ABSTRACT
WIDOWHOOD IN PATRISTIC THEORY As compared with the virgins, widows represented a numerically superior and historically more ancient tendency in the church. The widows are attested from the earliest apostolic times in their own category, ‘the roll of widows’ (I Tim. 5:9ff), along with instructions as to their qualifications and supervision; they seem to have quickly occupied an uneasy middle ground between being church functionaries and prime recipients of church charity, but were always viewed in the light of a separate category. Ultimately, however, they would prove to lack the qualities that were to put the virgins in the front rank in the contest for the Crown of Crowns.
