(b) OLKos, besides being used for 'house' in the sense of a structure, represents (like dormis) familia, the 'family' in its AA'idest sense (see also Home). It is used fl) for all living tender one roof — father, mother, near relations, and dependents — fiequently in the NT : Ac 7'" (Pharaoh), 10^ and 11'* (Cornelius), 16^' (Philippian jailer : so v.^^ iravoLKl ' Avith all his house,' here only in NT), 18^ (Crispus), 1 Co l'« (Stephanas), 1 Ti 3^- (the bishop), 5* (the AvidoAv), 2 Ti P" and 4'9 (Onesi- phorus, Avho apparently Avas dead, and Avhose household is nevertheless named after him : see beloAv, 2 [d]), He 11^ (Noah), and, in plural, 1 Ti S^^ (deacons), Tit 1" (Christians generally) ; (2) for descendants, Lk 1^ 2* ; (3) for God's family, the house of God (see beloAv, 3).
598
FAINIILY
FAMILY
(c) o'lKia is similarly used for a ' household ' in Ph 422 (Cresar), Mt lO'^ 122s, Jn 45^ (the Capernaum royal officer), 1 Co 16^^ (Stephanas) ; and therefore for 'possessions' in the phrase 'widows' houses,' Mk 12^", Lk 20", and inferior MSS of ]\It 23'*.
2. Members of the family. — (a) Father. — The father, if alive, is the head of the family {pater- familias), and exercises authority over all its members.* He is the 'master' or 'goodman' of the house {olKoSeaTrdrvs), Mt 24-*3, Mk W-^ (in Lk 22'^ olKoSecnroTTjs rijs oUias), and the 'lord' (K^pios) of the household (oiKereia), Mt 24'*^ That in some sense he is the priest of his own family appears from He 10-\ where the spiritual family, the house of God, has our Lord as 'a great priest over' it (see below, 3). The subordination of the family to the father is a favourite subject with St. Paul, who, though the Apostle of liberty, carefully guards against anarchy. His libertj' is that of the Latin collect : ' Deus . . . cui servire regnare est ' (paraphrased : 'O God . . . whose service is perfect freedom '). He lays down the general principle of subordination for all Ciiristians in Ejjh 5'-^ (cf. Ro 13', 1 Co \5'^^, and 1 P 5^), and then applies it to Christian families. The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is Head of the Church ; husbands must love and honour their wives, for they are one flesh, and wives must be in subjection to their husbands and reverence them (Eph 522-25 28-33^ (^qJ SIS'-, Tit 2^^ ; cf. 1 P Si-'). For children and de- pendents see below, and for the relation of husband and wife, see Marriage.
{b) Mother. — On the other hand, the position of the mother in the family is a very important one ; to this day in Muhammadan countries, where the women are more in the background than among the Oriental Christians (for even there Christianity has greatly raised the position of women), the influence of the mother is immense. We find many traces of this in the NT. In 1 Ti 5" even young mothers are said to 'rule the household' (olKoSeairoTelv). In 1 P 3^ the heathen husband is gained by the influence of the Avife. The house- hold at Lystra in which Timothy was brought up was profoundly influenced by the ' unfeigned faith ' of his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois (2 Ti 15 ; cf. 3'5), and the influence of the former over her Greek husband (Ac 16') may have been in St. Peter's mind. In Mt 2(P ' the mother of the sons of Zebedee' (a curious phrase) is put forward to make petition for her children. Further, if the mother was a widow, she, rather than one of the sons, seems, at least in some cases, to have been the head of the household. Thus we read of the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, not of the house of Mark (Ac 12^^) . ^nd of the house of Lydia (Ac 16'"), who was probably a widow, trading between Philippi and Thyatira, a city famous for dyeing, witn a gild of dyers evidenced by inscriptions (the supposition that Lydia was the ' true yokefellow ' of Ph 4* rests on no solid basis). It was Lydia who entertained St. Paul and his companions, not her sons or brothers. A similar case is perhaps that of Chloe ; she seems to have been a widow whose liousehold ('they of Chloe,' 1 Co 1") traded between' Ephesus and Corinth. Other prominent women in the apostolic writings are Damaris (Ac 17^), whom Kamsay thinks not to have been of noble birth, as the regulations at Athens with regard to the seclusion of women were more strict than in some other
E laces, and a well-bom lady would hardly have een likely there to come to hear St. Paul preach {St. Paul the Traveller, 1895, p. 252); Phoebe, a deaconess who had been a 'succourer of many'
• Ramsay points out {GalaUans, 1899, p. 343) that fiaUr has a wider sense than our ' father' ; he was the chief, the lord, the master, the leader.
(Ro 16"-) ; Euodia and Syntyche, who were pro- minent church workers at Philippi (Ph 4*'- ), It has often been noticed that the position of mothers of families was especially strong in Macedonia and in Asia Minor, and particularly in the less civilized parts of the latter. Of this there are some traces in the NT. Thus the influential \vomen at Pisidian Antioch, the ' devout women of honour- able estate,' are, with the chief men (n-pcDroi) of the city, urged by the Jews to arouse feeling against St. Paul and Barnabas (Ac 13^"), and the 'chief women ' are specially mentioned at Tliessalonica (17'*) and Bercea (17'-). There are even instances (not in the NT) of women holding public offices, and of descent being reckoned through the mother (see further J. B. Lightfoot, Fhilippia7is, 1903 ed., p. 55 f.; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, pp. 67, 160-2). It is curious that Codex Bezae (D) waters down the references to noteworthy women : e.g. in Ac 17** it omits Damaris ; it seems to reflect a dislike to the prominence of women which is found in Christian circles in the 2nd century.