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THE APOSTLES' RIGHT TO TAKE THEIR WIVES WITH THEM
The fact that the charism of celibacy is not attainable by asking
reflects, also, each apostle's right to take his wife with him: a priest who
has not received the gift of celibacy, of course has the natural and spiritual
right to live in the sacrament of marriage, just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians
7:7: "Each one has his own gift from God, one of this kind, one of
another"[1].
Before turning to the exegesis of St Paul's words stating this right, a
critical review of the text of 1 Corinthians 9:5 is necessary, as the centuries
have left their mark on this sentence, for understandable reasons. Surprisingly
enough, Paul in this verse claims as an apostolic right: "Do we perhaps
not have the full power to take along with us a sister (in faith) as wife, just
as the other apostles do, and the brethren of the Lord, and Peter?".
1. According to the findings of G. Zuntz,[2]
the original text must have spoken, in the decisive passage, of the right to
take women along (gynaíkas peri gein), in the plural and without the
addition of sisters (adelpàs). The later textus receptus reads: adelphên
gynaíka periágein, "have a sister as wife", which, however, does not
change the meaning essentially, because "sister" is understood a fellow-Christian.
The meaning of "wife" given to the word "woman" remains
unaffected by this. If, together with "sister" stress is also laid on
"woman", and if, quite possibly, that is the more original word, then
doubtless what is meant by the female companion of the apostles, is their wife.
We shall return to this in the exegesis.
Zuntz adduces the following reason for the preference for the shorter
text gynaíkas: Witnesses to the short text "Uxores circumducere" as
far apart and as early as Tertullian of Carthage (died about 220), Clement of
Alexandria (died about 215), Hilary of Poitiers (died 367) and the Persian sage
Aphrahat (died in 345) - to whose number we can add Ambrosiaster (between 366
and 384) and the early Jerome in Adversus Helvidium (383) and Epistula 22 (384)
- cannot have obtained their text from mutual information: it must go back to a
time in which copies of such widely distributed manuscripts were still being
made from a common source, namely, from a manuscript of great antiquity, reaching
back to the second century. The oldest manuscripts handed down to us, above all
Papyrus 46, stem only from the third century, all others date from the fourth
and fifth centuries: they contain the longer text.
So, the reading witnessed to by these early church Fathers is to be
given preference, primarily for the external reason that it is the older
reading. It is also found in two manuscripts of the ninth century, called
Boernerianus (G) and Augiensis (F) which, because of the parallel Old Latin
version copied in conjunction, have often kept old readings in the Greek text
too.[3]
An internal piece of evidence also argues for the shorter text: the
singular of the later textus receptus is probably due to the attempt to
preclude the idea of polygamy among the apostles, as if each were taking
several women (plural) with him. And the word "sister" might have
been added in explanation and for reasons of decency: of course, the wife had
to be a Christian believer. The opposite development, the cancelling of
"sister" from the original text and the changing of the singular into
the plural, would, however, not be understandable: the shorter and more
difficult reading is generally regarded as the older one. So, the text attested
by Clement and Tertullian at the end of the second century can be relied on
with great certainty. In any case, it is to be noted, that the earliest church
Fathers translate the term gynaíkas, which occurs in both readings, without
exception as uxores, wives.
The latest reading of the Vulgata-Clementina, dating from 1592, when it
was issued as the official Latin bible translation following the council of
Trent, which declared Jerome's translation as "authentic"[4],
needs a discussion to itself. This late edition reverses the word-order of the
longer text: sororem mulierem circumducendi, to take along with us a sister as
woman, and reads it the other way round: mulierem sororem circumducendi, to
take along a woman as sister, which indeed brings about a considerable change
in sense.
Just as the double accusative in Matthew 1:20: mè phobetès paralabeín
Marian tèn gynaíká sou, or in Latin: noli timere accipere Mariam conjugem tuam,
has to be translated: "Do not fear to take Mary as your wife", so
also in 1 Corinthians 9:5 sororem mulierem circumducere is to be rendered by
"To take for a companion a sister as woman" or wife. The reversal
makes this interpretation, in any case, impossible. Neither does it produce any
clear meaning: "To take along a woman as sister" - what is this
supposed to mean? "A woman as Christian" makes no sense. "A
woman only as if she were sister (by birth)" is obviously what it is meant
to say, but that cannot possibly be Paul's intention; it would push the
"spiritual marriages" of the third century back into the apostolic
age. "A woman as 'sister'" (in an order) would finally be a worse
anachronism still: religious orders for women date from the sixth century only.
Jerome (347-420), who is regarded up till now as the author of the Latin
Vulgate translation,[5]
does not know of this change. His text, however, according to the decree of
Trent, was, in 1592, "to be printed as correctly as possible without
mistakes".[6] It is true
that in his later writings Jerome prefers the translation sorores mulieres
(sisters as women) instead of the shorter earlier reading uxores (wives),[7]
for which change - in the absence of Latin manuscripts which read in this way -
he relies on Greek codices which contain the longer text. But in all his texts
he adheres to the word-order: sisters as women, sorores mulieres, found in both
the Greek and Latin manuscripts available to him, and not the other way round.
So the editors of the Vulgate were not able to appeal to Jerome, whose works
they certainly exploited, when editing the text to mulierem sororem. Even the manuscripts
of the Vulgate itself available to them, which included the famous Codex
Amiatinus[8],
almost unanimously follow the word-order of Jerome's works and of the Greek
manuscripts: sororem mulierem. The more recent critical edition of the Vulgate
by Wordsworth-White[9] in 1913 can
enumerate only two out of thirty manuscripts which have the transposition
altering the sense: mulierem sororem. But even given the state of knowledge in
their times, the 1592 editors were not really able to lay much emphasis on these
two, relatively worthless, manuscripts, since they themselves preferred the
reading of the Codex Amiatinus in all instances. By departing from this guide
here, they clearly did so not on grounds of textual criticism, but because of a
specific intention. This can be guessed with a high degree of probability: the
editors sought to veil, as far as possible, by means of the transposition, the
obvious meaning of the original wording: "Do we not have the right to be
accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles?" on account of the canon law
then in force, which forbade precisely that to the apostles' successors in the
Latin West.
By this device, the Vulgate Commission of 1592 unwittingly became a
witness to the extraordinary importance of Paul's words. Had the Commission not
realized that this one sentence, should it have become better known, had the
power to bring down the whole structure of the Latin discipline of celibacy,
then it would probably not have taken it upon itself to change the wording and
meaning of a scriptural text, contrary to the Greek original, against the text
of Jerome, and in disagreement with the virtually unanimous witness of the
Vulgate manuscripts.
That this Pauline statement is still so little known is due, not least,
to the transposition in the "official" Vulgate which has for four
hundred years since been regarded as the authentic text, although it does not
correspond to Jerome's Vulgate or to the Bible.
In this case it is somewhat difficult to believe in the good faith of
the Commission. Certainly, its intention was to be obedient to the Church and
its law. Obedience to the written word of God, however, undoubtedly deserves to
be placed higher - as witness the New Testament teaching on Peter resisting the
High Priests (cf. Acts 4:19; 5:29). The "right to be accompanied by a
wife", which Paul has "as well as the other apostles and the brothers
of the Lord and Peter/Cephas", obviously deprives the Church law of
celibacy of all justification: neither the "prohibition to have
children" (fourth century), nor the declaration making priestly marriages
null and void (twelfth century), nor the marital obstacle of ordination (Trent,
sixteenth century) are legitimate when seen against the background of the
apostolic right.
2. After this glance at the history of the text, we can now turn to the
text's meaning.
a. The oldest witness to the text, Tertullian, also gives the oldest
and, therefore, probably the most unbiased interpretation. He writes, in De
exhortatione castitatis 8 (around 204): "The apostles too were allowed to
marry and take their wives with them"[10].
There is no doubt that this is a quotation from 1 Corinthians 9:5; this is
clear from the actual words used: licebat rendering the exousía or potestas;
apostolis, which occurs in the verse; uxores rendering gynaikas; circumducere
rendering periágein; it follows from the next sentence in Tertullian:
"They were also allowed to live from the Gospel", licebat et de
evangelio ali, which is a quotation summarizing the verses which precede and follow
in Paul's letter, 9:4-14. It is strange and significant at the same time that
Tertullian adds to the words of Paul in 9:5: "They had the right to
marry", while strictly speaking Paul stresses only their right to be
accompanied by the wife they already married. Thus Tertullian testifies to the
natural right of the apostles, even though in the context he opts, himself, for
not marrying.
Thirteen years later Tertullian changed his view about the passage. This
obviously took place in the context of his turning to rigoristic Montanism
which took place around 205, after which he adhered to this sect to his death.
Now, in De monogamia 8,6,[11]
which is to be dated around the year 217,[12]
he is unable to attribute wives to the apostles in 1 Corinthians 9:5, but he sees
in the gynaíkes "women who served them". The intention, born of
heretical rigorism, is clear: the Montanist hostility to marriage made its mark
on Tertullian and influenced his exegesis. It is neither original nor reliable.
Clement of Alexandria (before 215), on the contrary, in Paedagogos
II,1,9[13],
places the "being accompanied by wives" on the same level with the
"eating and drinking" of 1 Corinthians 9:4, both being a
"neutral usage", in other words: natural rights. In his work
Stromateis III,6,52[14],
he even thinks that it is possible to infer from Philippians 4:3, that Paul had
a wife, who, admittedly, did not travel with him, because she could not serve
him on the mission. He adduces as evidence for this 1 Corinthians 9:5. This
interpretation, however, goes against the assertion elsewhere by the apostle
that he is unmarried (1 Cor. 7:7). Still, it does show how gynaíka was
understood at the end of the second century: as "wife".
There is another witness to this meaning in the third century: Eusebius
of Caesarea (265-335). Although he did not actually examine this verse, he
tells us something about the fact that the apostles had wives. According to
him, the apostle Philip had three daughters.[15]
And he tells us the story of the two grandchildren of Judas Thaddaeus, the
Lord's brother, who were sent to Rome for martyrdom as Christians, but sent
back when the judge saw their calloused hands.[16]
Anyone who has sons and grandsons has obviously been married.
Bishop Hilary of Poitiers (310-367), in his commentary on the Psalms,
speaks in terms very similar to the earliest interpreters about "the
apostles' right to marry": "When the apostle praises abstinence, at
the same time he does not put anything in the way of the right to marry; he
only draws on the value of celibacy...: Do we not have the right to take women
with us just as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and
Cephas?"[17] So, he
understands 1 Corinthians 9:5 in such a way that the natural "right to
marry" is expressedly stated as that of the apostles as well. We have to
give all the more weight to this exegesis by a canonized Father of the Church,
raised to the rank of Doctor Ecclesiae in 1851, because it was made before the
letter of Pope Siricius to Himerius of Spain in 385, which made abstinence an
obligation upon the clergy: Hilary wrote at a time when there was no law that
influenced the interpretation.
Against this, Jerome (347-420) is clearly influenced by the legislation.
Before the pope's letter to Himerius of Tarragona (385),[18]
in Adversus Helvidium 11 (383),[19]
he copies in his reply to Helvidius the text of his adversary word for word,
"uxores circumducere", without criticizing it. However, after the
papal letter, in Adversus Jovinianum 1,26 (in 393),[20]
he prefers to translate gynaíkas by "mulieres, women, rather than by
"uxores", wives, "because gyné means both among the
Greeks"; besides, he thinks Jovinian has to add the word found in the
Greek manuscripts, sorores: from this "it follows that he is speaking
about other holy women who helped them with their valuables, as indeed we read,
that the Lord too was served by women", and he refers to Luke 8:1-3.
To follow C. Spicq and J. B. Bauer: there is a purpose behind this
interpretation.[21] It was
intended to counter, by scriptural authority, the celibacy crisis caused by
Jovinian's espousal of the equal value of marriage and virginity in Rome around
390. Yet even apart from this purpose infecting the meaning given by Jerome, it
is also factually untenable, for the "women, who followed the Lord and provided
for" him and his disciples (Luke 8:2-3), are not the object of a right
of the apostles, about which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Nobody has a
right to a housekeeper or maid-servant, least of all the servants of Christ,
since "the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve" (Mark
10:45 par), and "a disciple is not above his teacher" (Matt. 10:24
par). There is, indeed, a kind of right to "get one's living by the
Gospel" (1 Cor. 9:14) which was established and also made use of by the
Lord, for which Luke 10:7 and 8:3 provide the proof. Thus, the women in Luke
8:3 are rather a parallel to 1 Corinthians 9:4 and 14 than to 9:5. Among
Christians, the right of a man to a woman is based solely on marriage. The
women spoken of in 1 Corinthians 9:5, to whom the apostles had a
"right", must have been the apostles' wives. And such they were,
according to our historical knowledge about Peter, Philip and Jude.
It is clear, then, that either rigorism (in Tertullian), or the Latin
canon law (in Jerome), influenced the natural and original understanding of the
text presented by both Fathers in their early writings, as well as by Clement
and Hilary. The reason for the change was the wish to eliminate the
"apostles' wives" who were regarded as an offence in the fourth
century only because they appeared to contradict the well-known encratic
tendencies of that time. Preference, of course, is to be given to the natural,
earlier interpretation.
All later church writers were influenced by the direction Jerome gave to
the interpretation, when he pointed to the women rendering service to Jesus and
his apostles, in Luke 8:3. We need not, therefore, consider them in detail.[22]
One remark, however, must be made on the thesis of J. Galot that at the
time of their being called by Jesus, none of the apostles was married.[23]
A response might be[24]
that Galot has neglected much of the evidence quoted above. Above all, he fails
to take into account Tertullian's text: "Even the apostles were allowed to
marry and take their wives with them" (Exh. cast. 8). Another instance of
the continuing conviction of the Church that 1 Corinthians 9:5 speaks of the
wives of the apostles, is Humbert of Silva Candida's letter to Abbot Niketas
from the year 1054, reproduced in the Decretum Gratiani,[25]
where he admits the right of priests to have "wives, uxores, as we read
that the apostles had, since the apostle Paul says: Do we not have the right,
etc." (1 Cor. 9:5 follows). Though he denies that they had marital
intercourse, at least he admits the juridical importance of the text for the
later canon law (we are still before Lateran II in 1139!). There is no escape
from trusting Paul's evidence that he knew the apostles' "women".
b. The present discussion has been described fully by J.B. Bauer in his article
"Uxores circumducere".[26]
The meaning "wives" is gaining ground. O. Kuss,[27]
J. Küzinger,[28] C. Spicq
and E.-B. Allo[29] also reckon
with the possibility that wives are meant; in their view, however, it is more
likely that the broader term "woman" is intended. H. D. Wendland has
given the debate a new tone.[30]
It is not the right to marry which is spoken of but the right to support from
the communities. This he deals with in the context of a detailed examination of
1 Corinthians 9:4, 6-14, and the right to have a companion is only mentioned in
passing. The sense of this passing reference is that the apostles were able to
demand from the churches that they maintain their wives also.
Against this, it can rightly be asserted that Paul then, at least
indirectly, still speaks of a right to a wife. For, if he and Barnabas have the
right to be accompanied by a wife, then they must also have the preceding right
to choose a wife for themselves, that is to marry. Otherwise they would not
really have the right to take a wife with them.
Paul has immediately before, in chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians, spoken of
the right to marry. So more lengthy consideration was not necessary in 9:5.
Further, it is to be noted that Paul, after having listed his
"rights" in 9:4-14, speaks in verse 15 of "several" rights
which he declined to make use of: "Yet I have made no use of any of these
(freedoms)", ou kéchremai oudenì toútôn. Hence he was not speaking,
before, of only one right - that of being provided for - but of various rights.[31]
In view of the probable shorter original text gynaíkas and the undoubted
original meaning uxores, wives, there is no need of further argument to
establish the result of these exegetical endeavours: in his letter to the
Corinthians Paul speaks of the actual custom of several, specifically named
apostles, Peter and the brothers of the Lord and other apostles,[32]
to take their wives with them on missionary journeys, and their right to
require food and drink for them from the churches, in the same way as they
could for themselves. Even preferring the longer text "a sister as
wife", this interpretation does not alter, because the object of an
apostolic "right" could only be a wife - naturally a Christian one,
hence a "sister" - not however a serving maid.
c. Now, the definition of this right is as follows: exousía means quite
generally "permission, right", derived from éxestin, "it is
allowed". In the New Testament, exousía always means a full power derived
from God.[33] In 1
Corinthians 9, however, Paul lists special rights held by the apostles. They
are held by him "as the other apostles" by the fact of being an
apostle and office-holder; these are not rights shared by all Christians! All
Christians cannot claim support from the churches.
Accordingly, Paul begins chapter 9, which deals with his rights and his
voluntary restraint from their use (as an example for voluntary restraint by
the Corinthians), with the threefold question: "Am I not free? Am I not an
apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (1 Cor. 9:1). In the first
question he sums up his rights; with the second he stresses his authority as an
apostle; with the third he founds his authority on the Lord who called him.
In the context of chapters 8-10, dealing with the divine right of the
Corinthians to eat flesh coming from sacrifices to the idols, Pauls seeks to
say in chapter 9: I want to give you an example as to what you should do with
your right to eat flesh offered to the idols and then sold on the market: you
have the right to eat it because there are no idols, they do not exist.
But if someone is weak and does not believe in the nullity of idols, and
therefore takes offence at your meal, then you should rather refrain from
eating, for love of your brother who thinks you worship idols. In the same way
I am free in many ways as an apostle, but I do not make use of my rights, in
order to win many for the Gospel (9:15, 19). What follows is, thus, concerned
with freedoms or subjective rights held by him as an apostle and founded on the
authority of the Lord, who called him to be an apostle.
This tracing back of the anchor of his rights to their ultimate basis in
the will of the Lord is of vital significance for their evaluation: just as the
Corinthians have the right before God (in "conscience", 10:25) to eat
flesh offered to the idols, so the specific apostolic rights are of divine
origin. Paul stresses this once more expressly at the end of the passage
(9:14): "In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the
gospel should live from the gospel". This refers to the right, named first
(9:4), of being provided for by the churches: "Do we not have the right to
our food and drink?" with which Paul alludes to the saying of the Lord in
Luke 10:7 (par. Matt. 10:10): "Eat and drink what they provide, for the labourer
deserves his wages". The second right (9:5) is introduced in just as
challenging and urgent a way as the first: "Do we perhaps not have the
right to take wives with us?", mè ouk échomen exousían gynaíkas periágein?
This refers to the accompanying wives who share in the apostles' right to food
and drink. The connection with this special apostolic right of support is the
reason why Paul mentions the right to be accompanied by wives: the wives of
preachers are intensively involved in the service of preaching; therefore, the
same reward is due to them as well.[34]
Now, if the first apostolic right "to food and drink" goes back to
the Lord, the second in the mind of Paul, of course, goes back to the same
Lord. The apostles "have" the rights, they do not usurp it. And they
"have" it from the Lord, that to eat and drink explicitly (see Luke
10:7), that to a companion implicitly and by nature, created by the same Lord
(see Gen. 1:28; 2:24; 1 Cor. 7:9.39). The third right derives from the first:
the apostles, occupied with the mission, need not work with their own hands:
"Or is it only Barnabas and I who have not the right to refrain from
working?" (9:6), but to live from their gifts, from "church
taxes" or "from the gospel", as the Lord says.
Thus, the three rights are founded in the will of Christ, the Lord. We
are dealing with the God-given law guaranteed by the Lord - in technical
language, with the ius divinum.
We can sense the care of the Lord, who wanted to protect his apostles -
and their successors and helpers, like Barnabas - from being over-exerted by
having two jobs, and by celibacy which not all can bear (see Matt. 19:11). As
Paul and others show, the divine "right" does not, indeed, rule out
voluntary refraining, "not to make use of the right" (1 Cor 9:15).
They still retain the "freedom" even when they have refrained,
otherwise Paul could not stress his rights after having refrained. And the
other apostles, as well, had refrained from their marital rights for some time:
"We have left everything (and everyone) and followed you: what shall be
our reward?", Peter asks Jesus (Matt. 19:29), because no earthly tie can
claim precedence over Christ and the gospel. However, after the Lord's
ascension, "the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas/Peter"
started again to live with their "wives", and took them around on
their missionary journeys, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 9:5.
This means the apostles as well as Paul are, at any time, free to
make use of the right to take a wife with them, because of the help she is
able to give in the spreading of the gospel.
The actual possibility of making, at any time, use of his rights, is one
of the reasons why Paul speaks of his rights at all: he insists on
"having" the same rights as the other apostles, on account of
equality of status with them. He is not inferior to them in the matter of
authority and rights. So he stresses: "If to others I am not an apostle,
at least I am to you; this is my defence to those who would examine me: Do we
not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be
accompanied by a wife? Or are Barnabas and I the only ones not to have the
right to refrain from working? While the other apostles have it?" (1 Cor.
9:2-6). It is clear that he is using his rights so as to show that his
apostolic authority is identical to that of the other apostles. It is crucial
that these are real rights and can be exercised at any time. He still
"has" the right to chose a wife as his companion, is not bound once
and for all because he has renounced the use of his right: he remains
"free" (9:1). When he refrains, it is his boast (9:15).
We have to keep this in mind with regard to the problem of marriage
after ordination:[35]
According to Paul, any successor of the apostles, any priest, may marry even
after ordination.
d. To sum up: we can state whenever the word gyné in the Greek New
Testament is found to have a connection to a man, an anér, it always has the
meaning "wife", as indeed in many languages "my woman"
means "my wife". So, for instance, we read in 1 Corinthians 7:2:
"Each man should have his own woman". Then, in 1 Corinthians 9:5, the
same word gyné which appears in close connection with men who take her as
companion, can refer only to the apostles' wife. [36]As
the Gospel of Mark shows (1:30) and Eusebius proves in his Church History
(III,20,1-5 and 31,2-3), some of the apostles mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:5
were at some time married. This suggests that Paul is here alluding to the
apostles' wives. In fact, the oldest witnesses, Tertullian, Clement, the Old
Latin translation, Hilary and the early Jerome, translated and interpreted the
word gyné as uxores, wives. The later translation mulieres, women, and the
interpretation which made them "women who helped", was influenced
either by heresy (in Tertullian) or by the legislation on continence (in
Jerome). The probably secondary addition adelphén or sororem, sister, occurred
on grounds of decency or, in the West, to weaken the meaning "wife".
The transposition in the Vulgata Clementina, mulierem sororem, "have a
woman as sister", finally makes this tendency apparent. Our textual
criticism has enabled us to recover the original wording of Paul's statement
and discover its meaning to be: the Lord granted the apostles and their fellow-workers
the right to take their wives with them and to require for them too provision
from the churches. Voluntary refraining from this right is possible and good,
but it is a matter for the individual: the right, the freedom to marry, remains
as granted by the Lord.
e. The question is now once again - and more pointedly than before -
whether, against the right of all men including the apostles to a wife,
guaranteed by God the creator and Christ the Lord, the prohibition by the
Church as a human legislator can claim any validity at all. Is it not rather a
void law from the outset? This all-decisive question must now receive our
attention.
[1] See above, ch.1, par.2
[2] G.
Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles (London, 1953), p.138, quoted in J.B. Bauer,
"Uxores circumducere (1 Kor 9:5)", in Biblische Zeitschrift, Neue
Folge, 3 (1959) 94f.
[3] Cf. the copius citations of manuscripts and quotations from the Fathers in the apparatus of J. Wordsworth-H.J. White, Novum Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Latine secundum Editionem Sancti Hieronymi, tom. II (Oxford, 1913ff), pp.219f. The chronological details of codices and writings of the Fathers are taken in what follows from Vetus Latina, Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel. Nach P. Sabatier neu gesammelt und herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron, vol.I (Freiburg, 1949), and from J. P. Migne, Patrologia, Series Latina (PL), vol.23.
[4] DS 1506.
[5] Cf. however H.J. Frede, Der Brief an die Epheser, in Vetus Latina 24/1 (Freiburg, 1962), Foreword).
[6] DS 1508.
[7] Hieronymus, Adversus Helvidium 11:
PL 23 (1845) 194B, (1883) 204A, from the year 383: "uxores
circumducendi"; ten years later, in 393, he writes in Adversus Jovinianum
1,26: "sorores mulieres circumducendi".
[8] Cf. K.Th. Schäfer, Grundriß der Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Bonn, 2nd ed. 1952), pp.40f.
[9] See above, n.3.
[10] Corpus
Christianorum (CC) II, 1026f; Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
(CSEL) 70, 141: "Licebat et apostolis nubere et uxores circumducere".
Cf. De pudicitia 14,11: CC II, 1307f.
[11] CC II, 1239f.
[12] See Vetus Latina I, 101f: De exh. cast. was written "around 204/7", De monog. "around 217".
[13] Migne, Patrologia, Series Graeca (PG) 8,
392B.
[14] PG 8, 1156f.
[15] Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia
ecclesiastica III,31,2-3. The daughters of the apostle Philip mentioned here
cannot be identical, as is often claimed, with the four daughters of the deacon
Philip in Acts 21,9, because there were three of them; besides, those of the
deacon were virgins, according to Acts, whereas one of the apostle's daughters
was married, according to Eusebius.
[16] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. III,20,1-5.
[17] Hilarius, Tractatus in psalmos, Ps. 118 Nun 14: CSEL 22, 483, 8-17: "Apostolus, cum continentiam laudat, non inhibet iam potestatem nubendi, sed meritum caelibatus praedicat...: Numquid non habemus potestatem mulieres circumducendi sicut et ceteri apostoli et fratres domini et Cephas?"
[18] DS 185, see above ch.2, n.3.
[19] PL 23 (1845) 194B, (1883) 204A. Cf.
Epistula 2,20: CSEL 54,171; PL 23, 407, dating from the year 384.
[20] PL 23, 245B (257A).
[21] C. Spicq, Epítres aux Corinthiens: La
Sainte Bible (Pirot-Clamer) XIb (Paris, 1951), p.230a. - Bauer: See above, note
2.
[22] On
the further history of exegesis, cf. for instance R. Cornely, Commentarius in
S. Pauli Apostoli Epistulas II, Prior Epistula ad Corinthios: Cursus Scripturae
Sacrae (Paris, 1890), pp.237ff.
[23] J. Galot SJ, Lo stato di
vita degli apostoli, in La Civiltà cattolica no. 3346 (18 Nov. 1989).
[24] H.-J. Vogels, Le mogli
degli apostoli, in Vita pastorale (Nov. 1990) p.56.
[25] Decretum
D.32 c.11: Friedberg I,114.
[26] Biblische Zeitschrift, NF 3 (1959) 94-102.
[27] O. Kuss, Die Briefe an die Römer, Korinther und Galater: RNT 6 (Regensburg, 1940) p.154.
[28] J.
Kürzinger, Die Briefe an die Korinther und Galater: Echterbibel 4 (Würzburg,
1954) pp.23f. In the new edition: Die neue Echterbibel, 1. Korintherbrief
(Würzburg, 1984) p.64, Hans-J. Klauck adopts the term
"wives of the apostles" without discussion. It is a pity, though,
that he neglects the term "right".
[29] See above, n.21; E.-B.
Allo, Première Epître aux Corinthiens: Etudes Bibliques (Paris, 2nd ed. 1956)
pp.212ff.
[30] H.D. Wendland, Die
Briefe an die Korinther: Das Neue Testament Deutsch (NTD) 7 (Göttingen, 12th
ed. 1968) p.71. His view was taken over by W.G. Kümmel, An die Korinther I.II:
Handbuch zum Neuen Testament vol.9 (Tübingen, 5th ed. 1969) pp.39f, and by Fr.
Lang, Die Briefe an die Korinther: NTD 7 (Göttingen-Zürich, 1986) p.119. Both of them translate "wives".
[31] J.B. Bauer (see n.2) points to the
occurrence in the classical and in the biblical realm of the triad
"Eating, drinking, marrying" which are the fundamental requirements
of life. Jesus uses it in Matt. 24,37f par: "In those days before the
flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage". Yet
this is only in a very general sense what Paul means when he speaks of the
specific apostolic rights.
[32] We can omit the question of the
identity of the "Apostles" and the "Twelve", often debated
in the last years, since Paul in any case stresses the rights of the
"office-holders" in the young church, to whom he as well as the
apostles named certainly belong.
[33] Cf. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, ed. G. Kittel - H. Friedrich (Stuttgart, 1933ff) 2,563.
[34] In
Protestant and Eastern Churches they even take over the professional name of
their husbands: episcopa, presbytera, etc.
[35] Cf. R.Clement, Dialoghi con Atenagora (Turin,
1972), p.191ff: the famous Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople had in mind
"la riforma che consentirebbe al prete di sposarsi dopo l'ordinazione...Ma
perchŠ non ammettere vescovi sposati? San Paolo ci dice che Pietro e gli altri
apostoli avevano ognuno la propria compagna", which is a clear allusion to
1 Cor. 9:5. We learn
that the Patriarch too wished to draw legal consequences for the orthodox
Church from that passage: "Un uomo che si vota al servizio della Chiesa
deve poter scegliere liberamente di sposarsi o non sposarsi" ("A man
who is prepared to serve the Church must be free to chose either marriage or
not marrying").
[36] Cf. H.-J. Vogels,
"O sentido de 1 Corintios 9:5" in Atualidades Biblicas (Sƒo Paolo,
1971) p.558-71. See the book review of the German version by
Suitbertus a S. Joanne a Cruce in: Ephemerides Carmeliticae XII (Rome, 1961)
pp.476-8.