Was Paul ever married?

unmarried

Nowhere in the letters or in Luke’s account in ‘Acts’ do we find a reference to Paul’s wife. In 1 Corinthians 7 this silence becomes clear. Paul was unmarried, as is evident from 1 Corinthians 7 (7:7,8; 7:32–34). He did not see this as a handicap, but as a grace-gift (charisma; 7:7) that enabled him to fully devote himself to his ministry as “apostle of the nations”.

experienced?

And yet the apostle certainly does not speak negatively about marriage. On the contrary, for he presents to the married man and woman the example of Christ and the ecclesia, who together form one body. And when it comes to various practical details (see for example 1 Cor. 7:2–5), he gives the impression of knowing very well what he is talking about. This raises the question of whether Paul is speaking from experience and was previously married. Direct evidence is lacking, yet there are some indirect indications that Paul was a widower.

a Pharisee by upbringing

First of all, we know that Paul was a Pharisee by upbringing and a son of a Pharisee (Acts 23:6). He had grown up in a strictly orthodox Jewish tradition. He was raised in an environment in which every young man was expected to be married by the age of twenty—usually through an arrangement made early on by the parents. Thus we read in the Talmud (Kiddushin 29b):

A father is obligated to do five things for his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him [if he is the firstborn], to teach him Torah, to teach him a trade, and to give him a wife.

This background makes it unlikely that Paul, as a “zealot for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal.1:14), would not already have been married as a young man.

widower

But there is another indication. In 1 Corinthians 7:8, Paul writes:

But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

It is peculiar that Paul here speaks of unmarried (Gr. agamois; masculine!) and widows (feminine). The formulation raises the question of why he mentions widows but not widowers. The answer to this question is that (Biblical) Greek has no word for widower. Widowers are simply included among the unmarried—the word Paul uses here. The fact that in 1 Corinthians 7:8 Paul speaks in one breath of “the unmarried and the widows” suggests that he is referring to “widowers and widows”. Paraphrased, the reading would then be:

But to the widowers and the widows I say: it is good for them if they remain even as I.

Paul evidently counts himself among the group of “widowers and widows”. He consciously remained a widower. Was he already married and widowed before he was called on the road to Damascus (around 34 AD)? We do not know. We may at least assume that before the start of his first missionary journey (Acts 13; around 46 AD) he was no longer married.

Delen: