Posts Tagged Western Latin Tradition
Christian Theology: Greek East and Latin West Contrasted *
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on April 8, 2025
Theology is at its best and purest stage when it is intuitive [noetic]; it is based on our spiritual instincts [nous]; its only logic is that best of all logic, when there is one single step, as it has been well said, from the premise to the conclusion.
Eastern Greek theology set out with the doctrine of God in His relation to man. Conversely, Western Latin theology adopted the opposite doctrine of man in his relation to God.
The difference is more than verbal, whether we make man or God the starting-point of our inquiries on this subject. Setting out with man [the Latin model], we have to take him as we find him, blind and insensible to spiritual things. We have to find an explanation for this strange fact – we have to begin with a theory of original sin, a tradition of the fall, and the problem of evil in general. We get out of our depth all at once in a kind of theodicee [theodicy], which lands us at last in a dilemma which no thinker has yet to overcome, and which J.S. Mill admitted to be logically insoluable. Either God is all-goodness, but not all-mighty, or He is all-mighty, but not all-goodness. Pelagians and Augustinians, Arminians and Calvinists, have beaten their wings against the bars of this cage ever since Latin theology replaced Greek [in the Latin West], as it did soon after Augustine’s day, and we are no nearer a solution than ever.
On the other hand, setting out, as the Greeks did, at the other end of the problem, all unfolds itself in a simple and natural order, and there is no room for these gloomy afterthoughts which have made earth a prison-house, and evil a kind of Manichaean partner with good in the government of the universe. Let us notice the order in which the early Fathers of the Alexandrian school [Greek] approached the problem. Their point of departure was the general Fatherhood of God, – of a God, let us add, who was not so much transcendent as immanent in the world [e.g., the Incarnation and His energaeia]. The opening verses of the Gospel of St. John is the key to all that is distinctively Hellenistic in contrast with the Latin or magisterial conception of God. The Logos is σπερματικόσ, or germ-like, in the world: that Logos in man becomes reason or thought in its two-fold manifestation of speech and action. At a loss for a Latin equivalent for the Greek Logos, the Latin mind lost hold of the primitive and deep significance of the thought that there was a Wisdom which was one with God, and yet had its habitation with the children of men.
The Latins, lacking the Logos doctrine, never could see the true grounds of the incarnation which were laid deep in the original and unchangeable relations of God to men… In this point of view Latin theology never has been “rational” in the sense that the early and best type of Greek theology harmonized reason and revelation. To the Hellenistic mind there was no strained reconciliation between reason and faith… The contrast between the two theologies, for which we have to thank Aquinas, the one known as natural and the other as revealed, never so much as occurred to Greek thought when at its best and earliest stage.
History may be said to contain two chapters, and only two – one in which man seeks after God and loses himself in the search; and a second, in which God seeks after man, and seeks, as the shepherd after the lost sheep, until He finds it.
* Excerpted from Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted, John B. Heard. T&T Clark, Edinburgh 1893. Brackets [ ] mine.
Apophatic and Cataphatic Theology: An Issue of Emphasis and Balance
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Contemplative Prayer (series), Ekklesia and church, Essence and Energies (series), First Thoughts, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, The Cappadocians, Theology on April 6, 2025
Overview
Apophatic and Cataphatic are two terms used in theology to describe different approaches to understanding God. The Eastern Orthodox and Latin West each use both types. The issue comes down to one of emphasis and balance: The Orthodox East is overwhelmingly Apophatic in approach, while the Latin West is predominantly Cataphatic.
Definitions
Apophatic theology (from Greek: ἀπόφημι apophēmi, meaning “to deny”) uses “negative” terminology to indicate what it is believed the divine is not. It means emptying the mind of words and ideas and simply resting in the presence of God. Apophatic prayer is prayer that occurs without words, images, or concepts. This approach to prayer regards silence, stillness, unknowing and even darkness as doorways, rather than obstacles, to communication with God. Apophatic theology relies primarily on experience and revelation.
Cataphatic theology (from the Greek word κατάφασις kataphasis meaning “affirmation”) uses “positive” terminology to describe or refer to the divine, i.e. terminology that describes or refers to what the divine is believed to be. Cataphatic prayer is prayer that speaks thoroughly, intensively, or positively of God: prayer that uses words, images, ideas, concepts, and the imagination to relate to God. Cataphatic theology relies heavily on logic and reason.
Background
Apophatic theology—also known as negative theology or via negativa—is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation. In Orthodox Christianity, Apophatic theology is based on the assumption that God’s essence is unknowable or ineffable and on the recognition of the inadequacy of human language to describe God. The Apophatic tradition in Orthodoxy is balanced with Cataphatic theology (positive theology) via belief in the Incarnation and the self-revealed energies of God, through which God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. However, Apophatic theology is the dominant traditional Eastern paradigm of an experiential, revealed theology, intimately linking doctrine with contemplation through purgation (catharsis), illumination (theoria), and union (theosis).
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – 215) was an early proponent of Apophatic theology with elements of Cataphatic. Clement holds that God is unknowable, although God’s unknowability, concerns only his essence, not his energies, or powers. According to Clement’s writings, the term theoria develops further from a mere intellectual “seeing” toward a spiritual form of contemplation. Clement’s Apophatic theology or philosophy is closely related to this kind of theoria and the “mystic vision of the soul.” For Clement, God is both transcendent in essence and immanent in self-revelation.
The Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (4th century)) were early exemplars of this Apophatic theology. They stated that mankind can acquire an incomplete knowledge of God in his attributes, positive and negative, by reflecting upon and participating in his self-revelatory operations (energeia). But, the essence of God is completely unknowable.
A century later Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th century) in his short work Mystical Theology, first introduced and explained what came to be known as Apophatic or negative theology.
Maximus the Confessor (7th century) maintained that the combination of Apophatic theology and hesychasm—the practice of silence and stillness—made theosis or union with God possible.
John of Damascus (8th century) employed Apophatic theology when he wrote that positive (cataphatic) statements about God reveal “not the nature, but the things around the nature.”
All in all, Apophatic theology remains crucial to much of the theology in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The opposite tends to be true in Western Latin Christianity, with a few notable exceptions to this rule.
Cataphatic theology
In the Latin West a heavily Cataphatic theology, or via positiva, developed, which remains today in most forms of Western Christianity. This type of Cataphatic theology is based on using human reason to make positive statements about the nature of God. It slowly developed from the 5th to the 11th century, emerging as Scholasticism in the Medieval Period (11th-17th centuries). (see entries for Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, below)
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) significantly influenced scholasticism, emphasizing the integration of faith and reason. His ideas laid the groundwork for later Scholastic thinkers who sought to reconcile Christian theology with classical philosophy, particularly through dialectic reasoning. Augustine’s doctrines of the filioque, original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination found little support outside of the Western Roman Church. Within the Western Latin church, ‘Augustinianism’ dominated early theology.
Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 1109) is widely considered the father of Scholasticism, endeavoring to render Christian tenets of faith, traditionally taken as a revealed truth, as a rational system. Scholasticism prescribed that Aristotelian dialectic reason be used in the elucidation of spiritual truth and in defense of the dogmas of Faith.
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) reflects the mature emergence of this new medieval Scholastic paradigm, which promoted the use of formal intellectual reason, putting it at odds with the predominantly Eastern revealed tradition of hesychastic contemplation. Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (1265–1274), is considered to be the pinnacle of Medieval Scholastic Christian philosophy and theology. The resulting ‘Thomism’ remains the foundation of contemporary Western Latin theology.
The Seven Sacraments, or Mysteries of the Christian Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets, Theology on April 2, 2025
The inward life of the Christian Church is mystical (or sacramental). The word “mysteries” (Greek mysteria) is the term used in the Orthodox East; “sacraments” (Latin sacramenta), the term used in the Latin West. So, how and when did Western Latin and Eastern Orthodox come to identify and accept the seven sacraments, or mysteries of the Christian Church?
One might reasonably assume that the seven Sacraments (Mysteries) were determined early in the period of the united Church (AD 33 – 1054). That assumption would be false.
One of the renowned teachers of the united Church, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (6th Century) listed six sacraments in his work The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (ca. AD 500): baptism, Eucharist, confirmation, priesthood, the consecration of monks, and rites for the dead.
Two centuries later, another early teacher revered East and West, John of Damascus (675-749), mentions only two sacraments: Baptism together with the corresponding chrismation and the Eucharist (Communion), the only two mysteries identified in the New Testament and instituted by Jesus.
Clearly, there was no unanimity on the identity or number of sacraments/mysteries in the first 1,000 years of the unified Christian Church, nor at the time of the Great East-West Schism of 1054.
In the post-Schism Latin West, Peter Lombard (1100-1164), in his fourth Book of Sentences (d.ii, n.1), enumerated the seven sacraments. This list of sacraments was accepted by the Western Latin Roman Church at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
49 years later, during the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons in 1274, Eastern Greek theologians, under Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (in his Profession of Faith), accepted the seven Latin Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation (Chrismation), Eucharist, Penance, Priesthood, Marriage, and Anointing of the Sick.
So, clearly, neither the Seven Holy Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church nor the Seven Holy Mysteries of the Eastern Orthodox Church are First Thoughts of God, but mostly, save two, distant Afterthoughts of Man, codified a thousand years after Jesus and the Apostolic age.
Woman Wisdom: Chokmah, Sophia, Wisdom in the Old Testament
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Theology, Women in Early Christianity on March 29, 2025
“Woman Wisdom” was well established in the Hebrew literature of the Old Testament long before the New Testament era. The patriarchal (some might say misogynistic) leaders of the post-Apostolic Christian Church, especially after the 2nd century, so completely suppressed this idea of the feminine personification of God, that they had to invent the cult of Mary in the 5th and 6th centuries to redress the obvious, embarrassing imbalance!
If you want to explore the beautiful ancient Hebrew tradition of the Feminine emanation of the Godhead (called Chokmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek, and Wisdom in English), try the following:
- Proverbs 1-9
- Wisdom of Solomon 7-9
- Sirach (AKA Ecclestiasticus) 24
In the interest of full disclosure, my male noetic intuition has always experienced both Wisdom (Chokmah) and the Holy Spirit (Ruach) as female. In case you think that’s in error or heretical, let me point out that in Hebrew both Chokmah and Ruach are feminine nouns.
Nous: Noesis and Dianoia
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, The "Nous" (series) on March 26, 2025
Noesis refers to immediate, intuitive understanding or insight, while dianoia involves discursive thinking, particularly in mathematical and technical contexts. Essentially, noesis is about direct apprehension, whereas dianoia is a more analytical and reasoned thought process.
In the Christian Latin West, the Enlightenment (17th – early 19th century) enthroned and focused almost entirely on the discursive, analytical, reasoning mind. So complete was that focus on the sensory, reasoning faculty (dianoia), that it literally came to define “mind” in the Western world. It still does.
The Greek East, although influenced heavily by the Enlightenment, did not lose their ancient distinction between noesis, direct apprehension, and dianoia, reasoned thought. To them, mind was “nous” (a term unknown in the West), and included both the noetic and the dianoetic faculties of the human mind.
In Eastern Christian culture, the noetic faculty is considered more mature than the dianoetic, because by noesis humans can instantly and intuitively apprehend God and truth of things spiritual whereas dianoia is focused on a dualistic understanding of the material, sensory world. It is no accident that noesis and dianoia both share the same Greek root; nous.
So, I guess one could say that both the Latin West and Greek East defined “mind” correctly; the West just lost the better half of theirs.
Silence
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Theology on March 24, 2025
“No wonder that silence is probably the foundational spiritual discipline in all the world’s religions at the more mature levels. At the less mature levels, religion is mostly noise, entertainment, and words. Catholics and Orthodox Christians prefer theatre and wordy symbols; Protestants prefer music and endless sermons.”
The Women Disciples of Jesus
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 22, 2025
Christianity most often focuses on the twelve male disciples as followers of Jesus. We most often overlook the women who followed Jesus. Luke tells us that there were a large group of women who were also followers of Jesus. In fact, Luke lists the women along with the disciples.
8:1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 8:2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 8:3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
Mark tells us that the women at the cross were among those who followed Jesus and provided for him.
15:40 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 15:41 These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
Matthew also tells us of women followers at the cross and later at the tomb (cf. John 19:25).
27:55 Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. 27:56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. . .
These women “provided for them out of their resources” (Luke 8:3). “Provided” [Gk: diakoneo] means “to serve, wait on, minister to as deacon,” and it was used in the early Christian community to describe “eucharistic table service and proclamation of the word” (Jane Schaberg, Women’s Bible Commentary, 376).
Mary Magdalene “was a prominent disciple of Jesus who followed him in Galilee and to Jerusalem. She is always listed first in groups of named female disciples” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 884). She is mentioned in all four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. Mary was one of the women Luke named in chapter 8, not only following Jesus, but serving him from her own means. She stood at the cross with the other woman and saw where Jesus was buried. She was the first to see the Risen Christ. She became known as the “apostle to the apostles”.
In all the Gospel accounts women are the first to the tomb Sunday morning, and they are the first to see the risen Christ and commanded to carry the good news to the disciples. In all four accounts different women are named, but one name is constant in all four gospels: Mary Magdalene. She was the first preacher of the good news of the resurrection to the male disciples.
The tradition that Christ appeared first to women was well established by the end of the second century when Celsus, a pagan critic, discounted the gospel and resurrection by saying that an account given by a hysterical woman could not be trusted (cf. Luke 24:11). Origen, an Early Church Father, responded by saying that there was more than one woman who witnessed the risen Christ, and that none of them were hysterical in the Gospels.
It is ironic, with the low status of women in the Greco-Roman world of that day, that Jesus chose to appear to Mary and the other women; and that “the first Christian preachers of the Resurrection were not men, but women!” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 883).
Jesus did not first appear to the “rock” of the church, Peter, or even to the beloved disciple, John. He appeared to Mary and the women who followed him and served him. Mary saw him first, and she received the central tenet of the Christian faith: “He is risen!” She was the first to proclaim the good news, or gospel, of the resurrection. That he appeared to Mary first can only mean that this was by divine appointment and was a deliberate act on His part.
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Shawna Renee Bound, “Women in the Gospels” in Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (Copyright © 2002 by Shawna Renee Bound).
Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
Gail R. O’Day, “John” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
Jane Schaberg, “Luke” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
Women Serving in the “5 Ministries” of the 1st Century Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 22, 2025
Ephesians 4:11-13 outlines the five ministries in the 1st Century Church:
“It was he [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be shepherds (pastors) and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Apostle
Junia was considered an Apostle by St. Paul, as was her husband Andronicus (cf. Romans 16:7). The King James Version sounds ambivalent in calling them “of note among the apostles”. The New Revised Standard Version (which I consider usually the most accurate of all translations) has: “They are prominent among the apostles.” The New Century Version probably translates it best: “They are very important apostles.” In the Middle Ages, some writers, because of male chauvinist prejudices, changed “Junia” to “Junias”, making her a man. But, “Junias” was never known as a man’s name in the Graeco-Roman world, while “Junia” was a common name for a woman!
Prophet
Philip’s four daughters were named as prophets (cf. Acts 21:9, also Acts 2:15-18).
Shepherd (Pastor is a later Latin word) and Teacher
Phoebe is recognized as diakonon (minister) of the church at Cenchrea (cf. Rom. 16:1-2). She is referred to as a deacon (Greek: diakonos), not a deaconess — but a deacon in the sense of a preacher, a minister; because Paul uses the same word to describe himself. He calls himself, in a number of instances, a deacon of the new covenant in 2 Corinthians.
Prisca/Priscilla was certainly both a shepherd (pastor) and a teacher in the church, with Aquila her partner, in their house (cf. Acts 18:26, Rom 16:3-5). The German scholar Adolph von Harnack proposed that she was the actual author of the Epistle to the Hebrews!
Evangelist
There is no woman named as an evangelist in the New Testament canon. Only one man is so named, Philip (Acts 21.9). But church history of the first century knows of women evangelists, the most prominent of whom was Thecla, from Iconium in what is now Turkey (St. Thecla’s tomb is at Silifke). She was a disciple of Paul. “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” while not belonging in the canon of Scripture, is regarded as an accurate historical account of her ministry. The Greek Church gives her title of “Protomartyr among women and equal to the Apostles”.
So, the New Testament names women as occupying four of the five-fold ministries of Ephesians 4 and apostolic church history clearly documents a woman serving in the fifth ministry.
The Apostle Paul: Radical, Conservative, or Reactionary?
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ancient Christian Manuscripts, Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Theology, Women in Early Christianity on March 21, 2025
The Apostle Paul is a controversial figure. More than half of the New Testament is written by him, about him, or in his name. There is a general consensus among contemporary scholars that the Apostle Paul did not write all 13 New Testament letters attributed to him.
Modern scholarship attributes seven of Paul’s 13 canonical letters as unquestionably authentic:
- Romans,
- Galatians,
- I Corinthians,
- II Corinthians,
- I Thessalonians,
- Philippians, and
- Philemon
Three others are generally considered deutero or (pseudo) – Pauline and are Pauline in theology, with a couple of notable exceptions, but are different in style and much more mainline and conservative in tone than the undisputed letters. They were probably written in the generation after Paul’s death by people very familiar with his teaching. The deutero (or pseudo)-Pauline letters are:
- Colossians,
- Ephesians, and
- II Thessalonians
The last three, the “Pastoral Letters”, are largely considered pseudepigrapha (a bible scholar’s politically-correct term for “forgery”) and were probably written around the beginning of the 2nd century and exhibit patriarchal, sexist, and reactionary social attitudes one would expect of an entrenched Greco-Roman cultural institution (exactly what the early Church was becoming by that time).1,2 The pseudepigraphical letters are:
- I Timothy,
- II Timothy, and
- Titus
What follows are estimates of the percentages of biblical scholars who reject Paul’s authorship of the six books in question:
- 2 Thessalonians = 50 percent;
- Colossians = 60 percent;
- Ephesians = 70 percent;
- 2 Timothy = 80 percent;
- 1 Timothy and Titus = 90 percent.2
In addition to judgments about entire letters, scholars also question the authorship of certain passages in the undisputed letters. Post-Pauline texts are those alleged to have been inserted into a letter after its composition and are generally called scribal “interpolations”.
Among the passages that some scholars label as interpolations are:
- Romans 5:5-7, 13:1-7, 16:17-20, 16:25-27;
- 1 Corinthians 4:6b, 11:2-16, 14:33b-35 or 36;
- 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; and
- 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16.2,3
Given the above, one could argue that there are really three “Pauls” in the New Testament:
- The Radical Paul of the seven undisputed authentic letters
- The Conservative Paul of the three deutero-Pauline letters
- The Reactionary Paul of the three pseudepigraphical Pastoral Letters
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- The First Paul, Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon, By Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan , 2009 HarperCollins, NY, NY
- Apostle of the Crucified Lord, A Theological Introduction to Paul & His Letters, by Michael J. Gorman, 2004 Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK
- The Authentic Letters of Paul, A New Reading of Paul’s Rhetoric and Meaning, by Arthur J. Dewey, Roy W. Hoover, Lane C. Mc Gaughy, and Daryl D. Schmidt, 2010 Polebridge Press, Salem, OR
Women Leaders in the 1st Century Apostolic Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 20, 2025
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28
| Woman | Reference | Comment |
| Phoebe | Romans 16:1-2 | “a deacon [minister] of the church” |
| Priscilla (or Prisca) | Rom 16:3-5, 1 Cor 16:19 | Founded at least two home churches with Aquila |
| Junia | Rom 16:7 | “prominent among the apostles” |
| Nympha | Col 4:15 | Started church in her house |
| Lydia | Acts 16:14, 15, 40 | Started church in her house |
| Apphia | Philem 2 | House church in her home |
| Mary, Mother of Jesus | Acts 1:14 | Present at first meetings of church |
| Euodia, Syntyche | Phil 4:2-3 | “for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel” |
| Four daughters of Philip | Acts 21:8/9 | Prophetesses |
Full Scripture References:
- “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon [minister] of the church at Cenchreae,…” Romans 16:1
- “Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus…” Romans 16:3
- “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, greet you warmly in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 16:19
- “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” Romans 16:7
- “Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.” Colossians 4:15
- “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized , she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful in the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.” Acts 16:14, 15
- “After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home, and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.” Acts 16:40
- “… to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house.” Philem 2
- “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” Acts 1:14
- “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of one mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel,…” Philippians 4:2, 3
- “The next day we left and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy.” Acts 21:8, 9
Note: Other women mentioned include Julia, Mary, the mother of Rufus, Nereus’ sister, Persis, Tryphaena, and Tryphosa, but we know nothing more about them.
First Thoughts 