Scripture Study: Bring Back the Sister-Woman! (1 Cor. 9:5)

A gross mistranslation of 1 Cor. 9:5 is harming clerical celibacy. But not if we can help it, ASJ fights back with reason and truth.

“Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?”

Yikes! Words like that from the Apostle to the Gentiles cause many a priest to deliver a well-timed cough into the wireless mike during the epistle. After all, if St. Paul, an apostle, is claiming the right to marry, how on earth can the Church justify clerical celibacy?!

While this text is often used to argue against clerical continence, in reality this verse supports the discipline and proves it to be apostolic in origin. For there can be no doubt that St. Paul is not claiming the right for clerics to marry. First of all, even though stubborn theologians still debate whether Christ demanded continence of His clerics, all agree on the clear point of Church history that no minister can marry after ordination. The debate, rather is whether Catholics should ordain priests that are already married, though they too would have to live continence. Second, even the Eastern Orthodox, historical champions of a married clergy, only ordain unmarried bishops that vow future celibacy. If Paul really meant that bishops can marry, these practices in both East and West could never have started. But then, what is St. Paul talking about?

The confusion results from a very poor translation in the New American Bible, the version Catholics read at mass. The Greek words that the NAB authors wrongly translate as “Christian wife” are adelph?n gynaika. The first word is a form of the adelph?, which means ‘sister.’ The word gynaika is a form of the word gyn? which can mean ‘wife,’ but can also simply mean ‘woman.’ This is apparent even in English as ‘misogyny’ means hatred for women, not for wives.

So, in order to reach the translation “Christian wife,” the editors of the NAB make two assumptions, and both are a stretch. First, they assume that gynaika should mean ‘wife’ instead of ‘woman.’ While unjustified, we will see that this isn’t so critical. The second assumption is the problem; they assume that adelph?n should mean ‘Christian’ rather than its literal meaning of ‘sister.’ This is remarkable, for nowhere else in the NAB is such a loose translation made. Of course, they’re assuming that ‘sister’ is used in the colloquial sense of referring to a female believer. But there is another Greek word for this purpose, as Titus 1:6 shows. There, Paul is saying that men chosen as presbyters should have believing children. As one would expect, he uses the word pistos, the word for ‘believing.’ If Paul had wanted to refer to a believing woman, he would have simply used this word.

The key problem with the NAB reading is that while adelph?n appears in the Greek text, the word ‘sister’ is not in the translation, giving the false impression that apostles could marry. For adelph?n serves a critical purpose in the verse. As Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler states in his classic book The Case for Clerical Celibacy (Ignatius, 1995), Paul adds ‘sister’ before ‘wife/woman’ to make it clear that this relationship is non-sexual. He remarks, “one needs to take into account that Paul does not speak simply of a [gynaika], who could well be a wife. Certainly not unintentionally Saint Paul adds the word [adelph?n], or ‘sister’, in order to exclude any misunderstanding.” The Cardinal then explains how Church documents of the first centuries nearly always use the term soror, Latin for ‘sister,’ when discussing a minister’s wife in the context of sexual continence. To assume that ‘sister’ should mean ‘Christian’ is an unsubstantiated assumption, that not only seriously affects the meaning of the verse, but flies in the face of all other indications that at no time in Church history did ordained clerics marry. Poor translations like this will have a predictable effect on vocations. The Church can pray for priests all she wants, but if she keeps suggesting to young men that even Paul had the right to marry, she’s going to keep reaping the poor harvest of the bad seed she sows.

The main point is that the reading “Christian wife” is a purely speculative interpretation. It is a possible one given the Greek syntax, but far from being the most probable, it is arrived at only by reading the text with anti-celibate agenda. And not only is the text used at mass a hokey reading of the original, it is even inconsistent with older interpretations.

The ancient Latin Vulgate, translated by our patron saint reads, “numquid non habemus potestatem sororem mulierem circumducendi sicut et ceteri apostoli et fratres Domini et Cephas.” This correctly renders the Greek. Sororem is sister, corresponding to adelphen, and mulierem is woman, in place of gynaika. What is interesting is that Latin, unlike Greek, has separate words for ‘wife’ and ‘woman.’ In Latin mulier is woman, whereas uxor is wife. So St. Jerome, much more familiar with the customs and languages of the time than today’s ‘scholars,’ took gynaika to be ‘woman,’ not ‘wife.’ Of course, today’s impious scholars would arrogantly object that Jerome merely imposed his own views onto the ambiguous text. The Douay-Rheims Bible, one of the first Catholic versions in English, reads, “Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister, as well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” This is a valid rendering of both the original Greek and the Vulgate. These are the traditional Christian readings, and they are right; there is no reason to change them!

If these are the Catholic versions, how do older non-Catholic Bibles read? The King James Version gives, “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” This translation has some problems, but commas make it clear that ‘sister’ is a noun, not an adjective meaning ‘Christian.’ At least this leaves open the interpretation of a celibate relationship. Imagine that! Even the KJV, darling of Protestants, doesn’t translate this verse in the same anti-Catholic way as the New American Bible! But when we look at the Revised Standard Version, strange things start to happen. It reads, “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” Here, we see that the Greek word adelph?n has no counterpart in the English text! Neither ‘sister’ nor ‘Christian’ nor ‘believing’ nor anything! They completely eliminate an utterance of Scripture! Obviously, non-Catholics would prefer this translation to justify their novel practice of a sexually-active clergy. But why would Catholic versions make such a bad translation like the NAB does? For remarkably, even the RSV-CE, the so-called “Catholic Edition” of the RSV, used widely in Catholic institutions, gives the same reading! Yet, as we have seen, the word ‘sister’ is arguably the most important one in the verse for getting the context right. This deliberate omission can only mean what ASJ is trying to warn about: there is a concerted effort to smuggle anti-celibate, anti-Catholic ideas into the Church. This is more clear evidence that Catholics with considerable clout are trying to undermine the ancient, orthodox teachings on clerical continence.

When interpreted correctly, as the Church did for two millennia, this passage is evidence of an apostolic tradition of a “sister-woman,” or “sister-wife.” This is a woman who perhaps lives with a bishop, accompanies him in his pastoral charge, and no doubt tends to his worldly needs so he can be free to tend the flock. Note that this would be needed only if the bishop were not already married. Even in the gospels and Acts, the apostles are notably surrounded by women. Some, like the wealthy Lydia, were patronesses of the apostles’ ministry. These women were known by the Greek term syneisaktos, and this practice spread not only to the lower ranks of clergy, but to laypersons as well. But centuries later this practice was apparently being abused (one could suspect that it might) and scandalizing the faithful. So great was the problem that the Council of Nicaea (325) forbade deacons, priests, and bishops from living with a syneisaktos [Latin: subintroducta.] From St. John Chrysostom’s writings, it seems that some men and women were going so far as sleeping in the same bed together as an odd type of proof of their restraint. But one can only speculate as to why this practice was abolished. The better question is whether it’s time to bring it back in its proper fashion.

Traditions like the sister-woman prove ASJ’s contention that the early Christians saw New Covenant celibacy as the true restoration of Original humanity, where Adam and Eve experienced togetherness not like a fallen husband and wife that we know today, but more like a brother and sister. Prior to the fall, there was no real distinction between sister and wife; they were one and the same. Adam’s sister was his spouse. After sin—immediately after sin— man-woman relations become carnal, man replicated in the way of the beasts, and a sister and wife became not only separate realities, but concepts somewhat opposed to one another. When Jesus came to restore man, He left a tradition whereby bishops would set an example of the re-unification of sister and woman that is possible in the dispensation of divine grace. The sister-woman lives with her brother-man just as Adam and Eve lived before sin, just as Mary and Joseph lived, and just as all the brothers and sisters in Christ will live in heaven. Even the OT Song of Solomon, which the Church reads as Christ’s love for the Church, remarks, “How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!” This seems a bizarre passage until one understands Original human sexuality as Scripture reveals it, and the return to innocence where Jesus wants to take us. Many in the Church are viewing marriage as the restoration of fallen man. This is wrong. Marriage is to help those who “cannot exercise self-control” until the resurrection gives them spiritual bodies such that they can. Celibacy is the restoration of our fallen sexuality. The Church Fathers were well aware that the emphasis on virginity and celibacy in the New Covenant was a return to our Original state. St. Cyprian writes that while Eve was cursed so her desire would be for her man, Christian women, by remaining virgins, are “free of this curse.”

After all, the Church clearly thinks that these non-sexual living arrangements are possible without sin. For she does not ask couples in illicit marriages to maintain separate residences, but only to live as “brother and sister.” Of course the example of Mary and Joseph shows that God can be more than pleased by a celibate couple living together. Many priests and bishops today have a woman of the parish, often a widow, that helps with the necessities of daily life. If she doesn’t maintain the same residence, she’s certainly there enough to provide the cleric significant companionship. Why not formalize and regulate this as a type of ministry in the Church; bring back the sister-woman! And we may just kill another bird with this apostolic stone. It may well be that women who claim in earnest to have a priestly vocation really having a calling to take a vow as a sister-woman!

Sometimes people think, “What would prevent a physical relationship?” But these are not aware of the celestial reward that Tradition affirms is due to virgins and celibates. For once the excellence of continence is understood, as it was in the early Church that had sister-women, no lust however strong will be able to convince co-ed celibates to deprive each other of the glory due to their chastity.

Re-establishment of the sister-woman would be a Scripturally-based step toward the world vision our apostolate promotes. For man can do well without sex. But man can’t do well without companionship from women. Celibacy is not to be lived in avoidance of the opposite sex. Rather, celibacy allows men and women to a deeper, more spiritual intimacy. God created men for communion with women, and celibacy increases this potential for communion. If bishops take the lead by accepting the privilege Paul describes, it would open the door for other Christians to follow. It would re-introduce the fragrance of celibacy to a Church and world that sorely needs it.

In summary, we see that if “Christian wife” is chosen as the correct translation, then this passage sticks out like a sore thumb against all known evidence of the practice of the early Church. If on the other hand, we use the more literal “sister woman,” or even “sister wife,” then this text is made to reconcile with and reinforce the clerical continence that Church Fathers and early councils proclaim.

The return of sister-women may be a long way off. But we can certainly dispel of the absurd notion that the apostles could marry. Our patron St. Jerome, familiar with the early traditions in both east and west, assures us that the apostles “have either been virgins or, though married, have lived celibate lives.”

 This article appeared in the August 15, 2005 issue of The Loyal Lion.