• Tliis plirase can mean eittier (1) a nidow who lias been only once married, or (2) a widow who has been tailhful to one man, t e. who was not Ruilty of pre-nuiitial or viduary (orrncation or ot conjugal infidelity. To the present writer the latter mean- ing is far more likely.
face of it concerned mainly with Church support, and again in the Kast, even in Chrysostoin s tune, widows were regarded mainly if not exclusively as Chuich iiensioneis. That the Apostle does not refer to deaconesses is plain because in a (mcvious section (S""-) ho discussed them. No doubt by the end of the 2nd cent, deaconesses would in maiiv cases be taken from the ranks of the widow.s (Tert. de Virg. Vd. il, nd Uxor. i. 7; cf. Ign. or/ Simjm. 13). In Tit 2» the aged women referreil to are not female presbyters, and so on the whole it is better to regard the roll here spoken of as a cata- locue of those widows who ought to be supported by the Church, and perhaps of these it was ex- pected that they would give their time and skill to the service of the Christian community. Certainly they were not to remarry ; in fact, the age limit made that practically impossible.* 1 here is no reason, however, to think of a lixed ecclesi- astical order with delinite status and functions. That St. Paul speaks so strongly about the re- marriage of young widows is no ]>roof— on our view of the meaning of ' a woman of one man — that younger widows if they remarried and again became widows would be excluded from the roll, for they would still be faithful to one husband. On the other hand, the case of a destitute widow under sixty is not directly discussed. It is not the Apostle's manner, however, to be exhaustive in his treatment of any subject. Such a woman would not be left to starve, but she might well be helpeU to look after herself and to abstain from going definitely on the roll of tlie Church. The Church s earlier relations to widows were distinctly elee- mosynary, whatever the later may have been, and there is no reason to believe that anything else is intended by St. Paul here. .„ * ,
The right of widows to remarry is tacitly taken for .n-anted by the Apostle in Ko 7» and 1 Co 7»- ; and, although in the latter passage he advises them to remain as they are, it is because of special reasons of temporal distress. His view on this subject, even in 1 Cor., is separated by a wide chasm from the opinion which became prevalent later when the remarriage of widows was regarded with horror. This view was based on the deprecia- tion of marriage itself as early as the Pastor of Hennas {Mand. iv. 4), but remarnage is not yet reoarded as sinful. But it is so regarded by Athenagoras, who says that ' a second inarnage is a pleasing adultery' (ei)xpeir7)S fioixfia, J^eg. d.5 ; ct. Clem ::iirom. III. xii. 82, and the long note by A Hil"enfeld, iVou. Test, extra Canonem Reccplum, Leipzig, 1S7G, p. 173). In 1 Tim. the Apostle shows a much more sympathetic appreciation ot family life and of the marriage relationship.
Onie, ill Rev 18', the term 'widow- is used of a city in aflliction— a usage borrowed from the U 1 prophets (cf. Is 47«). The idea of Grotius that kuodia and Syntyche mentioned in Ph 4» were ' widows' can be neither proved nor disproved
Literature. -Bible Dictionaries, art. 'Widow.' Formdov™ of a later ate, see E. Hatch, art. 'Widows,' in Smith and Cheetham'3 ^C4 ii. 2n'.!3fl.; J. B. Lightfoot, Ari""';9 ^.'•''"'^ pt. ii.=, London, 1889, ii. .S04, 322 ; A. Harnack, J/..s«<m and F^iansion of ihrislianili/. Enj. tr.2, do., lOOS, i. 123. All these discuss the relation between the widow and the deaconess See, further, J. S. Howson, Dcacuticsses, Ix>ndon 1802 Cecilia Robinson, ri,e Ministry of Dcaconesse), do., I8»8. All expositors of 1 Ti 63 le deal with the question ; see also W. M. Ramsay, Hxp, 7th scr., ix. [1910] r.ii; (t. Kamsay, j. DoNALD MACKENZIE.
WIFE.— See Family, Mauriaqe. WILDERNESS.— See Desert.
WILL.— The consideration of the place of the I will in the teaching of the apostolic writings must
• Whether St. Paul himself fixed this age limit or whether lis ' found it in existence we aiimot say.
678
WILL
WILL
be carefully distinguished from the question of free- will (see art. Freeijom of the Will). The line between them is not easy to draw in all cases ; but the aim of this article is to consider the concep- tion or conceptions of the will implied in the Acts and Kpistles, and its relation to views current in modern psychological writings. At the present time there is a strong tendency to throw command- ing emphasis on the will. All consciousness, it is agreed, im]ilies the three factors, volition or cona- tion, cognition, and sensation or feeling ; but, if any one of these can be said to be primary, it is volition. Consciousness grows by functioning ; and, except in its rudimentary stages, functioning is impossible apart from volition. Much attentiou has naturally been given to the relations between will on the one hand and wish and desire on the other, to the connexion between will and attention and habit, and also to the possibility of action against the will. Is the will a matter of detached impulses or is it properly the expression of the personality, the self ? These questions are of great importance to the student of the NT. Schopenhauer, and later Nietzsche, raised the subject of the will to a new importance in philo- sophic discussion ; and the questions mentioned above have been recently emphasized by the various writings of William James, and the important and far-reaching contentions of Eucken and of Bergson. The theist has a further set of questions to answer : What is the relation of the will of man to the will of God ? Does the latter compel the former ? And is it similar in kind ? What is the real meaning of the ' surrender of the will' so often demanded in religious writings? Which should be placed highest in religion, the active and conative, the intellectual, or the emotional element?