18 THE FAITHFUL READER Penelope’s Similarity to the Young Women of Titus This use of Penelope’s sound mind to preserve the possibility of a well-ordered home gives us a picture of the virtuous young women whom Paul describes in Titus 2. The cultures surrounding Penelope and the Titus 2 women are very similar. Like the Ithakaian suitors, the Cretans lived a culture of lying, laziness and evil that was upsetting whole households (Titus 1:10-13). Cretans were famous for their greed, gluttony, self-indulgence, and lies. Paul therefore writes to Titus to encourage the church at Crete to counter this testimony with a pattern of good works and sound doctrine. Paul goes on to recommend specific behavior characteristics for each group of people in the church—older men and younger men, older women and younger women. More specifically, Paul charges older women to be teachers of good things, and then gives a list of descriptive adjectives that are to characterize virtuous young women: sober (self-controlled), friendly towards one’s husband while also willfully subject to him; loving towards one’s children; discreet; chaste; a keeper at home; good. Penelope pictures all of these virtues for us. Throughout the Odyssey Penelope wraps herself in modesty. She is always accompanied by at least two handmaidens and takes a modest stance before her suitors by standing “beside the pillar that supported the roof with its joinery” and wearing a veil. Penelope is also clearly agathos or good: she is distinguished, upright, and honorable and earns praise for these qualities from many people throughout the epic. Above all, Penelope guards her home. The word for “housekeeping” in the scripture is oikourgos, which carries an implication of guarding the home. In contrast to Penelope, Agamemnon’s wife Klytaimestra destroyed her home rather than safeguarding it. While Agamemnon was away at war, Klytaimestra took a lover who then treacherously killed her husband upon his homecoming. Importantly, Klytaimestra’s adultery and murder began in her mind: “there is nothing more deadly or more vile than a woman / who stores in her mind with acts that are of such sort, as this one / did when this thought of this act of dishonor, and plotted/ the murder of her
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