* The late Dr. Hort, in his Hcclesia, holds that ‘‘ Bishop’? was not the designation of an office, but of a function. It was a description of the Elder’s function. He says: ‘‘It is now pretty generally recognised . . . that we have not here (in the word érlcxomos) a different office, held by one person in contrast to the plural Elders.’ And he adds: ‘It is hardly less erroneous to take éricxoros as merely a second title, capable of being used convertibly With rpeoBurepos”’ (p. 190).
Cu. V.] THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. 257
2. The elder women (apecGurépas). N.T.°. Comp. mperBuTidas aged women, Tit. ii. 83. The word indicates dis- tinction in age merely, although some think that it points to an official position which is further referred to in the follow- ing directions concerning widows.*
3. Honour (réua). Not only by respectful treatment but by financial support. Comp. tiujce, Matt. xv. 5, and 7oA- Aais timais ériunoav, Acts xxviii. 10; and Sumdjs tims, 1 Tim. v.17. Comp. Sir. xxxviil. 1. The verb only once in Paul (Eph. vi. 2, citation), and only here in Pastorals.
Widows (ynpas). Paul alludes to widows in 1 Cor. vii. 8 only, where he advises them against remarrying. They are mentioned as a class in Acts vi. 1, in connection with the ap- pointment of the seven. Also Acts ix. 89,41. In the Past- orals they receive special notice, indicating their advance: from the position of mere beneficiaries to a quasi-official posi-. tion in the church. From the very first, the church recog-- nised its obligation to care for their support. A widow, in: the East, was peculiarly desolate and helpless.¢ In return: for their maintenance certain duties were required of them,,. such as the care of orphans, sick and prisoners, and. they were enrolled in an order, which, however, did not imelude: all of their number who received alms of the chureh. In Polycarp’s Hpistle to the Philippians, they are styled: “the altar of God.” ‘To such an order the references in the Past-. orals point. The Fathers, from the end of the second 'cent- ury to the fourth, recognised a class known as mpeoPvrides: aged women (Tit. ii. 3), who had oversight of the female church-members and a separate seat in the congregation. The council of Laodicaea abolished this institution, or so modified it that widows no longer held an official relation to. the church. $
* So Holtzmann, who finds in it a trace of ‘‘ the Mothers of the Synagogue”? in the synagogues of the Jewish dispersion. See Pastoralbriefe, p. 241. + See Ignatius, Ep. to Polycarp, IV. Polycarp, Ep. to Philippians, VI. ¢ On the enrolment of virgins in this order see, Lightfoot, Ignatius, Vol. IL, p. 322 ff. (2d ed.). vou. Iv. —17 Pe,
258 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cz. V.
Who are widows indeed (ras évtws ynpas). Comp. vv. 5,16. “Ovres verily, truly, twice in Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 265; Gal. iii. 21. See on 2 Pet. ii. 18. Wherever évrws is used by Paul or by any other N. T. writer, it is used purely as an adverb (see L. xxiii. 47; xxiv. 34): but in all the four . instances in the Pastorals, it is preceded by the article and converted into an adjective. The meaning is, who are adsol- utely bereaved, without children or relations (comp. ver. 4), and have been but once married. There is probably also an implied contrast with those described in vv. 6, 11-18.
4. Nephews (éyova). N.T.° Oftenin LXX. Weph- ews, in the now obsolete sense of grandsons or other lineal descendants. Derived from Lat. nepos. Trench (Select Glossary) remarks that nephew has undergone exactly the same change of meaning that nepos underwent, which, in the Augustan age, meaning grandson, in the post-Augustan age acquired the signification of nephew in our present accepta- tion of that word. Chaucer:
‘¢ How that my nevew shall my bane be.”’ Legend of Good Women, 2659.