Each of the books that I have written during the past three decades has its own history and its own story. In many ways the story of this book began more than a half century ago when I was ordained a subdeacon in the Roman Catholic Church for the service of the diocese of Providence, Rhode Island. I made the requisite promises—namely, that I pray the daily office and commit myself to a life of celibacy. At the time I did not anticipate writing this book or any other book. I envisioned that I would be ordained to the priesthood the following year and then serve as a parish priest in my native diocese. Little did I know that in the mysterious ways of Divine Providence, the obedience I had promised to my bishop would lead to a life of teaching and writing about the New Testament, mixed with no small measure of academic and ecclesiastical administration.
In 1993 life as scholar and administrator brought me to The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where I was to become dean of the university’s School of Religious Studies. My predecessor as dean was Professor William Cenkner, OP, whose academic interests focused on the religions of the East, particularly Hinduism. As dean, he formulated a three-year, three-faith conference on marriage and the family. The three faiths were Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam.
The first year of the conference was devoted to the horizontal axis of the family, the relationship between husband and wife. The second year was devoted to the vertical dimension of the family, the relationships between parents and children, children and parents. The third year was devoted to the entire gestalt, the family circle. Each year included nine presentations, three each by scholars from the respective faith traditions. One presentation focused on the topic from the vantage point of the tradition’s scriptures. Another presentation considered the topic from the standpoint of law and morality. The third presentation studied the topic from the point of view of its history and sociology.
Thus it was that when I came to Washington to discuss with Dean Cenkner some of the specifics of the position that I was about to assume, he asked me if I would be willing to speak on marriage in the New Testament during the conference that was to convene just three months into my deanship. I willingly consented, thus setting the stage for this book. In addition to the nine presentations, the conference had an open, public session. During this session, an Iranian imam pointedly asked me how I could claim to be a man of God when I so publicly flaunted God’s law.
The question nonplussed me. I was startled. To this day I wish that I could remember my answer but I cannot. Many times I had been asked about priestly celibacy. Many times have I discussed the topic, particularly when I was a seminary rector in the 1970s. Never before had I been personally confronted with the idea that priestly celibacy was a violation of God’s law. The imam’s question led me to begin thinking about celibacy in a new way.
The imam’s question obviously arose from his understanding of the Qurʾan’s vision of creation. “And among his Signs is this,” says Surah 30:21, “that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your ‘hearts.’ Verily, in that are the Signs for those who reflect.” Similarly, in a staccato-like series of reflections on creation, Surah 78:8 says, “And [have we not] created you in pairs?” No wonder then that Surah 24:32 commands, “Marry those among you who are single.”
The Qurʾan’s vision of the creation of human beings with the consequent obligation that believers be married is most likely influenced by the idea of creation found in the first pages of Genesis. In any case, the visions are remarkably similar. The older narrative of creation, the Yahwist’s tale, tells the imaginatively beautiful story of the creation of woman (Gen 2:18–24) because, in God’s judgment, “It is not good that the man [hadam] should be alone” (Gen 2:18). In a parallel, and probably later account of creation, the Priestly narrative says, “In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:27b-28a). With a divine mandate, humans are to be God’s representatives and agents within the world of creation.
While the imam’s question personally challenged me and prompted me to reflect on the biblical origins of the Roman Catholic discipline of ecclesiastical celibacy in its Western Church, the Latin Church, my study of the New Testament led me to want to investigate the matter still further.
A little more than twenty years ago, Michael Glazier asked me to write a book on divorce in the New Testament.1 In the course of studying the pertinent texts I came to realize how widely misused, in the discussion of Matthew 19:1–12 (Matthew’s version of the dialogue between some Pharisees and Jesus on the subject of divorce), Jesus’ words were: “And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:12c).
My study of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians led me to question seriously the popular interpretation of some of the apostle’s words, including, “It is well for a man not to touch a woman” (1 Cor 7:1), and, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am” (1 Cor 7:8; cf. 7:7a).
I often wondered why my Roman Catholic tradition so often cites passages from the Pastoral Epistles, particularly First Timothy and Titus, as proof texts for a threefold ordering of ministerial leadership in the church—bishop, priest, and deacon—yet at the same time neglects these texts’ inclusion of “married only once” among the qualities that bishops and deacons should have (cf. 1 Tim 3:2, 12).
In sum, this book has come into being because of my life experience as a Roman Catholic priest, an administrator of ecclesiastical institutions, and a New Testament scholar. The catalyst was a suggestion that this was a book that needed to be written and that I was a person who could write it. Retired from the university lecture hall, I had the time. Having lectured on the New Testament for more than forty years, I had the expertise, or so it was thought. Writing the book was a challenge. I have endeavored to meet the challenge as best I could.
The project could not have been completed were it not for the assistance of several persons. Let me begin with a word of thanks to Dr. Susan Harvey, then chair of the department of religious studies at Brown University, who not only promoted my appointment as a visiting scholar in the department but also introduced me to Dr. David Hunter, holder of the Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Kentucky, who has done no inconsiderable amount of study on the discipline of clerical continence, albeit at a later period of time than is the focus of my exegetical study.
I am indebted to the staff of Brown’s Rockefeller Library, particularly the staff of its interlibrary loan service who procured several items for me, even from abroad. I am also grateful to Wouter Biesbrouck, a member of the Christian Self-Understanding and Interreligious Dialogue Group of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. From that university’s vast theological research library, Wouter tracked down for me a number of journal articles that were seemingly unavailable in the United States.
I am grateful to Dr. Hunter, a patristic scholar, for the conversations that we have had in the past couple of years. He read much of the manuscript and offered a number of useful suggestions. I must also express my gratitude to Dr. Andrea Molinari, a former student and now president of the Rice Institute of Pastoral Studies of the Diocese of Venice. He not only allowed me the use of the institute’s library but also proofread the text with an eagle’s eye and provided me with some helpful advice and occasional criticism. One of his staff, Jack Conroy, PhD, read through the sections on Paul, his area of expertise, and prevented more than one erratum from making its way to the press. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Florence Morgan Gillman, professor of biblical studies at the University of San Diego and also a former student, who read the completed manuscript in its final stages. And I will be forever grateful to Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, professor of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University, who read the manuscript ever so carefully in an earlier draft and made many valuable comments and much incisive critique. With the help of these several people and a few unnamed others, I was able to improve the manuscript, both in content and in format. The errors that remain are of my own making.
Last but not least, I wish to express my thanks to Hans Christoffersen, publisher at Liturgical Press, who took an interest in the project from the start and encouraged me to complete it as well and as soon as possible. Under his leadership, I had the pleasure of working with Nikki Werner, copy editor at Liturgical Press, who read the manuscript ever so carefully and raised a number of queries for me to answer.
I offer this study as a contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role of celibacy in the Latin Church. It is dedicated to those who have striven to live a life of celibacy within the church and those who wonder whether continuation of the practice best serves the needs of the church of the twenty-first century.
Raymond F. Collins
Feast of St. Joseph the Worker
May 1, 2013
1 The book was published by Liturgical Press as Divorce in the New Testament, Good News Studies 38 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Michael Glazier, 1992).