1. That which the phrase at once suggests to a modern mind,--that the person to be ordained bishop or deacon must have only one wife and not more; that he must not be a _polygamist_. According to this interpretation, therefore, we are to understand the Apostle to mean, that a Jew or barbarian with more wives than one might be admitted to baptism and become a member of the congregation, but ought not to be admitted to the ministry. This explanation, which at first sight looks simple and plausible, will not bear inspection. It is quite true that polygamy in St. Paul's day still existed among the Jews. Justin Martyr, in the _Dialogue with Trypho_, says to the Jews, "It is better for you to follow God than your senseless and blind teachers, who even to this day allow you each to have four and five wives" (§ 134). But polygamy in the Roman Empire must have been rare. It was forbidden by Roman law, which did not allow a man to have more than one lawful wife at a time, and treated every simultaneous second marriage, not only as null and void, but infamous. Where it was practised it must have been practised secretly. It is probable that, when St. Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus, not a single polygamist had been converted to the Christian faith. Polygamists were exceedingly rare inside the Empire, and the Church had not yet spread beyond it. Indeed, our utter ignorance as to the way in which the primitive Church dealt with polygamists who wished to become Christians, amounts to something like proof that such cases were extremely uncommon. How improbable, therefore, that St. Paul should think it worth while to charge both Timothy and Titus that converted polygamists must not be admitted to the office of bishop, when there is no likelihood that any one of them knew of a single instance of a polygamist who had become a Christian! On these grounds alone this interpretation of the phrase might be safely rejected. But these grounds do not stand alone. There is the convincing evidence of the converse phrase, "wife of one husband." If men with more than one wife were very rare in the Roman Empire, what are we to think of women with more than one husband? Even among the barbarians outside the Empire, such a thing as a plurality of husbands was regarded as monstrous. It is incredible that St. Paul could have had any such case in his mind, when he mentioned the qualification "wife of one husband." Moreover, as the question before him was one relating to widows, this "wife of one husband" must be a person who at the time had _no_ husband. The phrase, therefore, can only mean a woman who after the death of her husband has not married again. Consequently the converse expression, "husband of one wife," cannot have any reference to polygamy.