Half of a book I wrote in 1992 dealt with mutual submission in Ephesians’ household codes. More recently, a PhD student here at Asbury Theological Seminary, Murray Vasser, has defended an excellent dissertation arguing for mutual submission in Colossians,¹ and I have discovered something related to the same mutuality pattern while writing a commentary on 1 Peter.² Neither Colossians nor 1 Peter is as explicit as Eph 5:21–6:9, but the collocation of such passages, all among mid-first-century Christians (on my dating), suggests that early Christians were on the more progressive edge of gender relationships in their world. (My implied ethical subtext is that we should be also, within biblical constraints. But my focus in this article is the raw material that I believe leads to that conclusion.)

Scholars often note that Paul (or, on some other scholars’ view, one of Paul’s disciples) adapts the contemporary literary form of household codes, following even the overall structure in place since Aristotle.³ More surprising are the adaptations Paul makes. Such adaptations include addressing not only the male householder but also the wife, children, and slaves; instructions to the husband to love; and the grammatically clear linkage of submission with not only wives but all believers in 5:21–22. Paul also relativizes the slaveholder’s authority in 6:5–9.

Most significantly, Paul frames the household codes with mutual submission in 5:21 and 6:9. Although some ancient writers (such as Xenophon of Athens or Musonius Rufus, a first-century AD Stoic philosopher) were more “progressive” and interested in mutuality than were others, I know of no other household codes in antiquity that frame their discussion with mutual submission. This raises the questions of why Paul adopts the household-code framework to begin with, and why he adapts it in light of Christian teaching (stemming from Jesus) on servanthood. Similar adaptations appear in Colossians and 1 Peter, suggesting a dynamic in early Christianity that differs from most of its contemporaries.

Mutual Submission Frames Ephesians 5:21–6:9⁴

The Slave Narratives are replete with sentiments from former slaves who loved Jesus but hated Paul, because slaveholders regularly quoted Eph 6:5: “Slaves, obey your masters.” What the slaveholders did not bother to quote was the context, which goes on to admonish, “Slaveholders, do the same things to slaves” (6:9). That is, if slaves have to obey their masters, masters also must obey their slaves.

Did anyone in the first century take Paul literally on that point? Probably not. But that does not change the fact that what he actually said expressed one of the most radically antislavery sentiments of his day. He was not talking about violently overthrowing the institution; even the failed slave revolts of his era had never attempted that. But he was talking ethics, and ethics that went beyond mere theory. Some early Stoic philosophers had advocated human equality, but Stoics had backed off from this and Stoics who could afford it held slaves. Paul and Stoics concurred in principle: Paul affirmed that slaves and slaveholders share the same master in heaven (Eph 6:9). But Paul’s instruction, “Do the same things to them,” goes beyond theory to practice.

This is not an accident, a slip of Paul’s tongue or his scribe’s pen. Paul frames his entire section of household codes with mutual submission. What are household codes, you ask? In his work on governance, the Greek thinker Aristotle had a large section on family roles. In it, Aristotle instructed the male head of the household how to rule his wife, children, and slaves. Subsequent thinkers adopted the same schema, often in the same sequence. Because Rome was suspicious that minority religious groups undermined these traditional values, such groups often labored to reaffirm their belief in such values.

Paul presents a series of household codes in the same sequence as Aristotle: the relation of the male head of the household (as it was assumed in his day) to wives, children, and slaves. Paul may be thinking like the member of a minority religious group—after all, he is writing from Roman custody, and probably in Rome (Eph 3:1, 4:1, 6:20).

Yet Paul changes the standard formula. Instead of addressing only slaveholding men, he also addresses the wives, children, and slaves, who probably comprised the majority of the church. (In Paul’s urban congregations, the slaves would have been household slaves, who had more freedom and, frequently, more opportunities for manumission than other slaves. Nevertheless, they were still slaves.) Moreover, he never instructs the male householder to rule; instead, he is to love his wife, serving her by offering his life for her (5:25), to avoid provoking his children (6:4), and to treat slaves as fellow servants of God (6:9).

Most importantly, Paul frames his entire set of instructions (5:21–6:9) by enjoining mutual submission: submitting to one another (5:21) and doing the same things to them (6:9). This sets submission in a new context: the example and teaching of our Lord, who invited us all to serve one another (Mark 10:42–45; cf. John 13:14–17, 34–35; Gal 5:13–14).

Some patriarchal husbands today quote Eph 5:22 (“Wives, submit to your husbands”) out of context, much the way slaveholders quoted Eph 6:5. But in Greek, there is no verb in 5:22; it simply says, “Wives, to your husbands. . . .” Of course, Paul is not saying, “Wives, just do to your husbands whatever you want.” Greek grammar presumes that we will carry over the verb from the preceding verse, and that verb is “submit.” But because the verb is carried over from 5:21, it cannot mean something different than it meant in 5:21. The wife’s submission is merely an example of mutual submission, as is the husband sacrificing his life for his wife.

Some object, “But submission is explicit only for the wife!” The command to love, however, is explicit only for the husband (5:25), yet we understand that all Christians should love each another (5:2). Likewise, all Christians should submit to one another (5:21). Although Paul is not trying to cover every circumstance, he offers us a general principle for how we should live: looking out for one another’s interests, listening to one another, loving others more than ourselves. Such advice is in keeping with his explicit teaching elsewhere (e.g., Rom 12:10, 13:8–10, 15:2–3; 1 Cor 13:4–7; Gal 5:14, 6:2), including in the preceding context (Eph 4:32).

A few other thinkers in antiquity taught some sort of mutual submission; like Paul, they were among antiquity’s most progressive thinkers. Four or five centuries before Paul, Xenophon argued in Oeconomicus for partnership (koinōnia) between spouses (7.18, 30). Still, Xenophon did not envision complete mutuality; he contended that nature has suited wives’ bodies better for indoor work and husbands’ for work outdoors (7.22–23, 30). The husband has more courage (7.25), but both are equals in memory and self-control (7.26–27). The first-century Stoic thinker Musonius Rufus viewed women as equal to men in nature and virtues.⁵ Although he distinguished their roles,⁶ he also often disagreed with the restrictive roles to which his society had limited women.⁷ Yet none of these writers thought to frame household codes with explicit mutual submission, including even slaves and slaveholders.

More common was the model originally promulgated by Aristotle himself, simply telling the male householder how to rule his household;⁸ the male was by nature superior to and ruling over the female.⁹ Against Socrates, he doubted the animal analogy in arguing for gender equality; lower animals, Aristotle insisted, do not have households requiring careful management!¹⁰ Others appealed to nature to show that males were superior to females.¹¹ Physical differences were used to justify divergent social treatment.¹²

Despite women’s considerable progress in Roman society, older Greek ideologies continued to influence elite thinking and writing.¹³ On one view, women exist only to make men miserable (Eurip. Or. 605–6); a misogynist might wish that women did not exist, apart from bearing children (Ps.-Lucian Affairs 38). One example of tactlessness is a guest denouncing women when invited to speak at a wedding (Theophr. Char. 12.6). Juvenal longs for the old days of cave-women, before adultery had been invented (Sat. 6.7–8).¹⁴ Because of their supposed immaturity, women were often linked with minors, slaves, and the like,¹⁵ not least insofar as Socrates or Thales was said to have praised fortune for not making him a woman, beast, or barbarian,¹⁶ a saying eventually adapted into a Jewish benediction as well.¹⁷ I will not even repeat some of the harsher views about women’s character here.

And while the Stoic Musonius held friendlier views toward women, not all Stoics agreed. His predecessor Seneca, a Roman contemporary of Paul, while allowing that women were capable of the same virtues as men,¹⁸ often portrayed women as unstable and irrational,¹⁹ and a later Stoic emperor would regard a man’s soul as different from a woman’s.²⁰ In contrast to Epicureans and Pythagoreans, Stoics had few if any women pupils.²¹ The Stoic egalitarian trend moving beyond Aristotle’s chauvinism was not meant to disrupt the hierarchical roles already existing in society.22 Thus “Roman Stoics were egalitarian in theory but Aristotelian in practice.”²³

While later rabbis were more diverse and nuanced in their views, some first-century Jewish writers in Greek mirrored classical Athenian prejudices more directly: Philo always portrays male as superior to female;²⁴ he contends that masculinity is closer to divinity than femininity is.²⁵ When he praises the empress Livia, he claims that her training made her virtually male in her intellect.²⁶ Josephus claims that courts should not accept the testimony of women because of their instability.²⁷ Commenting on the death of the Levite’s concubine, who was gang-raped in Judg 19:24–28, Josephus claims that she died from shame, doubting that her husband would forgive her!²⁸ Josephus believes that men who heed the folly of women merit judgment,²⁹ and cites approvingly the Essene suspicion of women’s infidelity.³⁰

Aside from such ideology, some men were simply brutal: for example, to obey the priests and not be defiled, Sulla divorced his sick and dying wife and had her carried away while she lived.³¹ Plutarch reports that when Alcibiades’ good wife asked for a divorce, in response to his behavior with courtesans, he dragged her home forcibly; she died soon after, while he was away (Alc. 8.3–4). This was not cruel, Plutarch explains, because the law requires the wife to go to court precisely so that, if the husband wants her, he may take her (8.5). Abuse was sometimes sanctioned,³² especially in earlier times,³³ though even the “ancients” had their limits.³⁴ Another man ordered his freedman to beat his eight-months pregnant wife; she died in childbirth, but he was not guilty because he grieved and was not seeking her death.³⁵ A certain man who was found to have killed his wife by throwing her out the window after a struggle, however, did face death.³⁶

Colossians

Colossians 3:18–4:1 also follows the traditional Aristotelian outline, addressing wives, children, and slaves, while emphasizing mutual responsibilities of both. (For that matter, 1 Cor 7:1–5 also emphasizes mutual, and in that case the same, responsibilities of both husbands and wives.)

The more concise passage in Colossians begins more abruptly than its parallel unit in Ephesians. Whereas Eph 5:21’s functional imperative is really a subordinate participle dependent on the imperative, “Be filled with the Spirit” in 5:18, Col 3:18 has a genuine imperative, the connection of which to the invitations in 3:16–17 is less grammatically explicit: “Wives, submit to your husbands.” Each of the admonitions in 3:18–21 is stated concisely, like simple parenesis. They address in immediate succession wives, then husbands; and children, then fathers. The difference in admonitions to wives in 3:18 and to children and slaves in 3:20, 22 is nevertheless evident in the different choice of verbs: whereas wives submit (hupotassō), children and slaves obey (hupakouō).

Only the slave section is expanded beyond brief comment, which in turn allows fuller observation of Paul’s intention. As in Ephesians, slaves are called to obey masters not with the masters themselves in mind, but for Christ (Col 3:22–25). More stark is the command to masters in Col 4:1, which, as in Eph 6:9, suggests mutual submission. Most translations say something like, “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven” (NRSV). But that is because Paul’s instructions here, if taken literally, sound too radical for a first-century setting. Literally, Paul says, grant slaves justice (dikaion) and equality (isotēta). Through a thorough lexical search of this language, Vasser has recently shown that isotēs normally means “equality,” especially in slavery contexts where it typically contrasts with slavery.³⁷ That is, Paul’s admonition to slaveholders is on the most radical edge of ancient thinkers on the subject.

1 Peter

In the context of his call for wives to submit (3:1), Peter explicitly addresses human institutions, such as kingship, slavery, and patriarchal marriage (2:13). Thus 1 Pet 2:13–14 states: “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right” (NRSV).

Peter then addresses slaves in 2:18: “Household slaves, submit to masters with all respect.” So also wives in 1 Pet 3:1, which he introduces with the Greek term homoiōs (“likewise,” “in the same way”). And consider 5:5: “Likewise, you who are younger, submit to the elders.” Indeed, 5:5 follows an admonition to the elders not to lord it over the flock but to be examples to them (5:3), treating their overseeing role as a role for service (5:2).

While supporting submission to governing authorities, Peter does not fix for all cultures what such institutions must be or look like. This observation is implicitly recognized by all interpreters today who do not mandate monarchical government or slavery, although some prove inconsistent regarding authority structures in marriage.

Given cultural expectations, it is not surprising that Peter does not feel a need to repeat the term for submission (2:13, 18; 3:1) here in the instructions to husbands that also begin with homoiōs; but he does speak of showing the wife honor, just as believers must show to rulers and everyone else (2:17). The husband must thus respect his wife,³⁸ who shares with him the same standing before God as an heir of resurrection life.

I believe that by “weaker vessel” (3:7) Peter refers to showing considerateness for the person in the socially weaker position, hence my translation “the more vulnerable member” (husbands were often more than a decade their wives’ senior). The socially weaker member was in greater need of mercy or attention (cf. 1 Cor 12:22).³⁹ Whatever sphere of weakness is specifically in view, part of the point is that the husband should be sensitive to his wife (cf. Eph 5:25). This would not exclude the wife seeking to protect her husband when necessary and possible, but the assumption is presumably that the wife, being weaker in the sphere(s) in view, has need for her husband’s considerate attention.

Philosophers often affirmed women’s equality in principle, though apparently only Epicureans achieved this ideal in practice.⁴⁰ Socrates claimed that a woman’s nature was not inferior to a man’s (except in strength and intellect!);⁴¹ one Cynic writer more generally denied that women are worse by nature than men.⁴² Such “weakness” could mean vulnerability and might merit protection or invite sympathy.⁴³

Conclusion

The qualifications of ordinary household codes that appear in Colossians and 1 Peter make all the more likely that Paul did indeed want his hearers to take seriously his framing the Ephesian codes with mutual submission. Indeed, even as late as the letter of Clement of Rome to the Christians of Corinth (written toward the end of the first century), more than the usual emphasis on mutuality appears in such discussions.⁴⁴

Yet applying Paul’s teaching on mutual submission literally would have been unheard of. That it was rarely attempted, however, does not make it any less significant. Even today, husbands and wives and people in other kinds of relationships often seek our own interests more than those of others (cf. Phil 2:4, 21). What would happen if we took Paul at his word? What may happen if we actually begin to put mutual submission into practice?⁴⁵ Let’s try it and find out.

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