Harvard's Karen King once again made headlines (New York Times, Boston Globe) last week when the fragment concerning the "wife of Jesus" was certified as no modern forgery, but an ancient text---though it is now dated from the 8th century. But the issues around Jesus' marriage remain as they were when the story first broke in 2012, so I am re-posting my blog from September 2012.
In the face
of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…
Any talk of Jesus being
married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of
Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the
kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.
Fact #1: The
belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine. It is true
that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed
on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of
Jesus, like long hair and a beard. But
this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an
informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers. But Catholics are not required to believe
this, and they never have been.
Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not
heresy. The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The
notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic
Church.” This is just ignorant reporting. To be heresy an idea must contradict an
“orthodox” doctrine. But since there is
no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status,
then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible. Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but
disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.
Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married
men to be priests. That same Globe article claimed with similar
ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly
in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.”
Not true!
Catholicism embraces five
different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to
collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests. Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of
all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former
Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are
married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic
priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married
priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.
Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine. History rather
than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite
priests may marry in. Long ago all
priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married,
but in the 11th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was
adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern
Rites. So the fact here is simple:
priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule
was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction,
and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.
Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married
or single. Our best source is the books of the New Testament,
and these books are totally silent on the question. In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus
from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30. We know virtually nothing of the adolescence
and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have
expected him to marry. If, as a
hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married
life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel
narratives--a gap that no other source can fill. The fact is, we just do not know.
Fact #6: We will probably never know. Harvard’s
Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we
got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person
writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of
Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others
believed it to be so. And it certainly
does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true
or not, for reasons we cannot know.
The fragment probably
dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the
mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’
death. All of the New Testament books
are closer to Jesus’ lifetime. There is
nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament. That silence is definitive, and I can think
of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.
Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries. All of the
other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from
Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.
Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than
reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.
We are often told history
is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts
that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick”
by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus. All the alternative texts were the losers,
simply because they failed to measure up.
As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can
realistically imagine
Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear. What does the
New Testament’s silence mean? Some argue
it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his
mother, father, and brothers. Others
argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate
adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone
challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.
Both arguments are
logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.
In other words, the Gospels’
silence cannot really settle the question.
We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his
public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no
longer present. But any such answer is just speculation. We know the texts are silent, but we cannot
tell for sure what that silence means.
Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian
beliefs remain unchanged. Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our
theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy. If Jesus was married, then the popular
devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would
change. My Catholicism does not hang on
this question, and yours should not either.
For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle
curiosity. It is not a deal breaker--or
even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or
the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New
Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.
Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes. Clearly much
of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and
sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359). In
the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so
those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery. And the assumption of Jesus as life-long
celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior
to married people. Many modern
Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden
opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.
More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian
history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to
reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time. Controversy over minor matters advances the
cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the
facts.
On this score,
ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of
the media coverage.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012
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