For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off, says your God.
– THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
The Christianized West is in the business of creating Jesus in our own image. Look no further than Bill O’Reilly’s latest book: Killing Jesus: A History.1 O’Reilly, a politically conservative television personality, has co-authored a history of Jesus’ execution that portrays him as a proto-libertarian. Given the evidence presented in the previous chapter of this book, O’Reilly’s reading of Jesus is dubious at best. Again, we are reminded that portraits of Jesus can and do reflect the agendas and biases of the artist. But no portrait of Jesus is entirely fabricated. For all of his evolution in the various cultural commemorations of him, there are aspects of Jesus that remain constant throughout the ages – not static, but highly difficult to change. Every new evolution of Jesus (if it isn’t entirely rejected by the culture) is somewhat continuous with the last. Two thousand years of cultural evolution can easily turn Jesus from an anti-wealth iconoclast to a proto-libertarian. This is why professional historians are keenly interested in a figure’s immediate impact. In other words, how was Jesus remembered and commemorated immediately after his death?
Crucial to any historical reconstruction is the question of impact. What Jesus’ followers did after he was gone can tell us a great deal about the impact he had. After all, Jesus was one of the most (if not the most) influential figures in history. We should expect that his followers discussed, debated, and adapted his teachings in whatever new social circumstances they found themselves. This chapter will attempt to bridge Jesus’ historical impact with my previous discussions of second- and third-century Christianities. This will help us answer the question, “How did the Church become convinced that Jesus was celibate?” Finally, I will return to the medieval period to discuss how the concept of the “bride” of Christ continued to evolve during the time of the troubadours.
My previous chapter suggested that Jesus might have promoted a very odd version of Jewish collectivism. If Jesus did challenge his followers to rethink the fundamental elements of honor, family, and economics, we should expect that early Jewish-Christian groups struggled to find symmetry and a sense of normalcy. Below I will suggest that the impact of Jesus’ alternative vision of civic masculinity can be seen in various currents of the Jesus movement.
In Jesus’ absence, first-century followers encountered several different kinds of resistance and internal conflict. The attempt to adapt the “Christian” economic and social vision of community pushed different groups in different directions. Some groups attempted to incorporate traditional family units within these communities. Others took on more ascetic personalities. And, to extend the argument of my previous chapter, these various attempts to develop and adapt Jesus’ teachings were tied to ideas about economic collectivism. The idea of “the bride of Christ” emerged from these developing struggles to find economic and social identity.
Scholars call theories of the last days “eschatology.” Among Christian theologians, this tends to be connected with the belief of a final creation of a “New Heaven” and a “New Earth.” This particular doctrine was adapted from Judaism. Indeed, during Jesus’ time, this eschatology was a popular point of discussion and debate. In almost every form of ancient Jewish eschatology, there was a hope that the Lord would return as the divine Judge. This belief was an answer to a long history of injustice. The chaos of the past could not be changed, but you could hope that your fathers and their fathers would someday see justice on the last day. On that day, the Lord would return to reward and punish as his divine wisdom dictated.
Within this paradigm, it was imperative to continue the lineage of your forefathers and honor their traditions. As discussed over the last few chapters, the institution of civic masculinity symbolically connected the lifeblood of one’s ancestors to future generations. This long vine was rooted as deep as Abraham and extended as far as the last days. Many believed that the righteous dead would be brought back to life and reunited on that final Day of Judgment. On that day, all religious persecution would end and all of the sons of Israel lost to war and slavery would be reunited in a kingdom of purity and peace. If you lived within this system, you owed it to your ancestors and to future generations to live with honor until that day came.
But what if you earnestly believed that you would see the great Day of Judgment during your lifetime? What if you believed that Jesus predicted the imminent coming of the new world order with these words: “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.”2 Would this change the way you thought about securing prosperity for future generations?
New Testament scholar Dale B. Martin writes: “Jesus’ rejection of the traditional family and his creation of an alternative community signaled the imminent, or perhaps incipient, in-breaking of the kingdom of God.” Martin argues that Jesus taught his followers to forsake the institutions of marriage and family and “enter into an alternative, eschatological society.” He continues: “The household was part of the world order he was challenging. It, along with other institutions of power, would be destroyed in the coming kingdom. The household, moreover, represented traditional authority, which he was challenging at every turn.”3
Many Christians believed that they were living in the last days. Their alternative community, in preparation for the Day of Judgment, meant the end of the typical household structure. As suggested in chapter 8, this new world order was a subversion of economic power structures – what I have termed civic masculinity. Why build wealth for the future when the “kingdom of God” is close enough to taste?
As odd as this might sound, Jesus’ belief that his movement was inaugurating the last days might explain his view on food and wine. In a saying that contrasts Jesus from his contemporaries, Mark writes:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.4
In this passage, Jesus draws an analogy between himself and a groom: “The historical Jesus may have made an indirect claim with this saying to be the chief agent of God and thus to mediate the presence of God in the last days.”5
If this saying does represent Jesus’ expectations for a “New Earth,” it suggests that he drew from the prophetic visions of Israel as a bride/wife in Hebrew scripture.6 God’s role as the masculine provider is often symbolized by an abundance of food.7 It could be that feasting was important to Jesus and his followers because it symbolized God’s utopian household. Whatever the case, this saying represents a reaffirmation of the symbolic masculinity – and therefore provision – of God.
The Lord of Israel is the ultimate patron; Jesus’ understanding of God is as his “Father” and “King.” Such metaphors implied the Lord’s provision for his family. Perhaps, then, Jesus’ “groom” analogy bespoke a wedding feast that brought his followers into a divinely ordained economy. This economy was marked by provision enough for all family members. It is no coincidence that the Gospel of John inaugurates Jesus’ public career in the setting of a wedding feast.8 If Jesus’ message had been taken seriously, there would have been no room in Christianity for a single dominant male (or lineage of males) who provided for the rest – they were collectively and equally “the bride.”
It was not long, however, before Jesus himself became the ultimate patron in the minds of his followers. Even though Jesus undermined traditional notions of civic masculinity, his followers would soon extend and expand the metaphor of him as a groom.9 It is not surprising then that Christianity eventually projected traditional notions of civic masculinity onto Jesus (I will return to this theme below).
It is absolutely crucial that we do not lapse back into our twenty-first-century understanding of courtship when we read this passage. If Jesus called himself a “groom,” this would have brought to mind images of sexual consummation, but only secondarily. The primary responsibility of the husband is to be a patron, a provider. If Jesus wanted to convince people that the justice of God and the utopia of Israel were imminent, what better way to communicate this than to celebrate with feasting and drinking?
THE WEDDING AT THE END OF THE WORLD
A counterbalance to Jesus’ message of alternative masculinity is found in the book of Revelation. This apocalyptic Jesus echoes some of the Gospels’ ambiguity about masculinity, but overshadows this ambiguity with a definitively masculine Jesus.
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Revelation (also called the Apocalypse of John) is the final book of most New Testaments. It reads much like other “apocalyptic” texts from this period. The author provides a series of visions that reveal heavenly realities that are believed to mirror historical events, events contemporary with the author, and also future events. In the case of the book of Revelation, it includes seven letters (each to a different city’s church) followed by several visions. Many of these visions represent events contemporary with the book’s authorship in the first century. In other words, much of this book is a political commentary that provides hope for Christians at the height of the Roman Empire. Key to this hope is the return of Jesus, who will eventually subdue the forces of evil and rule over a New Heaven and a New Earth.
The Jesus of the Apocalypse is a slain lamb, which is dubiously masculine by almost every measure. This lamb, however, is risen and victorious. Jesus is thus lionized, a king, a warrior, an impaler, a conqueror, a groom. As Jesus’ portrait becomes increasingly masculine, the metaphor of the Church as “the bride” becomes increasingly important. These early Christians, male and female, are designated as a woman who has “made herself ready” for her husband on her wedding day.10
This might explain why one of our earliest depictions of Jesus is erotic.11 But before I speak to this eroticism, I must reiterate that concerns for provision are primary with the groom/bride metaphor. We should not allow our preoccupations with sexual images to eclipse the more important economic theme. More on this theme below.
Many scholars have noted the parallels between the following passages. The first is from the erotic poetry of Song of Songs; the second passage is from Revelation:
I slept, but my heart was awake / Hark! My beloved is knocking “Open to me, my sister, my love / my dove, my perfect one”12
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.13
The concepts of “knocking,” the lover’s “voice,” and “opening” echo one of the most sexually suggestive images in Hebrew poetry. The poem in Song of Songs continues:
I have taken off my dress / How can I put it on again? / I have washed my feet / How can I dirty them again? / My beloved extended his hand through the opening / And my feelings were aroused for him. / I arose to open to my beloved / And my hands dripped with myrrh / And my fingers with liquid myrrh / On the handles of the bolt. / I opened to my beloved …14
Here the poet plays with the metaphor of a “door” or a “gate” that serves as an anatomical euphemism. This is just foreplay, however, as the male lover does not consummate the union. For all of the emphasis that is placed on the “opening” (repeated four times), the lover does not enter.
It is likely that the author of Revelation (called “John”) is echoing this metaphor from Song of Songs. The book of Revelation also emphasizes “door” imagery, and the divine caller also stands only at the opening, not entering.15 The key difference between John’s imagery is that the beloved community in the book of Revelation 3:18–19, is not yet ready for the wedding banquet. The divine caller finds his beloved lacking in the proper clothing for the occasion. We will eventually learn that pure clothing is a symbol for displays of harmonious relationships.16
While the casual reader of the book of Revelation might miss the conjugal symbolism in chapter three, all doubt is removed in chapter nineteen: “… the marriage of the Lamb has come / and his bride has made herself ready / it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure.”17 At the climax, the bride’s readiness is shown by her spotless wedding dress. So we see that the unconsummated love of chapter three is resolved in chapter nineteen. Finally, the divine caller of chapter three promises to share a meal with his beloved community. In chapter nineteen, we learn that this meal is called “the wedding feast of the Lamb.”18 The author of the book of Revelation is clearly playing with the image of a wedding union between bride and groom.
This long-awaited wedding feast symbolizes the final reconciliation and consummation between Jerusalem and her God. It should also remind us of the famous imagery in Song of Songs: “He brought me to the banqueting house / and his intention toward me was love.”19 In sum, the imagery of conjugal celebration became a potent metaphor of the early Christians. When John imagined the return of Jesus, he called himself, his brothers, and his sisters “the Bride.” In this vision, Christ becomes the sole provider for the household of God.
Finally, while much more should be said about John’s idealized and demonized women, I will take this opportunity to speak to the reality behind the symbols.20 The chief obstacle between Jesus and the beloved community of the book of Revelation, chapter three, verses fourteen to twenty-two, is that they are rich and apathetic. The statements “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” and the indictment that they are “lukewarm” should be contrasted with the early and widespread Christian ideal of economic equality. In the book of Revelation, chapter three, the divine caller desires to provide a meal for the beloved community. Provision, of course, was the primary responsibility of the husband. In this way, Jesus became the divine patron in the minds of his followers.
The earliest followers of Jesus shared their wealth and strove to live in a community of equals.21 They failed miserably at times, but they shared poverty and wealth in their attempt to become the “bride” of Christ. Their belief that Jesus was their heavenly husband was incarnated in their efforts to care for the poor and destitute. The elevation of Jesus meant the systematic demotion of the apathetically wealthy. This ideal can be seen throughout the New Testament, but it almost always betrays how difficult it was for various groups to achieve cohesion.
Paul commanded Christians to share poverty and wealth so that “there may be equality.”22 Paul, much like the author of the book of Revelation, hoped that economic, social, and theological unity would transform a wealthy, apathetic, and theologically divided people into “a pure bride.”23
THIS JESUS, THAT JESUS
In chapter 1, I alluded to a second-century Christian named Tatian. According to Christian theologian Irenaeus (writing in the second century), Tatian “composed his own peculiar type of doctrine … he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication.”24 It is difficult to know how well Irenaeus represents Tatian’s view, but Clement (c. 150–c. 215) is probably refuting a “heresy” of this ilk when he writes:
There are those who say openly that marriage is fornication. They lay it down as a dogma that it was instituted by the devil. They are arrogant and claim to be emulating the Lord [Christ] who did not marry and had no earthly possessions. They do not know the reason why the Lord did not marry. In the first place, he had his own bride, the Church. Secondly, he was not a common man to need a physical partner. Further, he did not have an obligation to produce children; he was born God’s only son and survives eternally.25
The argument and counterargument provided by Clement represent a discussion about Jesus’ marital status. This debate emerged one hundred years after the death of anyone who might have known Jesus in his early years. Furthermore, I do not think that either argument reconstructs Jesus’ motives with any plausibility. But the logic of their arguments notwithstanding, I think that this debate provides an interesting window into the common assumptions of two dissonant schools of early Christianity.
Given Jesus’ odd teachings about marriage and family, one can easily see how some might conclude that he promoted a kind of asceticism. It is also easy to see the logic behind Clement’s view: Jesus, as an eternal being, did not need to extend his life through progeny. Both arguments, while flawed, assume that there was no literal wife of Jesus. This Jesus was celibate for reason A; that Jesus was celibate for reason B. But both this Jesus and that Jesus are presumed celibate.
And here we return to the question of a literal wife of Jesus. Because both arguments assume Jesus’ celibacy as a fact, the perception of a celibate Jesus must have existed prior to the debate itself. Therefore it is probably safe to say that there was a widespread belief in the early second century that Jesus had been celibate. Pushing to the roots of both assumptions – thus moving closer to the first century – both Tatian and Clement address Jesus’ famous “eunuchs saying.” It seems that different interpretations of Matthew 19, resulted in different approaches to marriage and family (or at least, different justifications for common practices).
Clement also frequently appeals to Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians to make his case for Christian marriage. Clement quotes Paul when he writes:
Hence Paul speaks against people who are like those I have mentioned, saying: “You have then these promises, beloved; let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “For I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ.” The Church cannot marry another, having obtained a bridegroom; but each of us individually has the right to marry the woman he wishes according to the law; I mean here first marriage.26
Simply put, Clement is arguing that “betrothal” to Christ is a collective and spiritual reality and should not negate the individual and physical marriages of believers. Elaine Pagels is probably correct to suggest that Tatian had previously argued that those married to Christ should not forsake this monogamy by marrying themselves to a human partner.27 If so, both Tatian and Clement make their cases by appealing to Matthew and Paul. Thus, neither second-century theologian demonstrates any knowledge of Jesus’ early adult life concerning a wife of Jesus. The only information that they have about the life of Jesus comes from his public career as a preacher. This adds further support to my argument that Jesus was probably not married during his public preaching career. It does not rule out the possibility that Jesus had been married previously.
Bringing this conversation to the present, I have often heard modern Christians echo (without knowing it) Clement’s logic: Jesus was not married because Jesus was not normal. Statements like this may well be correct, but are probably based on faulty assumptions. In my experience, when Christians say that Jesus was “not normal,” they generally mean that Jesus was too holy for marriage and, by implication, sex. What I have suggested in this book is that Jesus seems quite abnormal in his teachings about honor, family, and economics. When due attention is given to Jesus’ teachings on these subjects, we are in a position to critique common Christian assumptions about a possible wife of Jesus. Christians, like Clement, might have been correct about Jesus’ celibacy during his public ministry, but for the wrong reasons. Interestingly, the imagined Jesus of politically conservative circles has allowed Christians to promote a non-sexual Jesus but ignore his teachings about honor, family, and economics.
Before concluding, I will showcase a story that stands almost equidistant between Jesus’ world and ours. This is a story of a Christian who attempts to embody Jesus’ teachings.
ROMANCING FRANCIS
The following is a story based on tradition, probably more truth than fiction.
In the early thirteenth century, there was a playboy who whiled away his days entertaining the wealthy kids of Assisi. He entertained them with his wit, song, and marshal demonstrations. He wooed their approval with food and drink. Squandering the opportunities given him, Francis of Assisi didn’t excel as a student. Rather, he was interested in the performance arts of the troubadours. And while he was well situated to become a wealthy cloth merchant like his father, he showed no interest in the family business. He did, however, revel in the latest fashions, so clothing was important to him after all. Of course, Francis met the expectations of the time and crusaded off to war against the Islamic infidel.
And then he got sick. Illness is the great leveler, striking the rich and the poor alike (and this was even truer in the Middle Ages). It was then that Francis received his first vision in the form of a dream. Preoccupied with his military career, Francis interpreted his dream to mean that he would be a great conqueror. With renewed vigor Francis continued his crusade to win further glory and a few more blows against the armies of Islam.
He took ill again and received a second vision. This time he was told by a voice to return to Assisi. He became changed, visibly sullen, taking no pleasure in parties. Francis was adrift and refused to be consoled. When asked if he thought to marry, he finally revealed what he had been stewing on: “Yes,” Francis replied, “I am about to take a wife of surpassing fairness.” To the surprise of his rich friends, brothers in arms, and hopeful parents, this bride was not a woman of flesh and blood, but an ideal. The woman of surpassing beauty was “Lady Poverty.”
Like many young people who find religion, Francis ran as far as he could from his pre-conversion life. In the months that followed, St. Francis emptied his wallet and forsook his family fortune in an attempt to live out the utopian vision of Christianity. Francis gave up the wardrobe he once prized and expressed his new life ethic with a coarse tunic and a rope around his waist.
What is often forgotten about St. Francis is that he was a very accomplished preacher in his time. It was his sermons that attracted a rich, young woman named Clare to be “married to Christ.” Much like Francis’s conversion, Clare forsook her family’s wealth and took a vow of poverty. By 1219, the first and second orders of St. Francis had been established, the second of which would eventually be called the “Poor Clares.”
In light of my discussion of early Christian communities of shared poverty and wealth, the metaphorical parallel between the “marriages” of Francis and Clare are telling. Francis describes his conversion much as a troubadour would romanticize an elite lady. Indeed, the story of Francis’s wooing of “The Lady Poverty” was told as something of a love story.28 In his choice to walk “unshod” like Christ, Francis throws himself into his new religious life like a lovesick troubadour.29 In this way, he endeavors to “take a bride … Lady Poverty.” Interestingly, we see the “bride of Christ” metaphor adapted to suit the romantic preoccupations of thirteenth-century Italy.
Clare, on the other hand, becomes “married to Christ.” Notice the difference in metaphor. Francis marries an allegorical woman who embodies the lifestyle of Jesus. Clare marries a masculine persona. But, despite the difference in metaphor, both conversions looked much the same in practice. Almost twelve hundred years after Jesus’ preaching, the ideals of economics and marriage are still inexorably entwined.30 Both Francis and Clare understood the metaphorical Christian “marriage” to include both celibacy and poverty.
In the year 1221 (although that date is not certain), St. Francis was preaching to a congregation in Camara, Italy. They were so moved by his preaching that the entire congregation wanted to join his order. The only problem was that they were regular folk; many were married or served a necessary function within the city. It would have been unwise to sell their homes because they were needed at home. St. Francis then instituted his “Third Order” – what is now called “The Brothers and Sisters of Penance.” Rather than encouraging the all-or-nothing lifestyle that he lived, the Third Order was meant to be a middle space between the monastery and the city.
I think that the idea of a Third Order is worthy of reflection – not for its eventual rules, but for its initial impetus. In a world where becoming “married to Christ” meant asceticism, isolation and (all too often) misogyny, Francis made a profoundly progressive move by allowing married men and women to participate as the bride of Christ while married to each other. Francis knew that vows of poverty stand in antithesis to familial care. As enamored as Francis was with poverty and celibacy, he was willing to create sacred space for those who were committed to their families, land, and cities.
The Western world was changing during the time of Francis and his troubadour friends. Romantic love had become a social force. Courtship was en vogue. In order for the “bride” metaphor to extend into this shifting culture, it evolved in meaning and practice.
CHALLENGES
In sum, the assumption that Jesus was celibate emerged from interpretations of (1) his teachings about civic masculinity, and (2) the metaphorical title “bride” when applied to the Church. Both of these interpretations begin in the first century and are probably connected with Jesus’ eschatological outlook.
The “bride of Christ” is a collective; it is a socio-economic ideal; it is an intimate, spiritual consummation of religious experience. In these ways, the metaphor builds a bridge between us and the Jesus of public memory through the perceptions of early believers. If we want to answer the question of Jesus’ marital status, we will be forced to contend with Jesus’ social and economic message of collectivism.
Lastly, we see a shift in marriage practices in the medieval period. This resulted in an adaptation of the metaphor “bride of Christ.” St. Francis of Assisi first romanticized and then faced the real-world concerns of shared poverty and wealth. Should we see Francis’s “Third Order” as a dulling of Jesus’ alternative lifestyle? Or was Francis incarnating Jesus’ inclusivity? Perhaps both are equally true. Marriage, after all, is about compromise.
Dale C. Allison Jr., Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).
David Aune, Revelation; Word Biblical Commentary 52a (Waco: Word Publishers, 1997).
Marianne Blickenstaff, “While the Bridegroom is with them”: Marriage, Family, Gender and Violence in the Gospel of Matthew, Library of New Testament Studies (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2005).
Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).
Frank J. Matera II, Corinthians: A Commentary: New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2003).
Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi: A New Biography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012).
