Ah, yes, nice bait and switch and deductive reading into Scripture.
No one has any problem with a man who was married who’s spouse has died being a priest. Would you like to know why not?
Because marriage ends when one spouse dies.
Period.
So whether Paul was once married (which you can claim only by deduction from (1) Roman citizenship ergo (2) not poor (3) ergo, if not poor, probably married
or not.
Really
doesn’t
matter.
And to arrive at a conclusion that really doesn’t matter you sold your sola scriptura soul for a mess of pottage. You made an three-link-chain of inferences to arrive at the claim that Paul was once married.
Sounds like reading a heckuva lot into Scripture.
See, Catholics do not dispute that bishops were married. But what we do say that historical research indicates is that (1) if married and widowed, the Church recommended that a bishop not remarry and preferred widowed and unremarried men for bishops because that showed discipline and maturity [Peter Brown, Oxford and Princeton history professor’s argument in _History of Private Life_], which is what the epistles to Titus and Timothy are saying when they state a bishop should be a husband of one wife, not remarry if widowed
and
(2) if a married bishop’s wife is living, the bishop is expected to abstain from marital relations with her after ordination.
That’s the origin of priestly celibacy. At first it was not celibacy at all (celibacy means “unmarried”) but continence, either (a) continence because one was unmarried and therefore not screwing around or (b) because, if married, one pledged to abstain within marriage. That’s evident in the earliest legislation of the Church that has survived.
But since married priests (after priests received delegated authority from bishops and became central in sacramental ministry) so often failed to live up to their pledge of continence (b), celibacy (just don’t marry) was made mandatory (a) in the 1000s.
There is zero explicit NT evidence of any of the apostles both being married _and_ sexually active. Indeed, there’s zero evidence that any of the known apostles who were married had living spouses after being chosen apostles. Even the Peter’s mother-in-law story could have taken place after Peter’s wife died. He’d still conceivably be taking care of his mother-in-law as a widower. His wife is NEVER mentioned. Did you catch that? Peter’s wife is never actually mentioned in Scripture. We deduce he had a wife because his mother-in-law is explicitly mentioned. And that’s a legitimate deduction. But his wife herself is NEVER mentioned. Was she alive? Maybe. Maybe not. That Paul ever had a wife is a three-link-chain fanciful deduction that runs against very clear and explicit evidence to the contrary.
There’s no evidence that any of the apostles, qua apostles, as they went around after Jesus’s ascension proclaiming the gospel, were “actively” married, that their wives were still alive or, if alive, that they were sexually active (one would hardly expect them to mention the latter—one doesn’t brag about that openly). “Husband of one wife” actually fits better with widowers.
Teaching the commandments of men that contrary to the God's commandments was one of the identifiers of the apostate.
and I don't believe in the idea of sola scripture.