The theology of sisters?

As a new Catholic, all things Catholic are new t some extent, but some things are new to a huge extent. Take nuns, for example (please, take them!). The closest you get to encountering nuns in mainstream Protestantism (my background is Presbyterianism) is either the old ladies (widows, mostly) in some Sunday school classes, or wives of the elders. So moving into the Church has left me wondering what to make of nuns (or, sisters, since I have a teeny tiny suspicion "nun" carries some Enlightenment cynicism) -- wondering and then blogging...

INSCITIA:

The theology of priests, I get: alter Christus, presbyters with bishops, community pastors, etc. But are nuns the feminine "counterpoint" for priests? What is the biblical and traditional pattern-basis for sisters?

COGITATIO:

My hunch is that nuns derive from two ecclesial sources. One, St. Paul's discussion of celibacy in I Corinthians 7. Two, the Apostle's discussion of widows in the letters to Timothy and Thessalonians (details are fuzzy at the moment, will check later). Nuns are the "counterpoint" for brothers, monks, who are just members of religious communities "in this final age" (I Cor. 7:29f). Further, I think nuns continue the tradition of widows who can be committed to service without worries of finding a spouse, etc. (I Tim 5:3).

A remaining question is, of course, how nuns came to include young women who were not only not widows but had never even married. I know Doug Wilson (or was it Doug Jones? I always get those Muscovite Calvinists mixed up) makes a big deal about this (in his stimulating little book about Christian manhood), presumably because it demonstrates "Rome erred" against Scripture with its own "man-made" traditions.

RESPONSUM: