either betrothed, married or single. The root word for gunaika is gune,
which means either a woman, wife or spouse. In either case the most
common meaning of these two words is simply woman, and this is the
sense in which it is used in St. John 2:4 when Christ refers to His Mother as
“woman”––the Greek word used here is gune. Also, the RSV for 1
Corinthians 9:5 does not give a translation for the word adelphen which is
found in the original Greek of this verse and means sister. The Douai-
Rheims Bible gives a better English translation of 1 Corinthians 9:5 being,
“Have we not power to bring about a woman, a sister, as well as the rest of
the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
A number of the Fathers expressly denied that 1 Corinthians 9:5 inferred
St. Paul had a wife (Tertullian, St. Jerome and St. Augustine). Rather, St.
Paul, in this chapter, was asserting his claim to Apostleship and the
privileges that attached to it. The privileges given to those who gave their
all for Christ centered around being supported in their temporal needs,
including food and drink gratuitously (v. 4). To be accompanied by a wife
could not be a privilege of Apostleship for that is a right for all men in
general. The privileges of Apostleship were exclusive and included having
the attendance of holy women as Christ Himself had. Such was the custom
in Judea at the time and was no cause for scandal. These women were
generally single, widows or elderly. If they were married to the prophet or
apostle in question, they did not live normal marital lives but sacrificed
such for the sake of their husband’s mission.
To return to St. Paul himself, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that
it is well for them to remain single as I do” (1 Cor. 7:8).
Fifth objection: “Did not St. Paul also say that ‘forbidding marriage’
was one of the ‘doctrines of demons’ (1Tim.4:1-3)?”
St. Paul did make such a statement. However, he was not condemning the
Catholic Church, but Gnostic heretics of his time and in the future who
believed and taught that marriage was evil in itself. These Gnostics
believed matter to be the creation of the Evil Principle and so also evil. As
marriage led to the bringing into the world of human souls trapped in
material bodies, it had to stand condemned. On the other hand, in addition
to extolling the superiority of consecrated celibacy the Catholic Church has
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