FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - WAS JESUS MARRIED? IF SO, WHY ARE THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS SILENT ABOUT THE MESSIAH'S WIFE?

Rant Number 609        17 November 2014

JESUS’ WIFE

‘If there ever was a Mrs Jesus of Nazareth, she must have kept a very low profile’ sneered an Anglican panjandrum I knew.

Yet that elusive person keeps popping up. Two years ago it was in a Coptic papyrus where Christ supposedly speaks of ‘my wife’. Harvard scholar Karen King speculated the full sentence might have run ‘my wife is the Church’. An idea quite in harmony with the New Testament, in which a husband’s love for his wife is compared to Christ’s love for the Church. So does St Paul suggest in Ephesians, chapter 5. That, however, is mysticism not history. (The Apostle himself calls it ‘a mystery’.) To be blunt, you can’t sleep with the Church the way you sleep with your wife. Hence the desire to search for a physical, flesh-and-blood spouse.

The Messiah’s wife has resurfaced in the British Library. In an ancient document ostensibly about the story of Joseph and Asenath. Check out Genesis 41:50-51. Asenath, the daughter of an idolatrous Egyptian priest, bore Patriarch Joseph two sons – that’s the gist. A sixth-century apocryphal novella embroiders on that paucity of information. Tedious stuff but not for a couple of academics who claim that Joseph stands for Jesus and piffling Asenath for Mary Magdalene, his wife. But no marriage is happy without children so Jesus-Joseph and Mary-Asenath also are blessed with two kids. As the French say: ‘C’est pittoresque mais ce ne pas l’histoire!’ Or, to quote Oxford Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch: ‘Bilge’!

Seriously, if Jesus had a spouse why are the Gospels silent about her? After all, his brothers appear in St Mark’s Gospel. Would a wife have been too embarrassing, given his divinity? But madness is also pretty damning and yet St Mark doesn’t scruple to narrate the Nazareth people and his family thought he was unhinged (3:21). So, if there was a Mrs Jesus, why delete her from the sacred text?

Misogyny! Feminists will shout. But woman-hating really is rare amongst Semites. The lives of women are closely intertwined with those of men amongst the peoples of the Book. And the Gospels are crystal-clear: Jesus felt comfortable with the female of the species, he had plenty of women friends and followers. Women ministered unto him and provided for his daily needs. St Peter himself was married – probably all the Apostles were. And so was St Paul. Misogyny is an obsession of twisted modernity, not of pious Semites.

‘Early Christianity got impregnated with asceticism, hence a Jesus wife was unacceptable’, a suspicion goes. But Judaism has no love of celibacy and yet rabbinical texts too do not mention a Mrs Jesus. The Talmud contains very unflattering reference to Christ but not, as far as I know, to his spouse. Why not? Is it because the Rabbis knew of no such a lady?

What about the Christ of Islam? Qur’an and hadith, legends and stories about Prophet Issa (Arabic for Jesus) abound. No sign of a wife though. Telling absence. Because Islam teaches that Jesus was a Prophet and a very remarkable man – son of a virgin, speaks miraculously from the cradle, breathes life into birds of clay, heals the sick and even raises the dead – yet not a divine being. It is all done ‘by God’s permission’, not by Jesus’ own powers. The Qur’an polemically insists again and again that God does not have a son – although fascinatingly the Book also states that if God had a son then it would be right to worship him.

How handy would a wife of Jesus be for Muslims! I imagine Islamic controversialists riling Christians: ‘See, o thick-headed Nazarenes! Issa al-Masih, Jesus the Messiah, was a man like all others. He even had a wife. What son of God could that be? Are you going to say that God has grandchildren?’

Yes, Muslims would love that. Pity that Islamic texts whisper not a word about the mysterious lady.

The Revd James Robson, a learned Anglican clergyman, translated a number of Islamic traditions about Christ. Again, he appears wifeless and embraces self-denial, poverty and hunger, not unlike many Sufis. Alas, misogyny rears its ugly head! Jesus turns away from a tent with a woman inside, just like he avoids a cave with a lion in it. ‘As regards women, protect yourself against them by fasting and prayer' he warns his disciples. Things improve when God promises the Messiah on Youm al-Qiyama, the Day of Resurrection, a wedding feast lasting 400 years, ‘with a hundred houris’. To make up for past abstinence, presumably.

Curiously, Muslim stories contrast St John the Baptist with Jesus. The Gospels portray John as ascetic. He dwells in the desert, wears rough clothes and feeds on wild honey. Jesus is different. He goes to parties, drinks wine, is convivial and mixes with sinners. (Odd that the Muslim John upbraids the Messiah for not controlling his anger.) Of course, Jesus too had an ascetic streak, as the Gospels indicate when he fasts 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. I suppose Jesus could cultivate both ways of life when his mission demanded it.

‘This is all very well but…come on, Father. Why wasn’t Jesus married?’
Of course, Jesus was married.
‘Oh was he, was he? To whom? Who was his wife? Asenath? Mary Magdalene? Or…Who else?’
Jesus was married to the Church.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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