How it was in the Greek world in 30 A.D.
The culture that Paul faced as he set out on his missionary journeys was so vastly different than ours today, it is hard to imagine just how revolutionary his message was when placed beside the accepted values of world where he went.
First, prostitution was an essential part of Greek life,values and culture, and at the same time they considered that Greece had the most advanced civilization in the world.
Demosthenese said that prostitution was an accepted rule of life in the Greek world. He stated his views and put it this way:"We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and of having a faithful guardian for all our household affairs." W. Barclay P 170
The woman of the respectable classes in Greece led a completely secluded life. She was not a public person, was never out alone; she never appeared at meals or at social occasions; she had her own apartments and none but her husband might enter into them. The purpose according to Xenophon was that: "she might see as little as possible, hear as little as possible and ask as little as possible."
The Greek respectable woman was brought up in such a way that companionship and fellowship in marriage was impossible. Socrates said: "Is there anyone to whom you entrust more serious matters than to your wife - and is there anyone to whom you talk less?"
Verus was the imperial colleague of the great Marcus Aurelius. He was blamed by his wife for associating with other women, and his answer was that she must remember that the name of wife was a title of dignity but not of pleasure.
The Greek expected his wife to run his home, to care of his legitimate children, but he found his pleasure and his companionship elsewhere.
But here is the element that made all of this much worse. There was no legal procedure of divorce in Greece at this time in history. As someone has put it, divorce was by nothing else than caprice. The one security that the wife had was that her dowry must be returned. Home and family life was near to being extinct and fidelity was completely nonexistent.
When Paul preached as he did about the role and place of woman, as much as people now raise an eyebrow over some of what he wrote, he was a wild revolutionary compared to what was believed about the role and place of women before the Christian message was proclamed by Paul to the Greek speaking world.
First, prostitution was an essential part of Greek life,values and culture, and at the same time they considered that Greece had the most advanced civilization in the world.
Demosthenese said that prostitution was an accepted rule of life in the Greek world. He stated his views and put it this way:"We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and of having a faithful guardian for all our household affairs." W. Barclay P 170
The woman of the respectable classes in Greece led a completely secluded life. She was not a public person, was never out alone; she never appeared at meals or at social occasions; she had her own apartments and none but her husband might enter into them. The purpose according to Xenophon was that: "she might see as little as possible, hear as little as possible and ask as little as possible."
The Greek respectable woman was brought up in such a way that companionship and fellowship in marriage was impossible. Socrates said: "Is there anyone to whom you entrust more serious matters than to your wife - and is there anyone to whom you talk less?"
Verus was the imperial colleague of the great Marcus Aurelius. He was blamed by his wife for associating with other women, and his answer was that she must remember that the name of wife was a title of dignity but not of pleasure.
The Greek expected his wife to run his home, to care of his legitimate children, but he found his pleasure and his companionship elsewhere.
But here is the element that made all of this much worse. There was no legal procedure of divorce in Greece at this time in history. As someone has put it, divorce was by nothing else than caprice. The one security that the wife had was that her dowry must be returned. Home and family life was near to being extinct and fidelity was completely nonexistent.
When Paul preached as he did about the role and place of woman, as much as people now raise an eyebrow over some of what he wrote, he was a wild revolutionary compared to what was believed about the role and place of women before the Christian message was proclamed by Paul to the Greek speaking world.
posted by Lee Truman | 4:32 PM
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