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To: Former Fetus; NotTallTex
We don’t really know about Paul but, considering he was a pharisee, it’s a safe bet to assume that he was married.

On the contrary. Paul was not married. He actually endorsed celibacy for those capable of it: "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Corinthians 7:8-9).

47 posted on 03/24/2013 7:29:25 PM PDT by NYer (Beware the man of a single book - St. Thomas Aquinas)
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To: NYer

Perhaps, but we know that he said “men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee” (Acts 23:6) and that Pharisees were required to get married. Did his wife died? Was she left behind in Jerusalem while he went on his trips?


48 posted on 03/24/2013 7:49:33 PM PDT by Former Fetus (Saved by grace through faith)
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To: NYer
Clearly St. Paul was unmarried at the time he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians.

Conceivably he had been married at some point and his wife had died, although there is no evidence for that. I think it is more likely that he never was married, but I don't think we can rule out his being a widower.

When he tells Titus that a bishop should be the husband of one woman, I would take that as excluding men who had remarried after their first wife died.

49 posted on 03/24/2013 7:52:56 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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