142 Chrys C. Caragounis are, however, serious difficulties in the way of applying this meaning to our text. (a) The meaning “wife” in late Jewish texts is altogether too obscure for a Greek context; it hampers communication. (b) Limiting σκεῦος to “wife” goes contrary to the finding above that σκεῦος refers to all four classes of Christians comprising the Thessalonian Church, i.e. married and unmarried men and married and unmarried women. (c) The meaning “wife” has been based on the dubious assumption that κτᾶσθαι bears the sense of “acquire”, i.e. “marry”, but not “have”, “keep”61. (d) Per- haps the most decisive consideration for this interpretation has been the negative picture that is often painted of ancient morality and marriage. Best, for example, speaks of “the prevalent two-standard morality which allows the man sexual freedom but refuses it to the woman”62. By “sexual freedom” is no doubt meant the circumstance in ancient times whereby beautiful, intelligent, flamboyant coquettes, called ἑταῖραι63, kept com- pany to (prominent) men and granted them their favors.64 However, being rather expensive, sometimes exorbitantly so, these women could only be afforded by the wealthier classes of Athenians and others65. It is thus very unlikely that Paul had in mind such a relatively infrequent occurrence as relevant for the small number of members of the Thessalonian Church. which is consistent with rabbinic Jewish coloration of Paul’s paraenesis at this point, that is consistent with rabbinic parallels, that is, parallels with a similar thought elsewhere in Paul –particularly the idea of marriage as a means of avoiding πορνεία,– that takes into account the use of the emphatic ἑαυτοῦ, and that it is in accord with the fundamentally ingressive use of κτᾶσθαι. I am afraid I am unable to subscribe to this interpretation. My arguments against it are given below. As for 1 Cor 7:1-7, which Collins uses to interpret 1 Th 4:3-6, I have offered a different interpretation in my “Fornication and Concession? Interpreting 1 Cor 7,1-7” in The Corinthian Correspondence (ed. R. Bieringer), BETL 125), Leuven 1996,543- 559. Best, 1 Thessalonians, 161. 61 Best, 1 Thessalonians, 162. 62 In his Dialogi meretrici, Lucian (fl. 120 A.D.) treats of some twenty-five hetairai, 63 while Athenaios (fl. 200 A.D.) in his Deipnosophistai Book 13, names over 100 hetairai (from c. 600 B.C. onwards), and informs that Aristophanes of Byzantium’s list contained some 153 hetairai. Among the most famous ἑταῖραι were Aspasia, Phryne, Lais, and Thais. See Luki- 64 anos, Dialogues of the Hetairai, passim, and Athenaios, Deipnosophistai, 13. Of the many European equivalents –sometimes involving diplomatic espionage– may be mentioned such courtesans as Dutch Mata Hari, French Mme de Pompadour, and the idealized picture of the prototype (Marie Duplessis) in A. Dumas Fils’s novel La Dame aux camélias in the person of Marguerite Gautier or Violetta (in G. Verdi’s opera La Traviata). For example, Phryne (the prototype of Praxiteles’ and Apelles’ Aphrodites) is known 65 to have demanded a mina (= 100 drachmas, i.e. 100 days’ wages) for a night (Athenaios, Deipn. 13: 45. She became so rich that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes at her own expense. Lais’s exorbitant fee is said to have left Demosthenes disappointed, remarking that he would not buy repentance at such a high price (Ovid, Amores 1, el 5).