Marriage and Children in theEarly Church

[NoelFitz]

Currently I am trying to study the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Tim and Tit), with limited success. Thus I would welcome your help and advice. I note in these letters that being married and having children is honored. In fact a presbyter/elder/priest and an episkopos/overseer/bishop are required to be married, similar to an orthodox Jewish rabbi at present.

However sometime soon after these Epistles were written the Church’s view on family life and marriage seemed to change, and holy virginity (celibacy) was considered better that marriage. This view is still apparently held in the Church where, priests, in the Latin Rite, are expected to be celibate. Also Mary is more often referred to as the Blessed Virgin, rather than the Mother of God, a higher title.

The negative teaching on marriage seemed to occur soon after Paul’s time in, for example the* Acts of Paul and Thecla.*

I enclose a number of quotes from the Pastoral Epistles on marriage and having children.

I left you behind in Crete for this reason, so that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you: someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. (Tit 1: 5,6)

so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, (Tit 2:4)

Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (Tit 2:15)

Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, (! Tim 3:2)

Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well; (1 Tim 3:12)

They (opponents) forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; (1 Tim 4:3.4)

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us.
(1 Tim 5:14)

 

[Todd_Easton]

Consider St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:25-38:
25Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. 26I think that in view of the present distress it is well for a person to remain as he is. 27Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. 28But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. 29I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.
32I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, 34and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. 35I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
36If any one thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry–it is no sin. 37But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. 38So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.
So, you can see from the very beginning it was considered a good thing for Christians to marry, but it was considered an even better thing, for those who can, to remain unmarried for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

The Church regards the “married only once” qualification mentioned in 1 Timothy and Titus, not as a requirement that a bishop or deacon must be married but, if he is married, that he be married only once, that is, not have multiple wives, either at the same time or serially, as when a widower remarries. Nor does the Church regard the “children” qualification mentioned there as a requirement that a bishop or deacon must have children, but, if he does have children, that his children be believers and well managed.

 

[NoelFitz]

Todd,

I am very grateful to you for your excellent reply.

I hope to reply in detail to you soon.

I agree with you that Paul did not forbid marriage, but in the quotes I gave marriage is considered necessary for a minister, as it is for a Jewish rabbi at present.

There is still a bias against marriage in the Church, seen in the lack of canonized married saints and in the ban on widowers who are permanent deacons remarrying. I also recall that prior to Vat II in the Common of Holy Women it was said that these people acquired sanctity in spite of their state while virgins were holy because of their state.

My arguments may have been weakened by having too many quotes, so I repeat one:

Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once.

 

[Mintaka]

There’s no evidence to suggest that Timothy was married. No shout-out to his wife that I can remember. So it would seem that a bishop could be married only never, as well.

I will add that there’s no evidence I know of that the early Church condoned marriage for bishops or priests who were not married when ordained, or who have been married once already. (There were occasional exceptions made for priests with very young children, so that the little kids would have a mother.) The general rule was that, once you got ordained, you stayed what you were. You had already given your entire self to God; you couldn’t have takebacks and give part of yourself to a wife, if she didn’t already have you.

Being only married once, and living as a widow or widower for the rest of one’s life if necessary, was a big deal to the early Church. It was taken as a sign of faithfulness in all things. Not everybody could do it, but it was definitely the preferred option. So Paul is saying, “A bishop should be a steady guy who hasn’t been married to more than one woman.”

(This being so, you can see why remarriage would seem iffy in people who were already priests or bishops, and thus was not usually permitted.)

 

[NoelFitz]

Mintaka

I was disappointed not to get more responses to my post, so I am very grateful to you.

There is no evidence either that Timothy was not married.

My point is that

Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once

This means that a bishop must be above reproach, married only once.

This is as clear as could be.

The sources for Paul when he wrote these letters included the Greco-Roman ethics of his time, Jewish teaching and Christian values. Thus the role of overseer/bishop/episkopos was influenced by Jewish practice. In the OT the importance of marriage is stressed, while Catholicism has been ambivalent about marriage.

Orthodox rabbis must be married and this ruling may have been in the Judaism of Paul’s time.

It is interesting to see how the denigration of marriage developed in the Church. Perhaps it peaked with Jerome who wrote:

The truth is that, in view of the purity of the body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean.

 

[Prometheus1974]

Hi Noel,

Quote:
"Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once
This means that a bishop must be above reproach, married only once.

This is as clear as could be."

Actually Noel, I disagree. It is not clear at all. He does not say a bishop must be married, only that he must be “above reproach”. Also, had St. Paul wanted to be clear he could have said “A bishop must be married.” He says instead that to be above reproach a bishop must be married “ONLY once”. The insertion of the word “only” directs the whole statement against men who have married more then once, not those who are unmarried.

It is important to remember that at his time, within the Roman Empire, the institution of marriage had suffered a terrible breakdown. It was common for men or women to marry and divorce on the slightest whim, or swap or exchange wives to cement political or commercial alliances. This, of course, has always been antithetical to the Christ’s concept of marriage: “what God has joined together, let no man separate.” Matthew 19:6. It makes perfect sense that St. Paul would require that a bishop NOT exhibit behaviour that Jesus directly condemns. It is less likely that he would require a bishop not exhibit behaviour he elsewhere praises.

Quote:
It is interesting to see how the denigration of marriage developed in the Church. Perhaps it peaked with Jerome who wrote:

Quote:
The truth is that, in view of the purity of the body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean.

Actually the Church has never denigrated marriage. Just because something can be found in the writing of a saint does not mean it is or ever has been the teaching of the church. You have to remember the context: St. Jerome, an avowed ascetic was defending the ascetic lifestyle against attack from Jovanian, and he got carried away in his rhetoric.

The Church did not approve of this characterization of marriage at the time. More importantly, not even Jerome himself was consistent in condemning marriage; this:

“while we honour marriage we prefer virginity which is the offspring of marriage”

is from the very same document (Against Jovanianus).

God bless,

Michael

 

[Christine_Lee]

I have no scripture or references to back my statement, only the memory of what my Humanities professor told me.

Bishops, Pirests, etc once married in the early years of the Church. But when they died lawsuits arose as to whether the deceased’s widow and/or children would inherit the church property. To prevent this confusion Bishops, Priests, etc. were required to be celibate or to declare that the church property would not be inherited by his family.

 

[NoelFitz]

Prometheus1974
Thank you for your scholarly reply.

In fact I agree with most of what you say.

I am impressed by your scholarship and that you took the trouble to reply to me in such detail.

1. I think of Churchill who said those on both sides of the Atlantic are separated by a common language. I interpret “married only once” to mean “married only once”, ie married one time.
   2 Thre Roman Empire seems similar to modern western life - “marriage had suffered a terrible breakdown”.
2. I admit my selection from Jerome was selective.