Mutuality and Women's Ministry in the Letter to the Romans

Susan Mathew finds in the Pauline greetings in Romans an affirmation of “the mutuality of men and women in Christian ministry” that is very strong and quite exceptional (Mathew, Susan. 2013. 1. Women in the Greetings of Romans 16.1–16. A Study of Mutuality and Women’s Ministry in the Letter to the Romans. London: Bloomsbury). The leadership roles of women mentioned in Romans 16, 1-16 and their ministry can be described in relation to Paul’s notion of “mutual interdependence” that we find also in other letters of his. In Romans, Paul understands “mutuality” not only as a “relationship of reciprocal care” as the expression “one another” shows. The expression “one another” is used sixteen times in Romans 12-16 and the term “love” eight times (ibid.: 15). In Romans 16, Paul asks the Roman community sixteen times to greet (in Greek: aspásasthae) dear collaborators and members of the community. The imperative in Romans 16,16 “to greet one another with a holy kiss …“ can be interpreted as a summation of Rom. 16, 1-16 and as a practice intended to include the entire church community” (ibid.: 1–2).

It is Paul’s intention in the Letter to the Romans to create “unity and love among the Roman Christians” (ibid.: 2), and Susan Mathew wants to study how he empowers these women and men by coherently stating their “properly functioning gender roles” on the basis of equality and equal honor (ibid.: 10). Mathew relates the greetings in Romans 16, 1-16 to the notion of mutuality and love in Romans 12-13 and mutual recognition in Romans 14-15 (ibid.). Paul addresses with his greeting the Roman church. He wants to create a bond between his friends and the Roman church, between himself and the Roman church and “between the individual members of the ethnically and socially diverse Roman church” (ibid.: 4). In Romans 16, Paul introduces Phoebe the deaconess of the church at Cenchreae, and greets twenty-six individuals. Twenty-four are identified by name. The nine women among them are described the same way as Paul’s male associates; therefore, Susan Mathew will argue, “that these women held influential positions in the church and were responsible for the leadership of Christian communities” (ibid.). Their leadership follows from their significant roles in the Christian communities that are described by Paul, always insisting on relationships of mutuality (ibid.: 16). The theological term “mutuality” is described in connection with terms like “otherness, interdependence, personhood, recovery of the community’s collegiality, and partnership” (ibid.: 17). Mutual tolerance also concerns controversies about “strongly-held convictions” and the obligation of the strong to support the weak (ibid.). The norm in Roman society was to force the weak; but Paul follows the model of Jesus Christ (ibid.). Susan Mathew wants to describe Paul’s model of “love-mutualism” and his strategy for bringing it about, hoping that it will hold the community together in conflicts and crisis (ibid.: 19).

The closing in Romans 15,33-16,27 is the longest of all letters of Paul “and includes two peace benedictions (15, 33; 16, 20a), a letter of recommendation (16, 1-2), two greeting lists (16, 3-16, 21-23), a hortation section (16, 17-20), and a doxology (16, 25-27)” (ibid.: 35). We do not find peace benedictions in other letter closings of Paul. We also find a doxology in the closing of the Letter to the Philippians (Philippians 4, 20). The doxology in Romans 16, 25-27 summarizes and reinforces main arguments of the letter that are found in earlier parts. Romans 16, 25a is linked with Romans 1, 11 and 1, 16; with 9, 17 and 15, 13 and 15, 19. Romans 16, 25b-26a is linked with Romans 3, 21 (ibid.: 37).

The imperative “Greet each other with the holy kiss” in Romans 16, 16a is not limited to family members. It concerns all members of the whole greeting list before in Romans 16, 3-16. The holy kiss is practiced among all members of the body of Christ, both genders are to be kissed as equals in the community of believers (ibid.: 42-43). All of Paul’s efforts in Romans 12-15 “to bring about mutuality in the community” peaks in Romans 16,16a. People are important “to Paul’s own ministry, the wider church, and for one another” (ibid.: 44). People of different social classes and genders, with religious, national and ethnic divisions are supposed to “Greet each other with the holy kiss” and thereby become one loving people full of affection for one another and mutual care (ibid.).

We do not know the reactions of the Christians in Rome to Paul’s letter. We do not know if the Christians started to “Greet each other with the holy kiss” and became one loving community, overcoming differences of social classes and genders and solving conflicts of interests and religion peacefully and with love. I doubt that this kind of love was realized and that the Jewish Christians and the Greek and Roman Christians all of a sudden overcame their social conflicts or difference of social status. We do not know much about the process of realizing the mutuality of care and love within the society that the letter claims. It is important to acknowledge the fact that Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome “Greet each other with the holy kiss” and that the author of Romans incessantly worked for this kind of mutual love and care.

Susan Mathew observes that concerning women’s roles in the Roman Empire though literary and legal sources limit women’s roles to the private sphere, there are some inscriptions that tell of the significance of women in public life (ibid.: 49). Evidence from the Greco-Roman diaspora from the second century BCE to the sixth century CE suggests “that at least some Jewish women played active religious, social, economic, and even political roles in the public lives of Jewish communities” (ibid.: 54). Women held leadership roles in synagogues as “leaders, elders, priestesses, and mothers of synagogues” that is heads of synagogues or members of the decision-making body (ibid.).

What about the women’s roles in Romans 16, 1-16? Susan Mathew starts describing the leadership role of Phoebe when interpreting Romans 16, 1-2:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae; give her, in the Lord, a welcome worthy of God’s holy people, and help her with whatever she needs from you – she herself has come to the help of many people, including myself” (New Jerusalem Bible 1999).

Susan Mathew follows the view of those exegetes who describe the role of the deaconess and the deacon as serving, although she also insists that “Paul uses the term with a special relation to the church (ekklaesía) throughout his letter” (Mathew 2013, 66). It follows from this that Phoebe is designated as deaconess of a church in Romans 16, 1, and that we have to try to describe Phoebe’s role, Phoebe’s service or ministry, in regard to the church in Cenchreae (ibid.: 67). In Romans 15, 25, Paul uses the verb “to serve” (Greek: diakonéin) for himself:

“But now I have undertaken to go to Jerusalem in the service of the holy people of God there” (New Jerusalem Bible 1999).

The expressions “the holy people of God” and “the saints” in Romans 15, 25 and in Romans 16, 2 describe a group of people gathered together as a church. The Christians considered “service” or “ministry” as realizing the edification of the community (Mathew 2013). Susan Mathew mentions that non-Christian sources denote the task of the deacon as messenger (ibid.: 68) but she does not develop the point any further.

Susan Mathew deduces from Paul’s recommendation of Phoebe to the Romans and his request “to help her with whatever she needs” that Phoebe’s title as deaconess in relation to the community involves “some form of leadership” and probably includes teaching and preaching (ibid.: 73).

A second title given by Paul to Phoebe is prostátis, meaning helper, benefactor or patron and in Romans 16, 2 we have the only use of this title in the New Testament (ibid.: 74). Mathew knows of Jewish inscriptions that use the term pointing at significant positions on some synagogues, also Josephus, and Philo use the term in relation to communities (ibid.). Paul uses the term prostátis not “in relation to the church but in relation to individuals” (ibid.: 76). This use might say something about the social status of Phoebe. Mathew thinks of her as a wealthy person who is a benefactress (ibid.: 78). The two roles, deaconess and benefactress, imply reciprocity and mutual obligation in the relationship between Paul and Phoebe (ibid.: 79). Phoebe could have supplied aid to foreigners coming to the community, providing housing and financial aid and access to local authorities (ibid.: 80). The most significant aspect of the relationship between Paul and Phoebe constitutes mutuality in the eyes of Mathew (ibid.: 83). Paul includes the Christians in Rome in this obligation of mutuality concerning Phoebe. She should be granted hospitality and assistance in reciprocity for what she has done for others. Phoebe is “our sister”, she is not only the sister of Paul but sister of all Christians in all communities (ibid.: 84).

Susan Mathew turns to Romans 16, 3-5a:

“My greetings to Prisca and Aquila, my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks to save my life; to them, thanks not only from me, but from all the churches among the gentiles; and my greetings to the church at their house”.

The pair Prisca and Aquila were of great importance for the early Christian mission (ibid.: 86). We learn from Acts 18, 2-3 that they had been expelled by the edict of the Emperor Claudius in 49 AD from Rome and moved their business and ministry to Corinth. There they met Paul with whom they shared the profession of tent-makers. They moved with Paul to Ephesus (Acts 18, 18-19). Claudius’ edict fell in 54 AD and Prisca and Aquilla might have returned to Rome (ibid.).

The term “fellow-worker” (in Greek: sunergós) describes, according to the use of this term in Paul’s letters, somebody who works together with Paul sharing the work of preaching on the mission as demanded by God (ibid.: 89). Paul’s use of this egalitarian term indicates his approach to collegiality on his mission, collegiality with women and men. The experts suppose that Prisca and Aquila risked execution when they saved Paul’s life in Ephesus. Evidently they enjoyed a social status that empowered them for this “patronal capacity” (ibid.: 90). Prisca’s and Aquila’s house church was open to Christians from other families too. We do not know if Prisca held a role of leadership in the house church. Paul’s greeting of Prisca and Aquila “is intended to establish and strengthen a chain of close relationships” (ibid.: 93). Paul’s thanksgiving mirrors the reciprocity of the patron-client system that organized society in antiquity (ibid.). The patron-client system of antiquity was based on the reciprocal obligation of non-equals. The patron was superior to the client and the client inferior to the patron. The client was indebted to the patron and the patron was obligated to take the benefactor’s role. Susan Mathew is not coherent when insisting on the egalitarian aspect of Paul’s approach to sisters and brothers in Christ and at the same time speaks of a parallel to the patron-client system (ibid.). There is no doubt that Paul wanted to get the Roman Christians’ support for Prisca and Aquila, a support based on deliberate thankfulness and not to repay a debt.

Paul takes up the theme of the unity of Jews and Gentiles (Romans 14-15); there is mutuality in the two groups. Since this mutuality concerns “all the churches among the gentiles”, there is an aspect of universal mutuality. We do not learn what kind of aid the couple had provided to the Christians in Rome in this universal context, nevertheless Paul insists on universal recognition (ibid.: 95-96).

In Romans 16, 7 Paul greets Andronicus and Junia:

“Greetings to those outstanding apostles, Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and fellow-prisoners, who were in Christ before me”.

The New Jerusalem Bible together with many traditional translations of the Bible into many languages does not dare to use Junia instead of Junias. Yes, there is controversy regarding the “only woman who is called an apostle in the New Testament” (ibid.: 96). She and Andronicus are Paul’s relatives, fellow-prisoners, prominent apostles and “in Christ before me” (ibid.). Why can the question of the gender of the name not get an answer based on grammar? From the patristic fathers up until the twelfth century CE, the name was feminine and there were only a few exceptions to that view (ibid.: 97). From then on, the scholars chose the masculine form Junias, Luther opted for it in 1552 and others followed (ibid.). In the early church, the notion of apostle was much broader than merely the “Twelve”. Paul claims his apostleship in the first Letter to the Corinthians and in the Letter to the Galatians (ibid.: 104). Andronicus and Junia are to be considered apostles just like Barnabas, Silas and Apollos (1 Corinthians 4, 6 and 9; 9, 5-6; Galatians 1, 19 and the first Letter to the Thessalonians 2, 1 and 7) (ibid.: 105).

The term relatives refers to Jews, in the case of Junia and Andronicus to Christians who are fellow Jews of Paul. The use of the expression “relatives” is significant for Paul’s theology of the inclusion of “Jews and Gentiles in God’s plan of salvation (Romans 9-11)” (ibid.: 106). Romans 9, 3 highlights this inclusion (ibid.):

“I could pray that I myself might be accursed and cut off from Christ, if this could benefit the brothers who are my own flesh and blood”.

Paul tells only of four persons with names who were “fellow prisoners” that is Junia and Andronicus, Aristarchus in Colossians 4, 10 and Epaphras in the Letter to Philemon 1, 23.

Junia and Andronicus were early Jewish Christians and being in Christ before Paul. Had they been witnesses of the resurrection in Jerusalem and therefore qualify for the status of apostles (ibid.: 107)? They were not only associates of Paul, they were “outstanding” as fellow-prisoners, as they were in Christ before Paul, and probably leading members of the Christian community (ibid.: 108).

Four women are described as “hardworking”: Mary in Romans 16, 6 and Tryphaena, Tryphosa and Persis in Romans 16, 12. The Roman congregation benefited from Mary’s work, Paul especially mentioned that “she has worked for you” and she worked “much” (ibid.:109). Do inscriptions suggest that Tryphaena and Tryphosa were Gentile Christians? The expression “laborers in the Lord” indicate their missionary work (ibid.: 111). Persis may be Gentile or Jewish (ibid.: 110). Her toil in her missionary task is honored and the description “the beloved” indicates affection and a close relationship (ibid.: 110). This description of some individuals (Romans 16, verses 5, 8, 9 and 12) as “beloved” shows “a corresponding relationship to the Roman believers” and adds credibility of Paul’s claim to “love” in Romans 12, 9-12 and 13, 8-10 (ibid.).

Paul presents Rufus’ mother as “a mother to me too” (Romans 16, 13), he greets Julia and her husband Philologus and Nereus and his sister (Romans 16, 15). Were they “part of the leadership team of a tenement church” as Susan Mathew suggests (ibid.: 112)? I do not see arguments in favor of this claim nor arguments for exclusion. Mathew is right, that Phoebe’s role of deaconess and of prostátis indicate a leadership role for her (ibid.). Prisca was a co-worker of Paul, but was she the leader of her house church? The couple Andronicus and Junia are “prominent among the apostles”, but does this recognition indicate more than their high reputation among the early Christians? Mary, Persis, Tryphaena and Tryphosa were part of an appreciated missionary team and Nereus’ sister and Julia were missionary workers. Paul appreciated the missionary work of women, and he recognizes their leadership work alongside that of men without difficulties. Paul creates and describes reciprocity and disregards gender (ibid.: 113). He calls the Roman Christians to greet others, to realize egalitarian mutuality and “encourages reciprocal relations between one another regardless of gender identity” (ibid.).

Susan Mathew now turns to the exhortations in Romans 12-15 that claim bonds of mutual love and Go’d’s love within the Christian community. Paul describes mutual relations of love through the body metaphor and the language of “one another” (ibid.: 114). The body metaphor is used in Romans 12 and 1, Corinthians 12, and further in the deutero-Pauline epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. Ancient Greco-Roman literature uses the body metaphor as expressions of political and cosmic solidarity concerning unity, hierarchy and interdependence (ibid.: 115). It is important to note that Antiquity does not use the term for describing interactions of equals. Illness and social disruption are indicators of the hierarchical constitution of the body (ibid.: 116). The body metaphor is used as an argument for unity or concord. Patriarchy guarantees the political hierarchy; and the poor and the rich in the city, both accept their position just as the elements of a galaxy accept their position (ibid.: 117). This hierarchy of unequal individuals is not in the mind of Paul when using the picture of the body.

Paul points at the diversity of the parts of the human body and attributes to each part a function (Greek: praxis) that helps to maintain the integrity of the whole body (Romans 12, 4). Paul had not used the term function in 1 Corinthians 12, 12-17 where he had already employed the body metaphor for the Christian community (ibid.: 121). The functional aspect of each distinct element is important for the whole. The individual, singular function of a part consists in its specific contribution to the health of the whole body.

In Corinthians and Romans, Paul speaks of the “body of Christ” and the “body in Christ”, not of a political body.

Romans 12, 5: “In the same way, all of us, though there are so many of us, make up one body in Christ, and as different parts we are all joined to one another”.

It is important to affirm that the unity in Christ does not cancel out the diversity of the individual parts. Yet, we have to acknowledge that collectively belonging to Christ operates the unity as all the individual parts interacting with each other. What was first: The collective of the many and then in Christ the unity of the individual parts or the individual parts in Christ and then their unity in Christ and their interactions with each other? I do not know. What seems beyond doubt is the condition that the unity in Christ qualifies as body in Christ because of the mutual interactions. Romans 12, 10 exhorts to responsibility for one another. The social context of the use of the term love (agapae) among the Roman believers is the love feast, the meal of love, the Eucharist (ibid.: 123).

Romans 12, 10a: “In brotherly love let your feelings of deep affection for one another come to expression and regard others as more important than yourself”.

Romans 13, 8: “The only thing you should owe to anyone is love for one another, for to love the other person is to fulfil the law”.

Love enhances mutuality and mutual relations increase love (ibid.). In Romans “love” and “loving” are used seventeen times and “one another” is used fourteen times, eleven times in Romans 12-16. “Love is not limited to believers, but should be offered to strangers and persecutors (12, 13-14). Love is the root of all the rest” (ibid.: 125).

Romans 5, 5: “…the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”.

In the Mediterranean world of Antiquity, public recognition that is honor was the principal guarantee of personal identity and integrity (ibid.: 127). Paul’s use of the term “honor” in Romans 12,10b that is “honoring one another” on the basis of love claims honoring regardless of status and merit (ibid.: 128). Sharing the needs and contributing to solve financial distress of community members and others, and the practice of hospitality enhances the well-being of the whole community so that “communal sharing, caring and supporting” are identified as fruits of Christian life (ibid.: 130).

Romans 12, 15 speaks of solidarity and real expressions of love: “Rejoice with others when they rejoice, and be sad with those in sorrow”. Romans 12, 16 exhorts the believers to live in harmony with each other regardless of social status (ibid.) and “love does no evil to the neighbor (13, 10a)” (ibid.: 133).

In Romans 14 and 15, Paul claims that mutual respect and acceptance need to be practiced by the Christians of the community and he points at specific social situations. In Romans 14, 1 he admonishes receiving those whose faith is not strong. The weak should be welcome. In Romans 15, 1 the obligation of the strong to support the weak is taken up again. Those with scruples concerning the observance or non-observance of the Jewish law on issues like the consumption of unclean meat, wine, the observation of the Sabbath and the Jewish feasts or fasts should be treated with understanding (ibid.: 137). The one with scruples should not on their part discriminate and dishonor the one without scruples for “God has welcomed” the strong (Romans 14, 3) (ibid.: 144). Harmony and unity again is operated by honoring the Lord and giving thanks to God; “the one eats in honor of the Lord” and the other “abstains from eating in the honor of the Lord” (Romans 14, 6). The believers should not judge one another (Romans 14, 4 and 13). For brothers there is no place for mutual contempt or despising (Romans 14, 10), and “we”—that is the sisters and brothers—, should edify one another (Romans 14, 19) and Paul prays “the God of perseverance and encouragement” to empower the sisters and brothers to think of one another “following the example of Christ Jesus” (Romans 15, 5). Judging is reserved to the Lord, the master; his servants are not capacitated or empowered to do so (Romans 14, 4).

All, the strong and the weak, the sinners and hosts in the love feasts and even the enemies are welcome to Christ. In Romans 15, 7 Paul exhorts the believers to relate to each other according to the model of Jesus Christ:

“Accept one another, then, for the sake of God’s glory, as Christ accepted you”.

The verb “to accept” is the same Greek proslambánomai for the welcoming of one another and the redemption of Christ (ibid.: 145). The redemptive action of Christ is caused not by our merits but on the contrary by our “unrighteous character” (ibid.: 152).

Romans 15.3:

“Christ did not indulge his own feelings, either; indeed, as scripture says: The insults of those who insult you fall on me”.

Paul refers to Psalm 69,9b. In behalf of the shamed, Christ died a shameful death (ibid.). The sisters and brothers judging one another with contempt in Rome are the weak, and Christ’s shameful death is weakness again. This mutuality of weakness bears reconciliation. Weakness restores the dignity and integrity of those who come to honor one another and stop despise and contempt (ibid.).

What are the Christian values for the community? In Romans 14, 19 we read:

“So then, let us be always seeking the ways which lead to peace and the ways in which we can support one another”.

The righteous man of Psalm 34, 14 is echoed here and Susan Mathew points at Galatians 5, 22 where the fruits of the Spirit are indicated to the community of sisters and brothers: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and trustfulness (ibid.: 153).

At the end of his Letter to the Romans, Paul is able to present a true validity condition for his claims to validity of love: He was able to realize love. In Romans 16, verses 5, 8, 9 and 12, Paul presents some individuals, Epaenetus, Ampliatus, Stachys and Persis, as “beloved”. Paul effectively realized social relations of love, bonds of mutual love, and his claims to love in Romans are credible because he met the validity condition of his claim to love.

A few years later, the situation changed drastically. In captivity and a few weeks before his death under the sword, Paul bitterly writes in the Second Letter to Timothy 4, 16: “The first time I had to present my defense, no one came into court to support me. Every one of them deserted me—may they not be held accountable for it”. Well, we do not know the author or authors who wrote the two Letters to Timothy and the Letter to Titus some decades after the death of Paul (Wagener 2007, 2185). It is certainly the intention of the letters to use Paul’s authority to present their view of the Christian faith and of church discipline (ibid.). Had Paul indeed been left by all of his sisters and brothers in Rome at the end of his life? Was there really nobody to help him and console him in love and solidarity? I do not know.