Was Jesus Married?
Following is an oversimplified brief history of the emerging church in Rome. A Catholic historian could do a much better job and doubtless would prefer a fuller accounting. Having studied the early church it is not my primary purpose to recount it but to share enough evidence to prove another point entirely which is actually in defense of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church can give a name for every Bishop of Rome dating back to Peter. Some of these are questionable and little is known of them. Parenthetically there are other denominations that make the same claim. During those early years the Bishop of Rome had little or no authority over bishops from other areas.
The first council held at the behest of an Emperor was held by Bishop Melitiades in 313 AD. This established the first link between the papacy and temporal powers.
The first church buildings were erected in Rome between 312 and 337 AD.
The renowned first Council of Nicea was held in 325 AD.
Leo the Great, also known as Leo I, who served from 440-461 AD defined Catholic orthodoxy in his work “Tome.”
That means that between the time the Christian gospel arrived and became established in Rome that for nearly 300 years there was no authoritative all powerful Roman Catholic Church. The church was a colony of believers meeting in homes until the early 300s.
Now the purpose of this background.
There are profiteers making a good living claiming Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children. They further claim the church fathers knew this and have kept it a secret all these years. Only they, these courageous authors and film makers, now have been so clever as to uncover this devious secret and brave enough to reveal it.
The point is there was no all powerful body that could have suppressed such a dramatic event during those early years. There was no powerful Vatican to keep this from being broadly known. Such news would have had such a revolutionary influence in those first 300 years the church would have been stillborn. The movement would have gone absolutely nowhere.
The detractors of Jesus say his disciples kept the secret initially. Why? One of the laws regarding Jewish men had to do with them marrying. If Jesus had been married there would have been no cause to keep it a secret. Marriage was the norm. The fact he was married would have been celebrated. He participated in many social functions why would his marriage not have been noted as a celebration?
Married women were known by the name of their husband and single women by their home town. Mary Magdalene meant Mary the single woman from Magdela. This indicates she was never married.
Mary Magdalene was at the cross with Mary the mother of Jesus when Jesus commended the care of his mother to his disciple John. Would a person so caring for his mother not have provided at the same moment for his wife?
I have written a historical novel that will be out later this year in which characters of the time of Jesus deal in detail with this and many other modern myths. I hope it is found to be intriguing and informative.