Was Saint Paul Married?
The Apostle Paul: Bachelor, Widower, or Divorcé?
When we think of the Apostle Paul, we
typically picture the ultimate bachelor of the Bible. He is the man who wrote, "It
is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman" (1
Corinthians 7:1) and expressed a wish that everyone could be single like him.
For centuries, the church has viewed Paul as the model of celibacy—a man so
consumed by his mission that he had no time or desire for family life.
But is that the whole story?
There is a compelling historical case
to be made that Paul, the most influential theologian in history, may have
actually been a married man. While the New Testament clearly depicts him as
single during his missionary journeys, several clues suggest that this
singleness was a result of loss, not lack of experience.
To understand Paul’s marital status,
we have to look at his life before the Damascus Road. He wasn't just a
generic Jewish man; he was a rising star in the religious establishment.
In Philippians 3:5, Paul lists
his pedigree: "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee."
In first-century Jewish culture,
marriage was not just a social norm; it was considered a religious duty. The
rabbis taught that a man who did not marry was not a "whole man" and
that he lived without joy, blessing, or good. For a strict Pharisee like
Paul—who claimed to be blameless regarding the law—remaining single into his
30s would have been highly irregular, if not scandalous.
The strongest evidence for Paul’s
marriage comes from a small detail in Acts 26:10. Paul is describing his
life as a persecutor of the church to King Agrippa:
"And I did so in Jerusalem. I not
only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the
chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against
them."
The phrase "cast my vote"
literally refers to casting a pebble (the psēphos), which was the method
used by judges in a court to decide a verdict. This implies that Paul was
likely a member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews.
According to Jewish oral tradition and
later writings in the Mishnah, membership in the Sanhedrin came with strict
requirements. A member had to be a man of age, wisdom, and—crucially—a husband
and a father. The reasoning was that a man who had no children could not be
trusted to show mercy in capital cases.
If Paul was indeed a member of the
Sanhedrin (or an official delegate with voting power), he almost certainly
would have been married at that time.
If Paul was married, where is his
wife? By the time he writes his first letter to the Corinthians (around 55 AD),
he is clearly single.
In 1 Corinthians 7:8, he
writes: "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them
to remain single, as I am."
The Greek word used here for
"unmarried" is agamois. While it can mean someone who never
married, it is also used to refer to those who are currently without a spouse
(widowers or divorced). Some scholars argue that Paul is grouping himself with
the "widows" in this sentence because he is one.
Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 9:5,
Paul asks a rhetorical question: "Do we not have the right to take
along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord
and Cephas?"
This verse confirms he was single
during his ministry, but it also hints at the cost. He isn't saying he is
incapable of marriage; he is saying he has foregone the right to it for the
sake of the Gospel.
If Paul had a wife, her absence leaves
us with two tragic possibilities.
1. She Died: It is very possible Paul was a
widower. Mortality rates in the ancient world were high. If his wife died
before his conversion or shortly after, it would explain his advice in 1
Corinthians 7 regarding the "shortness of time" and the pain of worldly
troubles. He may have chosen not to remarry to dedicate himself fully to
Christ.
2. She Left Him: The more painful theory is that Paul
lost his wife because of his conversion. When Saul the Pharisee became Paul the
Christian, he lost everything. In Philippians 3:8, he says, "I
have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish." For a
devout Jewish family, Paul’s conversion to the "sect of the Nazarene"
would have been seen as a betrayal or madness. It is plausible that his wife,
or her family, severed ties with him, leaving him effectively divorced. This
would add a heartbreaking layer of personal experience to his teaching in 1
Corinthians 7:15 regarding an unbelieving spouse who chooses to leave: "let
him do so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved."
Interestingly, some early church
fathers believed Paul was married. Clement of Alexandria (c. 200 AD)
suggested that when Paul refers to his "true companion" (or
"yoke-fellow") in Philippians 4:3, he was addressing his wife
who he had left behind to focus on ministry.
While most modern scholars reject the
interpretation of Philippians 4:3 (the Greek word is masculine, likely
referring to a male colleague), the fact that early leaders like Clement and
Eusebius were open to the idea shows that the "Bachelor Paul" image
wasn't always the default view.
Why does it matter if Paul was a
widower or a lifelong bachelor?
- It Humanizes Him: It is easy to view Paul as a
stoic robot who didn't understand human emotion. If he was a man who loved
a wife and lost her (either to death or rejection), his letters become
flooded with resilience. His joy is not the joy of a man who needed
nothing, but the joy of a man who found Jesus sufficient when everything
else was gone.
- It Contextualizes His Teaching: When Paul advises against
marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, he isn't speaking as a woman-hater or an
inexperienced novice. He is speaking as a man who knows the
"anxieties" of marriage and the pain of loss. He is trying to
spare his readers from "worldly troubles" during a time of
persecution.
- It Clarifies His Authority: It explains how he could speak
with such confidence on the intimate duties of husbands and wives in
Ephesians 5. He wasn't theorizing; he may well have been remembering.
Whether he was a widower or a
bachelor, Paul’s life remains a testament to the sufficiency of Christ. But
considering the possibility of his past marriage reminds us that the giants of
the Bible were real men, living real lives, often marked by real heartbreak.
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