1 Timothy 2:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Among us the wife is justly subject to the husband, because equality of honor could produce enmity, and also because in the beginning deception came from the wife.

She was not subjected immediately after creation. When God brought her to the man, she heard nothing of this from God, and the man expressed nothing of the sort to her.

Rather, he said that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh (Gen 2:23). He said nothing to her about authority and submission.

But when she abused her authority, became a deceiver instead of a helper, and ruined everything, then she justly heard the words: “Your desire shall be for your husband” (Gen 3:16).

Since, he says, in the very creation the male sex was counted worthy of primacy, and Eve was created second, all women after this must have secondary places after men and be subject to them. For the force of what was then accomplished with regard to Adam and Eve extends to the whole male and female race.

In exactly the same way we must think that the man, in order to transgress God's law, followed his wife. One followed another, man followed man, spouse followed spouse. He did not follow because, being deceived, he believed her as though she spoke the truth. Rather, he yielded to her because of the marital bond. For the Apostle did not say in vain: "Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived." This means that she accepted as truth what the serpent told her. He, however, did not wish to be separated from his sole companionship with her, even in sin.

That this grace was announced through a woman accords with the given understanding. For, since, as the Apostle says, the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression and became the forerunner in apostasy from God through disobedience, she becomes the first witness of the Resurrection. Thus the fall from transgression is corrected by faith through the Resurrection. In the beginning she became for the man a minister and counselor of the serpent's words, and brought into life the beginning of evil and its consequence. So now, by conveying to the disciples the words of Him Who slew the apostate dragon, she becomes for mankind the initiator of faith. By this faith, as is fitting, the first sentence of death is destroyed.

But it is said that it is not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18), while we know that Adam did not sin before the woman appeared, but after she was created.

That is, first she treacherously violated the divine commandment, and then she also led her husband into error and acted upon his will.

If the woman truly is the cause of guilt, how is she, as it seems, given for good? But if you consider that God has care for all things, you will see that it is more pleasing to the Lord to accomplish what must be the cause of what is universal than to curse that in which the cause of sin consists.

Since the continuation of the human race could not come from the man alone, the Lord said that it is not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18).

Elsewhere, expressing this thought more strongly, he says: "For man was not created for woman, but woman for man" (1 Cor 11:9). Therefore, first, for this reason woman occupies the second place after man. Second, it is because of the temptation, for he goes on to say...

"Adam was formed first." This proves the man's precedence and independence. All kinds of animals received simultaneous origin, in pairs. Man alone was created solitary, without a wife, and was as it were appointed for independent existence. The wife was created later as the man's helper. She was also created from the man's rib, in dependence on him. Therefore women are called the crown of creation in vain. The crown of creation is man. The woman is only the end of the six-day creation.

Here the Apostle implies: “and not as all the other living creatures, which were called into being at once in pairs.” At first sight, being created earlier seems to confer no advantage.

But the Apostle does not base the man's advantage over the woman specifically on his first creation alone. In the word of God, this advantage is established on the fact that, at her creation, the woman is directly appointed only as a helper to the man (Gen 2:18, 20, 22).

Here, however, the Apostle formally derives this auxiliary and secondary significance of the woman only from the circumstance that she was created after the man.

For helpers are appointed after the need for them is recognized by those who are primary, and therefore after those latter persons. For this reason, the above-mentioned distinction between the sexes is not noticeable in the animal kingdom.

The grounds for the wife's subordination and secondary place are many: natural, historical, and drawn from life. She was created from Adam and led her husband into sin.

But the pains of her childbearing, faith, and love, joined with chastity and holiness, grant her salvation equally with believing men, for in the future eternal life there will be no distinction of sexes.

According to the thought of St. John Chrysostom, “The Apostle speaks as though saying: the male sex has been endowed with a greater advantage, since it was created first.

And in another place he sets it still higher when he says, ‘For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man’ (1 Cor 11:9).

As for the persons who are to pronounce prayers in church assemblies on behalf of all those gathered, by the Apostle's decision (βούλομαι), these can only be men.

“In every place,” that is, in all liturgical places or house churches, of which there were certainly several in Ephesus, men who pray must be in a calm and undisturbed disposition. They must not have sins on their conscience that would burden it.

Women who come to church must be dressed properly, but not luxuriously. There they should show their good disposition, for example by giving alms to the poor.

Standing in church, a woman must listen silently to what the men say. She herself must not appear in church as a teacher and thereby place herself above the man.

Not only here, but everywhere in Scripture, it is said that women must be in a subordinate relation. Such is the order of their nature, for “nature itself requires this” (Blessed Theodoret).

The Apostle here sets this order of nature as the foundation for his prescription, deriving it from the history of the creation of man and woman. But he is not content with this. He also directs an inference from the history of the fall toward the same point.

Since the wife was created after the husband, she must always be behind him. This prior creation shows that the man also possesses something preeminent in his nature.

The wife was created from one part of the man. Therefore, naturally, she does not possess everything to the same degree that the man possesses it.