccl. Rab. 7:2, §2; ʾAbot R. Nat. 4 A; 8, §22 B; this seems no earlier than R. Simeon b. Menasia). Plaiting seems more problematic in Eccl. Rab. 9:15, §4. Hurley (“Veils,” 199–200) reads the gold and braids in 1 Tim. 2:9 as a hendiadys—i.e., wealthy women’s “gold-braided hair”; whether in view there, that practice seems ancient (Pliny E., Nat. 33.4.13, noting Homer, Il. 17.52).

200. E.g., Lucian, Affairs 39–40; Jdt. 10:3–4; b. Soṭah 9a.

201. Apuleius, Metam. 2.8–9.

202. Croom, Clothing, 100; Cosgrave, History of Costume, 78–79; Hurschmann, “Hairstyle,” 1103. For their hair ribbons, see Harrison and Yamauchi, “Clothing,” 330. Many used pins to hold their fashionable hair patterns in place (Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 99; Croom, Clothing, 104; Stephens, “Hairdressing”). On Roman hairdressing and the like, see Carcopino, Life, 164–70.

203. See Keener, “Head Coverings”; Keener, Paul, 19–69; Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise.

204. Thompson, “Hairstyles.”

205. DeBrohun, “Power Dressing.”

206. Some ostentation was intended to signal status; see MacMullen, Social Relations, 106–7.

207. It appears more positive in Jos. Asen. 18:6 (Burchard, OTP 2:232) = 18:4–5 (Philonenko, Joseph et Aséneth, 192).

208. Juvenal, Sat. 6.457–73; Apuleius, Apol. 76; Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 1.25.3–7; Philo, Virtues 39; those tempting God’s people in Josephus, Ant. 4.129; T. Jos. 9:5.

209. Seneca Y., Lucil. 90.20 (trans. Gummere, LCL, 2:411).

210. E.g., Livy, Hist. 4.44.11–12; 8.15.7–8; see Winter, Wives, 121.

211. E.g., Valerius Maximus, Mem. 9.1.3; Pliny E., Nat. 12.41.84; Juvenal, Sat. 6.352–65; Tertullian, Apol. 6.4; cf. Lucretius, Nat. 2.20–53; Livy, Hist. 34.1.2–4; Horace, Odes 1.38; Suetonius, Jul. 43.2; Isa. 3:18–24 (pride); Jos. Asen. 10:11. On such extravagance, see Pliny E., Nat. 33.15.51–33.18.57; 33.54.153; Friedländer, Life, 2:173–85; cf., e.g., Cleopatra dissolving and drinking an expensive pearl, in Pliny E., Nat. 9.58.119–21; see further Jones, “Cocktail.”

212. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.20 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 41).

213. Propertius, Eleg. 2.18.23–32; Herodian, Hist. 5.8.1. Against male overdressing, see, e.g., Martial, Epigr. 10.83; Plutarch, Bride 48, Mor. 145AB; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.1.1; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.2.54; 1 En. 98:2. For women dyeing their hair, see Cosgrave, History of Costume, 79; for men, Martial, Epigr. 4.36. Seneca Y. (Lucil. 123.7) condemns cosmetics on slave boys; no laws, however, prohibited male cosmetics (Hermogenes, Issues 52.1–4).

214. Hilary of Arles, Comm. 1 Pet. (PL Supp. 3:94; Bray, Peter, 98).

215. Gen. 3:7, 10–11; 9:21–23; Jub. 3:21–22, 30–31; 7:8–10, 20; 1QS 7.12–14; 4Q491 f1–3.7–8; t. Ber. 2:14, 20; Sipre Deut. 320.5.2; Jensen, “Nudity,” 298; in Persia, Dio Chrysostom, Or. 13.24; Josephus, Ant. 18.356. It was thus also used in public punishments; see, e.g., Polybius, Hist. 11.30.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 7.69.2; Longus, Daphn. 2.14; Suetonius, Cal. 26.3; Vit. 17.1; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.53; m. Sanh. 6:3; King, “Body,” 246.

216. Hence translations often add “merely” (as I did) or designate the clothes as “fine.”

217. Note the lack of address to slaveholders in 2:18–3:7.

218. Not all rejected adornment, however; cf., e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.3.

219. Lucian, Dial. D. 409 (5/18, Menippus and Hermes 2): as transient as faded flowers.

220. Phaedrus, Fab. 3.8.11; Lucian, Portr. 11; Prov. 11:22; 31:30. Even erotic literature can give ironic lip service to beauty of the soul (Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 2.1.41–43).

221. Lucian, Hall 7, 15.

222. Lucian, Portr. 11.

223. E.g., Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.37 (citing Thales); Plutarch, Statecraft 27, Mor. 820A (citing Plato, Resp. 416E).

224. Isocrates, Demon. 15; Iamblichus, Ep. 3, frg. 5 (Stobaeus, Anth. 3.5.48); 3 Macc. 3:5; 6:1; 4 Macc. 6:2; for Aeneas, Philostratus, Her. 38.3.

225. Justinus, Epit. 20.4.8–9.

226. Justinus, Epit. 20.4.11–12.

227. Thom, “Akousmata,” 108, citing Aristotle in Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 84; Iamblichus, Protr. 21, p. 108.10.

228. The Neopythagorean Phintys, On the Temperance of a Woman, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 105, §107; Balch, Wives, 101, also citing similar advice from Perictione, On the Harmony of a Woman 143.

229. Pseudo-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (quoted in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 83). Also, “You should have a blush on your cheeks as a sign of modesty instead of rouge, and should wear nobility, decorum and temperance instead of gold and emeralds.”

230. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.1.10 (trans. Hicks, LCL, p. 11).

231. Pseudo-Crates, Ep. 9 (trans. Hock, in Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 61).

232. Pseudo-Socrates, Ep. 6 (trans. Stowers and Worley, in Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 233).

233. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 42.10.

234. Epictetus, Ench. 40 (trans. Oldfather, LCL, 2:525–27).

235. Plutarch, Bride 12, Mor. 139DE (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 2:307).

236. Porphyry, Marc. 7.115–18 (trans. O’Brien Wicker, 51).

237. Campbell, Honor, 154.

238. Cf. the husband’s view of his honor in Batten, “Adornment.” Most husbands preferred to retain their wives’ beauty to the domestic sphere, avoiding sharing it with others (see discussion on women’s honor and shame at 1 Pet. 3:7).

239. LXX Deut. 15:9; Sir. 1:30; Rom. 2:29; 1 Cor. 4:5; 14:25; Polycarp, Phil. 4:3; cf. Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 2:11. Peter designates the heart also as the place of love (1 Pet. 1:22) and of Christ (3:15).

240. Plato, Resp. 9.588A–591B (esp. 588A–589B); Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 526–27; Markschies, “Metapher”; Betz, “Concept”; Judge, Athens, 60; Aune, “Duality,” 220–22. Philosophers often warned against concern for “externals” (e.g., Philodemus, On Anger cols. 42.6–11; 47.36–41; 48.18–24; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.4.27; 1.11.37; 2.2.10, 12; 2.16.11; 4.10; Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 7.14).

241. E.g., m. Giṭ. 9:10.

242. Epicureans rejected the soul’s immortality (Epicurus, Men. 125; Lucretius, Nat. 3 [see Warren, “Lucretius”; O’Keefe, “Lucretius”]; Philodemus, Death 1; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 10.124; Hippolytus, Ref. 1.19; Sorabji, Emotion, 248). Many, however, affirmed its immortality, as in Xenophon, Cyr. 8.7.17–21; Aristotle, Anim. 1.4, 408b; Cicero, Tusc. 1.14.31; 1.8.18–24; Rep. 6.24.26; Sen. 20.78; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 8.62.1; Pseudo-Dionysius, Epid. 6.283; Apuleius, God Socr. 126–27; Plotinus, Enn. 4.7.12; Libanius, Encom. 6.10. Note esp. the Platonic tradition, as in Plato, Meno 81BD; Resp. 10.611B; Phaedo 64DE, 75CD; 105–7; Phaedr. 245C; Plutarch, Div. V. 17, Mor. 560B (cf. Buffière, “Séléné”); Maximus of Tyre, Or. 10.2, 5; 41.5; Iamblichus, Anim. 5.25, §377; Ep. 8, frg. 2 (Stobaeus, Anth. 2.8.43); frg. 7 (Stobaeus, Anth. 2.8.48); Testimonium 2 (in Olympiodorus, Gorg. 46.9.20–28 [Westerink]); satirized in Lucian, Fly 7; see discussion in Lodge, Ethics, 394–409; Patterson, Plato on Immortality. See further discussion in Keener, Mind, 269–78.

243. The noun cognate (praütēs) of the present adjective (praüs), the only uses of either in 1 Peter. Both contexts also refer explicitly to behavior (anastrophē, 3:2, 16).

244. I view the references in 1 Tim. 2:11–12 in terms of the propriety of novices learning; cf. Seneca Y., Lucil. 52.10; Aulus Gellius, Att. 1.9.3–4; see Keener, Paul, 107–8.

245. For frequent ancient expectations of women’s relative silence, see, e.g., Homer, Od. 1.356–61; Euripides, Elec. 343–44; Euripides, frg. 927; Aristotle, Pol. 1.13, 1260a28–31 (in deSilva, Honor, 183); Theophrastus, Char. 28.3; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 3.8.6; Heliodorus, Aeth. 1.21; Libanius, Descr. 16.5; Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise, 189–90; Shelton, Romans, 299; Dubourdieu, “Divinités.” Roman culture had become more progressive than Marcus Cato’s position in Livy, Hist. 34.2.9–14.

246. Note prominent exceptions in Valerius Maximus, Mem. 8.3, and Aspasia, Sosipatra, and Hypatia; Imma Shalom; and Beruria, though the overwhelming majority of public speakers were men; see Keener, “Education.”

247. In what follows I borrow from Keener, Acts, 1:634–36.

248. Sophocles, Ajax 293 (trans. Lloyd-Jones, LCL, 1:59). Hera is silenced, though by the threat that Zeus will beat her (Homer, Il. 1.565–69). Wives should keep quiet even at home when the husband is in a rage (Plutarch, Bride 37, Mor. 143C; cf. 1 Sam. 25:36). I noted above the preference for women’s “meekness” and “modesty.”

249. See sources in Grant, Social History, 5.

250. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 3.8.6 (though his wording may suggest that the “custom” was already being flouted at times). One may also contrast the male deity of speech with goddesses of silence (Dubourdieu, “Divinités”). If Tacitus did not go so far, he nevertheless resented the impropriety of women being with and speaking to soldiers (Ann. 2.55).

251. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 8.3. See esp. Simon, “Causes.” Winter (Wives, 115) mentions these, without noting that Valerius himself views them as exceptional (though Winter knows that they are: see Winter, Left Corinth, 135–36). Winter mentions more on women in the courts (Wives, 176–79), again without pointing out that this was exceptional.

252. Normally they needed advocates (Hermogenes, Method 21.436–37). Under duress, women sometimes pleaded before judges (e.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:9; Song Rab. 5:16, §2) and might request or win special consideration on account of their gender (P.Sakaon 36, in Horsley, Documents 4, §30, pp. 132–33; P.Ryl. 114, line 5; Alciphron, Court. 4 [Bacchis to Phrynē], 1.31, ¶4; cf. Luke 18:2–7; Lysias, Or. 32.11–18, §§506–11; Bailey, Peasant Eyes, 134–35). Under such duress, women likewise pleaded with Marcius to spare Rome in Appian, Hist. rom. 2.5.3; Plutarch, Cor. 34.2. A woman summoned to court might weep in silence before answering (Tacitus, Ann. 16.31). As noted above, Mediterranean laws were prejudiced even against women as witnesses (e.g., Justinian, Inst. 2.10.6; Josephus, Ant. 4.219).

253. These were rare women whose feminine nature and the normal “modesty” attached to it could not make them “silent” (Valerius Maximus, Mem. 8.3.pref.). One was called manly (8.3.1); another was impudent, a “monster” to be ridiculed (8.3.2).

254. Plutarch, Bride 32, Mor. 142D.

255. Pliny Y., Ep. 4.19.4. He also mentions an excellent speaker who publicly read eloquent letters from his wife (1.16.6), and expresses uncertainty whether the man composed the letters in his wife’s name or instead actually developed her eloquence.

256. Heliodorus, Aeth. 1.21.

257. So, e.g., Euripides, Hipp. V. frg. 440 (from Stobaeus, Anth. 4.22.180); Dan. frg. 321 (Stobaeus, Anth. 4.22.172); Babrius, Fab. 16.10; Avianus, Fab. 15–16; Phaedrus, Fab. 4.15; Fronto, Ep. graec. 2.3 (written to a woman!); cf. Euripides, Sthen. frg. 671 (men should not trust women); these cases merely exemplify those in the fuller discussion above.

258. E.g., Sir. 9:9; b. Ber. 43b, bar.; b. Ned. 20a; y. Ḥal. 2:1, §10; cf. Swidler, Women, 123–25. Some (attributed ultimately to a second-century Tanna) went so far as to claim that God himself avoided speaking with women (y. Soṭah 7:1, §2; Gen. Rab. 20:6; 48:20; 63:7; cf. also Urbach, Sages, 1:155). At least some women upheld this gender boundary (b. ʿErub. 53b). Certainly no wife could be alone with a man besides her husband (y. Soṭah 1:1, §7).

259. E.g., God punished Antipas for heeding a woman’s (in this case, his wife’s) talk (Josephus, Ant. 18.252–55).

260. m. ʾAbot 1:5 (with a pre-Christian attribution); ʾAbot R. Nat. 14, §35 B. The issue in this case may simply be public onlookers unaware of the relationship (b. Ber. 43b), since some rabbis certainly did approve of listening to their wives. But against confiding some things in the wife, cf. ʾAbot R. Nat. 7 A.

261. See esp. Good, King. For praise for merciful leaders, see, e.g., Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 27.16.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 3.54.2; Polybius, Hist. 1.72.3; 3.99.7; 39.7.3–6; Arrian, Anab. 1.17.12; 4.19.6; Appian, Hist. rom. 10.4.24; Cornelius Nepos, Gen. 8 (Thrasybulus), 2.6; Herodian, Hist. 1.2.4; cf. also Josephus, Life 353; Sipre Deut. 323.4.1. Cf. Spartan lads in Xenophon, Lac. 3.4.

262. Cf. epieikēs in Josephus, Ant. 15.237. With different terms, meekness or modesty even appears erotically desirable in Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 1.4.26; 1.12.15; 1.15.32–33; 1.16.11; 1.19.43; 2.18.1–3, 14–15; 2.21.7–8. In a woman, the different idea of sōphrosunē is associated with modesty, chastity, and avoiding unlawful relations (Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.17–18, 20; 3, p. 42.26; 4, p. 44.16–18, 22; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.56; Lucian, Hall 7; Sent. Sextus 237; Libanius, Speech 18 [esp. 18.3]; Thesis 1.13, 26–27; Narr. 37; perhaps 1 Tim. 2:9, 15); Euripides, Oed. frg. 545, links the adjective with wifely obedience.

263. Argument in Keener, Galatians (2019), 528. Cf. Herm. 43:8.

264. Isaacs, Spirit, 71; Chevallier, Ancien Testament, 39. See, e.g., LXX Pss. 33:19 (ET 34:18); 50:19 (51:17); Isa. 19:14; 28:6; 61:3; 65:14; 2 Tim. 1:7; perhaps T. Sim. 3:1; T. Dan 1:6; 2:1; 4:5; 5:5–6.

265. Cf. 1 Tim. 2:9, which contrasts inner beauty with braided hair, gold, and expensive (polutelēs) clothing.

266. Cf. Prov. 3:15 and 8:11 on Wisdom, more polutelēs than jewels.

267. E.g., Jub. 36:23–24; 1Q20 20.2–10; T. Ab. 3; 5–6 A; Gen. Rab. 20:6; 41:2; Exod. Rab. 1:12; Lev. Rab. 21:11; 36:5; Num. Rab. 11:2; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:6; 22:1; see also Kaunfer, “Who Knows Four?”

268. Verner, Household, 40; O’Rourke, “Law,” 181.

269. Pomeroy, Goddesses, 158, 169; cf. Gaius, Inst. 1.104; but contrast non-Roman marriages (Jeffers, “Families,” 141). I treat divorce elsewhere in more detail (Keener, Marries Another; Keener, “Adultery”).

270. T. Ab. 5:12; 6:2, 8; 15:4 A; 4:2; 6:5 B. Some highlight this background here (Keener, Background Commentary1, 716; Martin, “TestAbr”), though it is more illustrative than as a direct source.

271. MT Gen. 20:3; Exod. 21:3, 22; Deut. 22:22; 24:4; 2 Sam. 11:26; Prov. 31:11, 23, 28; Hosea 2:18 (ET 2:16); Joel 1:8; see Dearman, Hosea, 123–24; Carroll Rodas, “Hosea,” 239. The Hebrew verb frequently performs this role (Gen. 20:3; Deut. 21:13; 22:22; 24:1; Prov. 30:23; Isa. 54:1; 62:4–5; Mal. 2:11).

272. Virgil, Aen. 4.214 (using dominum). Whether literally or figuratively, a married woman’s husband (cf. Tibullus, Eleg. 1.2.41, 55–56) is called her dominus, “lord,” in Tibullus, Eleg. 1.2.7.

273. Virgil, Aen. 4.103, in Juno’s feigned proposal.

274. Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 5.14 (trans. Anderson, CAGN, 169).

275. So ʾAbot R. Nat. B, 1, §6.

276. E.g., Gen. 33:13–14; SPap 1:338–39, lines 1, 24; P.Giss. bibl. 21, line 11; T. Ab. 2:7, 10; 3:5; 15:4; 18:4 A; 8:9; 10:1; 11:1; 12:3 B; Jos. Asen. 4:5/7, 9/12.

277. P.Oxy. 123.1, 26.

278. See, e.g., Gen. 16:5; 21:10–11; Jos. Asen. 4:12/16 (in the context of 4:9/12).

279. See Kiley, “Sara”; Spencer, “Method.”

280. The LXX here uses the same Greek word that Peter uses for Sarah’s obedience—and ironically never uses it for Sarah obeying Abraham. The MT uses the more generic word for “hear,” which can include obedience (as in Deut. 6:4); it uses the Hebrew expression “hear the voice,” which often (and in this context) means “heed” or “obey” (Gen. 22:18; 26:5; 27:8, 13; Exod. 3:18; 5:2) but does not do so by definition (e.g., Gen. 3:10; 21:17). In this case, some might consider the obedience negative (cf. Gen. 3:17), but that is not possible in Gen. 21:12, the next use.

281. See, e.g., Sly, “1 Peter 3:6b,” 127. Despite Jubilees rewriting much of Genesis (Rothstein, “Text”), Jub. 17:6 retains God’s command for Abraham to obey Sarah in Gen. 21:12; later rabbis noticed and marveled at this (Gen. Rab. 52:5). Schaefer (Husband, 120) thus even sees Peter’s appeal to Sarah as deliberate irony. Such “irony” could work, however, only if Peter assumes even more biblical literacy than is likely for his ideal audience (certainly it does not work for most NT scholars). But hearing Genesis regularly, hearers may have at least noticed the nuancing to Peter’s description that Sarah’s character entailed. For grounding 1 Pet. 3:7 in the Genesis narrative about Sarah (esp. Gen. 18; 20) see Bott, “Sarah.”

282. Sly, “1 Peter 3:6b.”

283. Philo, Alleg. Interp. 3.222; Josephus, Ant. 1.49.

284. Philo, Hypothetica 7.3; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.201. For Philo, I depend here esp. on Sly, “1 Peter 3:6b,” 127–29. For Philo’s approach to gender, see further Baer, Categories; Sly, Perception.

285. Philo, Alleg. Interp. 3.244; Prelim. Studies 68.

286. Philo, Prelim. Studies 7; Abraham 100–101; Heir 62; Drunkenness 61.

287. Philo, Abraham 245–46, 253.

288. Sly (“1 Peter 3:6b,” 129) cites here Josephus, Ant. 1.187.

289. See, e.g., Ezek. 16:44–45; Rom. 4:12; Philem. 10; 1 Pet. 3:6; 5:13 (noted in Hunn, “Fatherhood,” 505–10). Cf. also the principle of children bearing their parents’ image; e.g., Gen. 5:3; 4 Macc. 15:4; L.A.B. 50:7; Ps.-Phoc. 178; t. Sanh. 8:6; Chariton, Chaer. 2.11.2; 3.8.7; Philostratus, Her. 52.2; P.Oxy. 37.

290. E.g., Philostratus, Vit. soph. 2.27.617.

291. E.g., 2 Kings 5:13; 13:14; Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 21.12.5.

292. E.g., 2 Kings 2:12; Matt. 23:9; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22.82; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 1.490; 1.25.536, 537; Porphyry, Marc. 1.6–8; Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 35.250; Eunapius, Lives 486, 493; 4 Bar. 2:4, 6, 8; 5:5; 7:24; t. Sanh. 7:9; Sipre Deut. 34.3.1–3, 5; 305.3.4; cf. t. B. Qam. 9:11; mentors in Homer, Il. 9.607; Od. 1.308. In the NT, cf. John 13:33; 1 Cor. 4:14–15; 1 Tim. 1:2; Philem. 10; 1 John 2:1; 3 John 4.

293. 2 Macc. 14:37; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.44; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 12.1.8; Plutarch, Cic. 23.3; Pausanias, Descr. 8.48.5–6; 8.51.7.

294. Silius Italicus, Pun. 7.734–35; 8.2; 17.651; Tacitus, Ann. 2.80.

295. Musonius Rufus, 8, p. 64.14; Heliodorus, Aeth. 10.17; cf. Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.1.

296. Res gest. 6.35; Ovid, Tristia 4.4.13; Fasti 2.130–32, 637; Ep. Ponto 4.9.134; Tacitus, Ann. 2.87 (refused); 11.25; Suetonius, Jul. 76.1; Aug. 58.2; Vesp. 12; Pliny Y., Pan. 42.3; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.22 (the ideal ruler); Herodian, Hist. 2.2.9; 2.6.2; cf. Cicero, Fam. 12.3.1; Suetonius, Jul. 85. For the Roman state, cf. Tacitus, Ann. 3.28.

297. Cornelius Nepos, Gen. 23 (Hannibal), 12.2; Justinus, Epit. 43.3.2; Sallust, Catil. 6.6; 31.7; 51.1, 4, 7, 12, 15, 37, 41; 52.2.7, 35; Jug. 14.1, 3, 12, 13, 18, 25; 24.2; Philipp. 1, 17; Pomp. 1, 6; Caes. 11.1; Invect. Tull. 1; Cicero, Cat. 1.2.4; 1.4.9; 1.11.27; 1.12.29; 1.13.31–32; 2.6.12; 4.1.1, 2; 4.2.3, 4; 4.3.6; 4.5.9; 4.6.11; 4.8.16, 18; Prov. cons. 1.1; 2.3; 4.8; 5.11; 8.18; 9.23; 10.25; 12.30; 13.32; 16.38, 39; Pis. 20.46; 22.52; 24.56; 33.81; Marcell. 1.1, 2; 5.13; Phil. 1.1.1; 1.3.7; 1.4.11; Fam. 10.35.1, 2; Pseudo-Cicero, Invect. Sall. 1.1–3; 2.5; 4.12; 5.14; 6.16; 8.22; Livy, Hist. 1.8.7; 1.26.5; 2.1.10–11; 2.23.14; 2.24.2; 2.27.3; 2.32.12; 2.34.12; 2.35.3; 2.41.4; 2.48.8; 2.60.3; 3.13.7; 3.16.1; 3.21.1, 3, 4; 3.51.11; 3.52.6; 3.63.8; 4.1.4; 4.2.13; 4.60.1, 3; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 1.5.1; 2.2.1a; 2.7.ext. 1; 2.8.4; 3.8.1; 4.1.4; 4.1.6b; 4.4.10; 4.5.1; 5.2.1; 5.8.3; 5.9.3; 6.1.10; 6.2.1; 6.6.3; 8.13.4; 8.15.1; Lucan, Civ. W. 3.109; Silius Italicus, Pun. 1.610, 675; Plutarch, Rom. Q. 58, Mor. 278D; Pliny Y., Pan. 1.1; 66.1; Tacitus, Hist. 2.52; Suetonius, Claud. 25.1; Dom. 11.3; Quintilian, Decl. 265.15.

298. Homer, Il. 16.33–35.

299. Philostratus, Vit. soph. 1.25.544; cf. Isocrates, De pace 41–53.

300. Forbes (“Children of Sarah”) reads both participles (here rendered as do good and are not frightened) imperativally.

301. Cf. Punt, “Subverting Sarah.” On the argument in Gal. 4, which plays on Isa. 51:1–2 and 54:1, see further discussion and sources in Keener, Galatians (2018), 212–27; Keener, Galatians (2019), 399–438.

302. See 1Q20 20.9; Fitzmyer, Apocryphon, 120.

303. Aleixandre, “Sara”; Amaru, “Women”; cf. Heb. 11:11. In ʾAbot R. Nat. 26, §54 B, her merit equals that of Abraham. Haggadah in Gen. Rab. 53:9; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 22:1, claims that Sarah miraculously nursed gentile babies.

304. Balch, Wives, 105, citing Xenophon, Oec. 7.25; Pseudo-Aristotle, Oeconomica 3.144.2.

305. Apuleius, False Pref. 2.106 (trans. Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink, in Apuleius, Rhetorical Works, 182; n. 7 notes the anecdote also in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 2.68).

306. Arius Didymus, Epit. 2.7.5k, pp. 34–45.1–3; at length, Seneca Y., Dial. 9. A virtuous soul was in harmony with itself, lacking contradictory impulses (Arius Didymus, Epit. 2.7.5b1, p. 12.31–33).

307. Arius Didymus, Epit. 2.7.11s, p. 100.7–10.

308. Seneca Y., Lucil. 75.18. For overcoming fear, see also Epictetus, Diatr. 2.16.11; 2.17.29.

309. Cicero, Fin. 1.18.60; Lucian, Alex. 47; for lack of disturbance in the mind, see Lucretius, Nat. 5.1203; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 10.144.17. Epicureans advised temperance as a means for achieving this objective (Cicero, Fin. 1.14.47).

310. E.g., Cicero, Leg. 1.23.60; Pseudo-Diogenes, Ep. 28; Maximus of Tyre, Or. 11.11; 36.2; Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 32.228. Cf. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 9.13. pref.; 9.13.3; Plutarch, Poetry 14, Mor. 37A; Sir. 40:2, 5; Heb. 2:14–15; Mart. Pol. passim.

311. Seneca Y., Lucil. 80.6; 82 passim; 98.10; Nat. 1.pref. 4; 2.58.3; 6.32.12; Dial. 9.11.4–5; Musonius Rufus, 1, p. 34.31–33; 3, pp. 40.35–42.1; 3, p. 42.3; 4, p. 48.5–6; 17, p. 110.1, 12–13; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.17.25; 2.1.13; 2.18.30; Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 9.3; 12.35; cf. 8.58. But even philosophers could admit to struggling with this fear (Musonius Rufus, 6, pp. 54.35–56.7, esp. 56.2). Cf. Hockey, Role of Emotion, 71, on “death and pain” as “indifferents.”

312. Perhaps especially Epicureans; see, e.g., Lucretius, Nat. passim (esp. 1.102–26; 3.1–30, 87–93; cf. O’Keefe, “Lucretius”; Warren, “Lucretius”); Cicero, Fin. 1.18.60; 4.5.11; Nat. d. 1.20.56; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 10.125.

313. E.g., Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 10.24.2 (“even” for women); Valerius Maximus, Mem. 3.2.2, 15; 3.2.ext. 8–9; 5.4.6; Velleius Paterculus, Comp. 2.26.3; 2.87.1; 2.88.3; Pliny Y., Ep. 7.19.7; Plutarch, Bravery of Women, Mor. 242E–263C; Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 31.194; Libanius, Narr. 15; 4 Macc. 16:5, 14. This was more common among the Gauls (Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 5.32.2).

314. E.g., Xenophon, Lac. 11.3; Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 32.10.9; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 9.7.2; 10.28.3; Polybius, Hist. 3.108.5; 6.37.11; 32.13.6–7; 32.15.9; 36.15.1–2; 38.12.9; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 2.7.9; 9.13. pref.; Seneca Y., Lucil. 70.6; 96.4; Med. 42; Silius Italicus, Pun. 9.263; 13.313; Plutarch, Alex. 47.1; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.21; Her. 23.19; 45.8; Apuleius, Metam. 5.22; Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alex. 1.46; cf. also Dover, “Attitudes,” 149.

315. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 42.1–2 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 43). A woman educated in philosophy was far more likely to be courageous than another woman (3, p. 40.33–35).

316. Xenophon, Symp. 2.12.

317. Phobēthēsē ptoēsin, compared to Peter’s (characteristically participial) phoboumenai ptoēsin. Ptoēsis appears nowhere in the NT or the LXX except in these two texts.

318. Tremulum . . . omnia omnibus; Catullus, Carm. 61.154–56 (trans. Cornish, LCL, pp. 78–79).

319. Moffatt (General Epistles, 133) notes a later case in which a godly wife divorced a wicked husband, so he accused her to the government as a Christian (Justin, 2 Apol. 2).

320. Hockey, Role of Emotion, 204.

321. See Josephus, J.W. 2.560; Juvenal, Sat. 6.542–47; Riesner, Early Period, 351; Levinskaya, Diaspora Setting, 25; in Asia Minor, cf. Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:9 (citing MAMA 6.262).

322. I borrow some of the following from Keener, Paul, viii–ix.

323. Plutarch, Bride 33, Mor. 142E (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 2:323).

324. Plutarch, Bride 36, Mor. 143B.

325. Aidesthai: to feel a sense of shame, or to respect or reverence a person.

326. Plutarch, Bride 47, Mor. 144F–145A (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 2:337). In context, he warns the husband not to engage in pleasures forbidden to her—i.e., adultery.

327. For Xenophon, the wife rules (like a queen bee) over matters inside and the husband things outside (Oec. 7.33, 39), but if she works harder at her role she merits greater honor, making him a voluntary servant (7.42). Cf. Musonius Rufus, 14, pp. 92.38–94.1. Xenophon’s approach appears remarkably progressive for what we know of classical Athens, but his Spartan experience may have helped.

328. On virtues being the same for both, see, e.g., Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 44.10–35; 4, p. 46.31–37; p. 48.1–26 (Lutz, “Musonius”); see also Antisthenes (in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.1.12); Pseudo-Crates, Ep. 28; Seneca Y., Dial. 6.17.1; Meeks, Urban Christians, 23 (noting also a book by Cleanthes in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.175).

329. For role distinctions in expressing virtue, see, e.g., Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.25–28; cf. Seneca Y., Dial. 6.7.3.

330. He was not egalitarian by modern standards, but in another setting his understanding might have supported a more fully egalitarian direction.

331. Porphyry, Marc. 2.21. He talks down to her but sounds more sympathetic than in many ancient sources.

332. Sent. Sextus 238 (trans. Edwards and Wild, 42–43).

333. Lit., “human creations”—i.e., humans as created (so, e.g., Michaels, Peter, 124), but the context seems to suggest institutionalized or other expected roles. On slavery as such, see, e.g., Witherington, Peter, 151. Although other biblical passages support what we call care for the environment, the specifying of human creations works against St. Francis’s reading of submitting to all creatures (for that reading, see Lavilla Martín, “Sumisión”).

334. Here mutuality goes beyond even Eph. 5:33. Schaefer (Husband, 125) views this instruction as reversing the expectations of Aristotelian codes. At the very least, it suggests mutuality (Smith, Strangers, 79).

335. Delaney, “Seeds,” 40–42; Giovannini, “Chastity,” 67 (on Sicily); Plevnik, “Honor/Shame,” 107; Malina and Pilch, Letters, 122; Malina and Neyrey, Portraits, 176–82; Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 22, 31; see further Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 44.28; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.56; Plutarch, Bride 10, Mor. 139C; M. Cato 20.1; Lucian, Hall 22; Sir. 42:14. It could be associated especially with sexual matters (Kaster, “Shame,” 9–10; Barton, Honor, 37–38; McGinn, “Litter”; Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 33.15.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 1.78.5; Justinus, Epit. 3.4.7, 10; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 40.27; 71.6; Libanius, Speech 18.2; Aristaenetus, Erot. Let. 1.6.14–15; 1.10.28–32; 1.19.42–49; 2.5.24–25; Josephus, Ant. 5.146–47; cf. nudity in Lysias, Or. 3.6, §97; 3.23, §98; b. Sanh. 45a, bar.); male adoption of feminine traits appeared shameful (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.70; 36.17), esp. his being penetrated (Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 191).

336. Osiek, MacDonald, and Tulloch, Woman’s Place, 7; Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 22–23, 27. Against many, including Malina, it was not limited to shame (Barton, Honor, 199–200; cf. Gilmore, “Shame,” 5); some subsequent associations might derive from religious strictures (Brandes, “Reflections,” 126).

337. Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 27–28, 31.

338. See Ulpian’s statement about universal opinion in Gardner, Women, 67.

339. Cf. analogies for people in Epictetus, Diatr. 2.4.4; for a married couple in Plutarch, Bride 3, Mor. 138EF.

340. Augustine (e.g., City 14.16; Marriage and Concupiscence 1.9; Serm. 1.21); Theodore of Mopsuestia; Leslie, “Concept of Woman,” 20; Frame, Thessalonians, 149; Best, Thessalonians, 162; Collins, “Unity”; Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 542; Sanders, Paul, 216. This view weighs too much on the analogy of the verb with a Hebrew construction that the Thessalonians would not have known. A proposed Qumran parallel (Strugnell, “Wives”) rests on an unlikely reconstruction (Kister, “Parallel”).

341. The Greek Fathers (e.g., Theodoret; Basil, Letters 160.5); Neil, Thessalonians, 79–80; Kelly, Peter, 133; Selwyn, Peter, 187; Morris, Thessalonians, 124; Bruce, Thessalonians, 83; Whitton, “SKEUOS” (citing 1 Sam. 21:5); Marshall, Thessalonians, 107–10. Donfried (Thessalonica, 31) suggests the reference is specific to the phallus.

342. Noted by various commentators. Cf. y. Ketub. 1:1, §4; y. Šabb. 10:5; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:24.

343. Philo, Migration 193, 197; Worse 170; Dreams 1.26; Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 3.3.2; 8:27 (if the correct reading); 12.2; 4 Ezra 7:88; T. Naph. 2:2, 4.

344. Ancient political theory often emphasized guarding “the interests of the weak” (Mitchell, Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 126–27); some other societies share this principle (Mbiti, Religions, 277), though in practice power often grows selfish.

345. Aelian, Nat. An. 11.26 (among his analogies is the dragon; fortunately not ants or bees). Xenophon (Oec. 7.33) uses the analogy of the queen bee for wives staying inside.

346. In Hippocratic writers, see King, “Roles: Medicine,” 745. By contrast, Soranus (Gynec. 3.prol. 1–5; 3.12.45) avers that both have analogous characteristics despite differences in particulars. For a survey of medical writers on women, see, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 85–97, 215–34.

347. Xenophon, Cyn. 13.18.

348. E.g., Sophocles, Antig. 677–80; Virgil, Aen. 11.734; Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.8.2 (cf. 3.9.2); [Anonymous], Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, Debate of a Montanist and an Orthodox (MOT 14:125, the Orthodox speaking; Bray, Corinthians, 106).

349. E.g., Xenophon, Lac. 3.4; Livy, Hist. 25.36.9; 28.19.13; Cicero, Mil. 21.55; Virgil, Aen. 12.52–53; Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 46.17; Silius Italicus, Pun. 1.445; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 2.29; Aulus Gellius, Att. 17.21.33; Lucian, Dial. D. 414 (6/20, Menippus and Aeacus 2); Heliodorus, Aeth. 4.21; Aphthonius, Progymn. 5, “On Refutation,” 29S, 13R; perhaps Lam. Rab. 4:19, §22; Quintilian, Decl. 368.3 (textually suspect). Phaedrus, Fab. 4.17.6, could be either physical strength or courage. Many men apparently considered such delicateness attractive (Chariton, Chaer. 2.2.2).

350. E.g., Euripides, Med. 928; Seneca Y., Lucil. 78.17; Let. Aris. 250; cf. b. B. Meṣ. 59a. This included reluctance to inflict punishment (Aeschylus, Prom. 79) and soft-hearted love (4 Macc. 15:5). In some subsequent Mediterranean culture, see Giovannini, “Chastity,” 67.

351. E.g., Cicero, Mur. 12.27 (infirmitatem consilii); Livy, Hist. 28.19.13; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 9.1.3 (imbecillitas mentis); Let. Aris. 250; Philo, Good Person 117 (nature gave women “little sense” [trans. Colson, LCL, 9:77]). A good wife can manage the household so long as her husband instructs her properly (Xenophon, Oec. 3.10, 14–16; 7.10), including where to put things (9.1), especially since Greek men often married women when the latter were very young (3.13; 7.4–5). They were more easily deceived (e.g., Plutarch, Bride 48, Mor. 145CD; T. Job 26:6/26:7–8). Cf. in later Islamic thought (Eickelman, Middle East, 205–6).

352. E.g., Aeschylus, Suppl. 468–89 (esp. 489), 748–49; Xenophon, Cyr. 5.5.33; Gen. Rab. 22:6; perhaps 1 Pet. 3:7. This is especially relevant in court petitions, where women claim that their weakness disposes them to greater vulnerability toward oppression (A. L. Connolly in Horsley, Documents 4, §30, pp. 131–33, p. 131, citing P.Flor. 1.58; P.Oxy. 34.2713; P.Oxy. 1.71, col. 2; P.Amh. 2.141); cf. also in traditional North African society (Eickelman, Middle East, 243).

353. P.Oxy. 261.12–13 (55 CE). For women’s weakness in ancient legal theory, see Pomeroy, Goddesses, 150; Gardner, Women, 21, 67.

354. 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; Lefkowitz, Women in Myth, 134–35; in Galen, Nutton, Medicine, 241.

355. Meeks, “Androgyne,” 170–73 (esp. 170).

356. Xenophon, Symp. 2.9, reporting Socrates’s view (if, as is likely, gnōmē involves intellect and not simply decisiveness).

357. 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.

358. Quintilian, Decl. 327.2, speaking of infirmior sexus. Cf. Gen. Rab. 22:6; Lam. Rab. 4:19, §22.

359. Historically, cf., e.g., supposedly feminine “hysteria” in the nineteenth century (Curtis, Faith, 38–50; Opp, Lord for Body, 168; Capps, Village Psychiatrist, 15–21, 111–12), a diagnosis that virtually disappeared in that form in the 1930s (Capps, Village Psychiatrist, 22).

360. Grant, Social History, 18.

361. Gardner, Women, 21.

362. E.g., Cicero, Mil. 21.55; Lucian, Dial. D. 414 (6/20, Menippus and Aeacus 2); Let. Aris. 250. Cf. Davids, Peter, 123, noting Plato, Resp. 5.455E; 457A; Leg. 781A; Philo, Drunkenness 55; P.Oxy. 261.11–13.

363. Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 46.17–20.

364. Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 46.27–31.

365. Musonius Rufus, 4, p. 46.8–23.

366. He speaks of infirmitatem (weakness), consilii (in counsel).

367. Cicero, Mur. 12.27 (trans. Lord, LCL, 10:178–81), complaining that some were subverting the law.

368. Imbecillitas mentis (the former Latin term designates weakness).

369. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 9.1.3 (trans. Bailey, LCL, 2:294–97).

370. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.70 (trans. Cohoon, LCL, 1:137, 139).

371. They were often viewed as weaker in courage or enduring sufferings (Seneca Y., Lucil. 78.17; Quintilian, Decl. 272.3–5, 9; cf. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.34; possibly Phaedrus, Fab. 4.17.6).

372. Xenophon, Symp. 2.9 (trans. Todd, LCL, p. 393).

373. Livy, Hist. 28.19.13 (trans. Moore, LCL, 8:83).

374. Aeschylus, Prom. 79 (trans. Smyth, LCL, 1:223). Cf. later Greek misogyny in Lefkowitz, Women in Myth, 112–32 (highlighting the role of Aristotle; so also Peradotto and Sullivan, “Introduction,” 3).

375. Impotenti naturae.

376. Livy, Hist. 34.2.13. The rebuttal plays on a different sense of weakness: since they are frail, they will not try to control the state, so men should be restrained in their power over the women (34.7.14).

377. Philodemus, Crit. col. 22a9–11, 22b (p. 125); with reconstructed col. 21b.13–14 (p. 123). For a wife’s sensitivity to hurt and consequent tears, cf. also b. B. Meṣ. 59a.

378. Nicolaus of Damascus, Aug. 30 (FGrH 130).

379. Tacitus, Ann. 3.33 (trans. Church and Brodribb, 120), warning of their susceptibility to corruption.

380. Let. Aris. 250 (trans. Hadas, Aristeas, 199).

381. 4 Macc. 15:5 (trans. Anderson, OTP 2:560). When this mother proves courageous (16:5), she proves herself “stronger than a man” (16:14 [trans. p. 561]).

382. Josephus, Ant. 4.219 (AT). “Levity” refers to lightness, lack of seriousness, so Josephus might have viewed it also as a cognitive weakness. For rabbis on women’s greater moral weakness, see Wegner, Chattel, 159–62.

383. 1 Esd. 4:32, 34.

384. Aeschylus, Suppl. 468–89, esp. 489.

385. Aeschylus, Suppl. 748–49. Tragedies often dealt with women because they were considered weak (so Aristophanes, Lys. 137–38).

386. Plutarch, Rom. Q. 108, Mor. 289E (trans. Babbitt, LCL, 4:161).

387. Quintilian, Decl. 338.8 (trans. Bailey, LCL, 2:217).

388. Quintilian, Decl. 368.3 (trans. Bailey, LCL, 2:361), though apparently textually suspect.

389. Let. Aris. 250 (trans. Hadas, Aristeas, 199; cf. also 198n250).

390. E.g., Valerius Maximus, Mem. 2.1.6. A good marriage and safe household was one that had concord (homonoia) and like-mindedness (homophrosunē) between the couple (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 38.15); on marital concord, see further Balch, Wives, 88.

391. T. Sol. 18:15.

392. Some translate in terms of showing consideration or understanding, a value highlighted in b. B. Meṣ. 59a. Sir. 7:25 urges marrying one’s daughter to a man of understanding (for an understanding wife, cf. 25:8).

393. Elliott, Peter, 575. Let. Aris. 250 emphasizes this point; but Peter, who does not specify the denigrating characteristics that Aristeas does, may mean this simply as in the socially weaker position. Cf. sungnōmē as grace toward the lowly (LSJ; Cotter, Christ of Miracle Stories, 12).

394. Having correct knowledge that motivates behavior (1 Pet. 1:18; 5:9). Irenaeus (Haer. 1.4.1, 5) uses the same phrase as Peter here, but for intellect, having cognition.

395. DeSilva, Honor, 232–33.

396. A second-century BCE Roman law barred women from being named heirs, but it may have become obsolete by this period (Manthe, “Lex Voconia”). Israelite law made daughters heirs only in the absence of sons (Num. 27:4, 7).

397. Although I prefer the textual reading in 𝔓72 (sunklēronomois), this is a grammatical issue that does not affect the text’s basic sense.

398. Cf. Matt. 6:12–15; Luke 17:4–6; 23:34; 1 Cor. 11:29–30; probably James 4:3.

399. Cf. esp. Sir. 3:5–6: whoever honors their father will be heard when they pray; Pythagoras in Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 11.54: women must “pay most attention to goodness, in order that they have the gods ready to hear their prayers” (trans. Dillon and Hershbell, 79). Cf. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 39.4: “Even the gods pay heed to men who live in concord, while men who are torn by civil strife do not even hear one another” (trans. Crosby, LCL, 4:99); cf. also Porphyry, Marc. 24.374–75; Exod. Rab. 22:3.

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