Nymphas

Nymphas (Nympha) is the name of a first-⁠century Christian mentioned in the Epistle to the Colossians, in whose house a church met. Orthodox tradition regards him as an apostle of the Seventy and commemorates him on 28 February. We have no other news of him than that in the New Testament, and modern scholarship does not agree even on the person's sex.

What the New Testament says

The information about Nymphas comes from two short verses of the Epistle to the Colossians (4:15), traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul and written around 62. Paul sends greetings to the brethren in Laodicea and to Nymphas and the church in his (or her) house. From this one may conclude that the person hosted a Christian assembly, that is, a house church, that he or she was tied to the community in Laodicea, in the Lycus Valley of Asia Minor (today Turkey), and that he or she was known to Paul or the author of the epistle. The name is of Greek origin and means bride or nymph, in the masculine form, Nymphas, bridegroom. Some scholars take it as a sign of a non-⁠Jewish background and suppose a link with wealth or with the water works of the city.

Sex and place

The person's sex is unclear in the old manuscripts, because Greek accents, which decide it, are absent from the original texts, and the pronouns after the word house vary. The earliest witness, Codex Vaticanus, of the fourth century, has a feminine pronoun, thus a female leader. Texts from the early fifth century have a masculine pronoun, and Codex Sinaiticus a plural one, their house. Orthodox tradition regards the person as a man, whereas many scholars today, among them James Dunn, consider the feminine, Nympha, the original form. The place of the assembly is debated: most scholars choose Laodicea, others Colossae, ten miles away, or Hierapolis. Scholars who think it was a woman suppose a wealthy hostess, perhaps a widow, in a house large enough for a considerable assembly, and her presence shows the active role of women in the early Church.