1 Thess 4:4 TO hEAUTOU SKEUOS KTASQAI ...

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Jul 13 08:46:48 EDT 2002


At 1:10 PM +0200 7/13/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>Dear Carl,
>
>Thanks for the compilation of thoughts on this verse. It is not absoslutely
>clear to me what your conclusion is. My understanding is - and was - that it
>refers to "acquiring in a holy an honorable way a woman to be one's wife"
>which is how the vast majority of Bible translators have understood it. As
>far as I can see you agree. What ways are honorable is a matter of culture,
>religious convictions and personal ethics.

I agree that "acquiring in a holy an honorable way a woman to be one's
wife" is what the phrase must mean. Whether that's what "the vast majority
of Bible translators have understood it (to be)" is less clear to me: in
checking translations I've found what seems to me a growing tendency to
understand SKEUOS in 1 Thess 4:4 as "one's own body" and a rather small
minority seriously believing that SKEUOS = "penis." I've tried to show that
both these interpretations are untenable unless one twists the sense of
KTASQAI into something which absolutely no evidence shows that it can mean.

I became more curious about this question when asked (off-list) recently
about what seems (to me, at least) to be a strange interlacing of
utilitarian terminology and tender sentiment in 1 Peter 3:7 :

hOI ANDRES hOMOIWS, SUNOIKOUNTES KATA GNWSIN hWS ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI TWi
GUNAIKEIWi, APONEMONTES TIMHN hWS KAI SUGKLHRONOMOIS CARITOS ZWHS EIS TO MH
EGKOPTESQAI TAS PROSEUCAS hUMWN

as well as in our text under consideration TO hEAUTOU SKEUOS KTASQAI EN
hAGIASMWi KAI TIMHi What I mean is that SKEUOS is just about as utilitarian
a term that one can find in ancient Greek, perhaps even as varied in usage
as CRHMA ("thing," "implement," or the like, in the plural "funds" or
"money"). SKEUOS really means "utensil" and while in the plural quite
commonly used for "gear" or "furnishings," it is most commonly used in the
singular for "container," particularly, I suppose, for  a container of
something fluid or loose--and in the ancient world, that is essentially the
ceramic pot of widely-varied shape and size.  Perhaps it's not surprising
that SKEUOS should be used of a person as an instrument in a very positive
sense, as in the oracular language of Acts 9:15 where God describes Paul as
SKEUOS EKLOGHS MOI ... TOU BASTASAI TO ONOMA MOU ENWPION EQNWN TE KAI
BASILEWN hUIWN TE ISRAHL. It seems a little stranger that Paul in Romans
9:22f. should speak of those destined for salvation and for damnation
respectively as SKEUH ORGHS KATHRTISMENA EIS APWLEIAN and SKEUH ELEOUS hA
PROHTOIMASEN EIS DOXAN--i.e. "wrath-pots" and "mercy-pots." And in a
similar manner it seems to me that SKEUOS in 1 Thess 4:4 and in 1 Peter 3:7
means essentially "sex-pot"--not in the colloquial slang sense which that
phrase carries in contemporary English, or at least not with the same
connotation--yet nevertheless essentially "person serving the function of
sexual partner." And that, I think, is how SKEUOS should be understood in
these passages. In a 'relatively' literal translation I would turn 1 Thess
3:3-4 into: "This is God's will, your consecration: that you abstain from
sexual immorality and that each of you should know how to get his own
sexual partner in a way that consecrates and honors (her)." I'm tempted to
write "it" for "her," primarily because I think the neuter SKEUOS is
implicit, but I don't doubt that Paul is referring to a female sexual
partner, as is made explicit in the corresponding text in 1 Peter 3:7.

At a later point in your response you wrote:

>> ... Semitic background for this Greek text, the statement in 1Th 4:4 would
>> refer to the need for sexual life to be both holy and honorable
>> (see 23.63). And this, I think, is the most reasonable accounting for the
>>> expression we have in 1 Thess 4:4.
>
>What does "this" refer to?
>Sexual life with an already acquired wife or an honorable way of acquiring a
>wife? If the verb means "acquire" the second seems more likely.

To which I would respond that the text explicitly names the latter, but
does, I think, imply inclusively the former. That is to say, my
understanding is that here, as in 1 Cor 7, Paul understands sexuality as an
essential aspect of being human but also as an urgency that requires an
"outlet." As PORNEIA is not a permissible "outlet," one should acquire a
sexual partner in a way that consecrates and honors her. I really think it
is implicit that "acquire a sexual partner in a way that consecrates and
honors her" means "if one doesn't already have such a SKEUOS."

I hope that this clarifies anything that was unclear in my earlier post.
While it may be true, as Iver asserts, that this is the way in which 1
Thess 4:4 has most commonly been understood by translators over the
centuries, my own observation is that translators over the centuries have
converted SKEUOS into "vessel" and refrained from making the sense intended
as clear as they ought; then in recent years there has been a tendency to
understand SKEUOS in different ways--quite erroneously, in my opinion.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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