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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 674. Phoebe's Work and Place
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Phœbe's Work and Place
St. Paul commends Phœbe to the Roman Church and bespeaks for her a kind reception and assistance in whatever matter she may have need of them. “Letters of commendation” played a very large part in the organization of the Church, for the tie of hospitality, implying also the reception to communion, was the great bond which united the separate local Churches together, and some protection became necessary against imposture.
1. Phœbe is introduced to his readers by St. Paul in Rom_16:1-2, presumably as the bearer of the letter. The Imperial post was not available for private correspondence, and such a letter could be sent only by special messenger or by a trusted friend who happened to be travelling. Phœbe was about to visit Rome, and the Apostle, hearing of her projected journey, seized the opportunity of writing and despatching his letter.
Phœbe is not mentioned again in the New Testament, and nothing further is known of her than may be gathered from this reference. The name is that of the moon-goddess, the sister of Phœbus (Apollo). It is interesting to notice that a Christian woman in the Apostolic Age did not think it necessary to discard the name of a heathen deity. That Phœbe was evidently preparing to travel alone suggests that she was a widow. She could not (according to Greek manners) have been mentioned as acting in the independent manner described, either if her husband had been living or if she had been unmarried.
Women played no part in social intercourse at Athens. There were but few occasions when the girls left the close confinement of the women's apartments for any kind of publicity. And as the door which separates the women's apartments from the rest of the house is the boundary set for a maiden, so the door which shuts the house off from the street must be the boundary for the wife.
Women of the better classes only went out attended by a servant or slave, and then but seldom. A respectable woman stayed at home as much as possible; in fact, the symbol of domestic life was a tortoise, a creature which never leaves its home, and was regarded as an attribute of Aphrodite Urania.1 [Note: H. Blümner, The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, 133, 150.]
2. Phœbe's Christian associations were with the Church at Cenchreæ of which little Christian community nothing further is known. Cenchreæ was the port of Corinth, on the Saronic Gulf, looking eastward towards Ephesus, and therefore the place through which all the traffic of the Achaian capital with Asia passed to and fro. Here St. Paul once tarried for a while when he had shorn his head, according to Jewish custom, to mark the expiration of a vow. Its position would afford an excellent opportunity for the exercise by Phœbe of the special duties of hospitality.
If again we take into account the hideous immoralities of Corinth we shall count it probable that the port, with its shifting maritime population, was, like most seaports, a soil in which goodness was hard put to it to grow, and a church had much against which to struggle. To be a Christian at Cenchreæ can have been no light task. Travellers in Egypt are told that Port Said is the wickedest place on the face of the earth; and in Phœbe's home there would be a like drift of disreputables of both sexes and of all nationalities. It was fitting that one good woman should be recorded as redeeming womanhood there.
A youth is a madcap, and time is a churl,
Pleasure calls and remorse follows after;
The world hustles on in its pitiless whirl,
With its kisses, its tears, and its laughter.
But there's one gentle heart in its bosom of white-
The maid with the tender eyes gleaming-
Who has all the wealth of my homage to-night,
Where she lies in her innocent dreaming.
And a watch over her my spirit shall keep,
While the angels lean down to caress her,
And I'll pledge her again in her beautiful sleep-
The woman that's good-God bless her!
Ah, Bohemia's honey is sweet to the sip,
And the song and the dance are alluring!
The mischievous maid with the mutinous lip
Has a charm that is very enduring!
But out from the smoke wreaths and music and lace
Of that world of the tawdrily clever,
There floats the rare spell of the pure little face
That has chased away folly forever.
And I drain my last toast ere I go to my rest-
O, fortunate earth to possess her-
To the dear, tender heart in the pure, white breast
Of the woman that's good-God bless her!
3. Now look at the way in which Phœbe is spoken of.
(1) She is first described as “our sister.” Thus a member of the Christian community is designated in the affectionate simplicity of primitive times. In using the plural “our,” the Apostle may be including the two or three fellow-missionaries who accompanied him on his travels, or he may be writing in the name of the Church at Corinth with the associated branch Church at Cenchreæ.
(2) Then Phœbe is called “a servant of the church that is at Cenchreæ,” and the word translated “servant” is the Greek diaconos, from which our word “deacon” is derived. Hence it has been inferred that Phœbe was a deaconess. On the other hand, we must not forget that the Greek word was used in a very general sense in early times, quite apart from official relations. It does not appear as the title of an official before the Pastoral Epistles-unless the case before us may be cited for that usage earlier. And further, it is not the feminine deaconess (diaconissa), but the masculine, which will serve for either sex, but which seems to imply that it does not stand for a definite feminine office. If it must be assigned to some church function here we should conclude that this was one open to men and women alike. But nothing of the kind was known in the primitive Church. By the time of the Pastoral Epistles the “widows” seem to have been organized into an order. Thus St. Paul writes, “Let none be enrolled as a widow under three-score years old,” etc.; and yet the limit of age points to eleemosynary purposes rather than to service. You would not require a woman to be old before electing her for some work in the Church. Still there must have been women to do certain things for their own sex, such as attending on them at their baptism. We are too much inclined to think these services were relegated to definitely appointed officials from the first. In the simple family life of the Early Church this would not be thought of. The ministry preceded the office; and later the office grew out of the ministry. In the primitive Church much was made of service, little of office. Methods were free and elastic; fluidity had not yet been followed by crystallization. Before long, we know, there was a definite order of deaconesses in the Church. This was so in Bithynia at least, in the reign of Trajan; for Pliny writes that he obtained his information concerning the Christians by torturing “two handmaidens” (ancillæ), whom the Christians call “servants” (ministræ). Notice that the technical word diaconissa is not employed here. Later the so-called “Apostolical Constitutions” refer to the deaconess, who must be “a chaste virgin.” On the other hand, Tertullian writes of “widows” and “mothers” being in the order. We must not assume that Phœbe was a deaconess in the full later sense of the word; but that her position was analogous to that of the later deaconesses seems most probable.
The word “minister” is Latin, and the word “deacon” is Greek; but they both mean the same thing, a “servant.” As “ministers” and “deacons”-distinctively so called-we may have different duties to fulfil; but we are all “ministers” in the wider sense of the word. Our offices are offices of ministry-of service. We are all called to serve Christ by serving in a special manner the Church of Christ.1 [Note: T. C. Finlayson, Essays, Addresses, and Lyrical Translations, 276.]
(3) St. Paul further describes Phœbe as “a succourer of many.” This phrase is very beautiful: and, even in the English, it means a great deal. But the English phrase fails to express the whole sense of the original. “Succour” may be given in various ways; but the term here employed would seem to indicate one who had stood forth as the patroness of the unprotected and despised. There is no doubt that the Christians were objects of contempt at this time in Achaia; and even if this were not the case, the Greek word would in itself imply moral courage, generous bounty, and large sympathy. Phœbe had been a devoted and it would seem particularly a brave friend of converts in trouble. Perhaps in the course of her visits to the desolate she had fought difficult battles of protest, where she found harshness and oppression. Perhaps she had pleaded the forgotten cause of the poor, with a woman's courage, before some neglectful richer “brother.”
Among the Jews the Greek word here translated “succourer' meant also the wealthy patron of a Jewish community; such an one was the Roman centurion who built a synagogue for the Jews in Capernaum. There seems good reason, therefore, for supposing that Phœbe was a person of some rank and substance. We might place her in comparison with the “great woman” of Shunem, dwelling “among her own people,” who showed hospitality to Elisha; and certainly the Apostle's feeling finds expression in language very similar in tone to that used by the Prophet: “Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care; what is to be done for thee?” In a special degree, made possible by her circumstances, she discharged the duties of “communicating to the necessities of the saints” and of “pursuing hospitality,” which belonged to all Christians alike.
I know a woman
Who lives life with a childlike zest
And has a heart for all things human;
And well she loves the world, and best
Whatever in the world is loveliest;
Yet cannot wholly scorn the rest-
Vice, dirt,
And poverty, and helplessness, and pest.
Not hers to avert
From the prone wretch beneath the wayside palm
The virtuous Levite skirt:
She asks not, What is his desert?
But, Is he hurt?
That found,
She pours her cunning oils into the wound
And tends the wastrel with the costliest balm.
For this she made
Herself a Good Samaritan by trade;
Cloaked her large heart
And bounteous feeling
Behind the faculty and art
Of healing:
That ofttimes those whom she relieves
Give, kneeling,
Thanks for that day they fell among the thieves.1 [Note: E. Garrett, A Women Doctor.]
(4) Phœbe had been not only “a succourer of many” but of St. Paul himself. It has been conjectured that the personal reference (“and of mine own self”) may be to an illness in which Phœbe ministered to St. Paul at Cenchreæ, and that his recovery was the occasion of his vow. Certainly we may assume that she received him into her home when he visited or passed through Cenchreæ, and that she “mothered” him as did the mother of Rufus. The house in which the Apostle stayed naturally became a centre for the community, and if it was also used as the meeting-place of the Church, the owner must have been looked up to as a kind of “president,” to whom the term “patron” might suitably be applied. In some such way as this Phœbe devoted herself and her means to the service of the Church.
“It is told me,” writes Li Hung Chang in his diary, “that of all those fair women who have been mistresses of the Executive Mansion at Washington, Mrs. Cleveland is one of the most lovable. This I can readily believe, for I do not know when or where I have seen a face and form more pleasing to the eye. I would call her the Mother of Graciousness and the Sister of Heavenly Love. As the Chief Lady of the United States she is an ornament to her sex, and a glory to womankind the world over.”2 [Note: Memoirs of Li Hung Chang, 179.]
Do you ask how your work may be truly effective? I answer you in the words of the text, “He took the damsel by the hand.” There must be an intensity of human sympathy, and there must be an indwelling of Divine power. The lesson of the miracle which I have taken for my starting-point involves both these ideals. The current of womanly sympathy must flow out deep, and strong, and clear. Is not this the typical meaning of Christ's action in the text. The touch of His warm hand restores the circulation and revives the life in those pale, motionless, death-like limbs. We find sympathy here, sympathy first, and sympathy last-sympathy reflecting, however faintly, Christ's own boundless compassion and love. The cold, mechanical formalism of the relieving officer will not suffice; the haughty assertion of superiority, the condescending patronage of the fine lady will be worse than nothing. You must be a sister to your sisters, treading in the footsteps of your Brother, Jesus Christ.1 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot.]
4. Phœbe, then, is about to set out for Rome, and the Apostle follows her with his gratitude. The letter which she carries is a record of what he owes to her; and this obligation is made the ground of an appeal to the Roman Christians, to enforce the duty of their receiving her with confidence and respect, and of aiding her to the utmost of their power.
They are to “receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints,” and to “assist her in whatsoever matter she may have need.” Each of these clauses merits a separate and careful attention. “In the Lord” is a customary phrase with St. Paul. It denotes in such a passage as this community of interest under Christ, and points to the fact that all the persons in question, and all their concerns, belong to Him. But it means even more than this. It suggests the thought of co-operation in the same kind of religious work. We might compare what is said here to the Romans of Phœbe with what is said to the Corinthians of Timothy: “If Timothy come, see that he be with you without fear; for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do”;-or with what is said to the Philippians of Epaphroditus: “Receive him in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in honour: because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death.” As to the phrase, “worthily of the saints,” it may be difficult to decide whether the meaning is that Phœbe is to be received in such a manner as she herself deserves, or in such a manner as would be a matter of course with the Roman Christians if they were what they professed to be. We may be quite content to leave this point indeterminate, and to consider that the phrase includes both meanings.
And, further, they were not only to give her a friendly and worthy reception, but to furnish her with all the assistance she needed for the errands on which she was sent. Such a request was clearly most reasonable. St. Paul is here asking help for one who herself had been a helper of “many.” What Phœbe's business at Rome was, is quite unknown to us. It may have concerned property, and involved inquiries and directions about law. Or it may have been (though less probably) religious business.
La Bruyère, that philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, if it is the opportunity of obliging you.1 [Note: Sainte-Beuve.]
5. Whether Phœbe at last laid down her life as did St. Paul and so many of the early Christians, we know not; whether she always stayed on at Rome, we cannot tell. But many there were who could rise up and bless her for her goodness and sympathy, and practical help. She went to her rest and her reward many centuries ago, and two verses tell us what we know of her. St. Paul commended her, and no doubt St. Paul's Master also commended her when her day's work was done in the world. By us Phœbe might well be commended as setting forth the most womanlike ideal. Her ministry was a ministry of help; and surely such gentle ministry is that which most befits the woman's heart and comes most graciously to the woman's fingers. In this world of woe and need, there is ever a cry, even in apparently successful lives, for help and a helper. Man's clumsy hand is but too apt to hurt where it strives to soothe, and nature itself seems to devolve on the swifter sympathies and more delicate perceptions of woman the joy of binding up wounded spirits.
You women are so kind, and in your kindness have such wise perception, you know so well how to be affectionate and full of solicitude without appearing to be; your gentleness of feeling is like your touch-so light and easy that the one enables you to deal with wounds of the mind as tenderly as the other enables you to deal with wounds of the body.2 [Note: Charles Dickens.]
In the darkest path of man's despair,
Where War and Terror shake the troubled earth,
Lies woman's mission; with unblenching brow
To pass through scenes of horror and affright
Where men grow sick and tremble: unto her
All things are sanctified, for all are good.
Nothing so mean, but shall deserve her care:
Nothing so great, but she may bear her part.
No life is vain: each hath his place assigned:
Do thou thy task, and leave the rest to God.1 [Note: The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, 356.]