[metmom]

He may have been a widower, like St. Peter. I just meant he was celibate by the time he was writing the Epistles, as he himself attested.

There's no record of Peter being a widower.

1 Corinthians 9:5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

[Mrs. Don-o]

It says St. Peter at some point had a wife. That's obvious. We all know that, because he had a mother-in-law!

St. Paul said he was (not necessarily always, but at the time of his writing) -- celibate. We know that, too. A Catholic fiend sent this to me:

"The Bible never says whether Paul was married or not. Some think that he was at one time based on what he said in 1 Corinthians 9:5, "Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?" If Paul was married at one time, his wife likely passed away considering he never mentions her in any of his writings. Paul declared that he had the gift of celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7.

"Paul’s statement to the unmarried and widows in the Corinthian church gives evidence that he was not married at the time of his writing the letter: “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9). Clearly, he was not married at that time, but whether he married before that or afterward is also a matter of speculation."