Jesus Had a Wife? More Gnostic Nonsense

Cornelius Sullivan 

Gnosticism, from “gnosis” in Greek, says that the salvation of the soul comes from the possession of a somewhat intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulas about that knowledge. Gnostics were "people who knew", a superior class of beings, basically different from those who did not know.

There is a proportion of people today who also want to believe the most bizarre things about the preacher who claimed to be the son of God. If we follow the idea derived from Gnosticism that he had children then logically it follows that they, as direct line descendants, children of God made man, would be able to make the blind see, the lame walk, drive out demons, cure the sick, and speak with words that would change hearts and change the whole course of history. Tell me where they are. I want to see them. 

Jesus was married? Where was his wife? Where is she now? There were hundreds of witnesses to the Resurrection. Through the centuries there have been hundreds of visions from all parts of the world but not one of Jesus and his wife. Believe what you want, I’m going with the first thirty three or so popes who were martyred for their faith. Think of what that means. It is a violent death to affirm that Jesus is the only Lord, just that, not anything about his family, nothing about his progeny. 

Find an account that says that when Saint Stephen was being stoned to death, and forgave his murderers, that he had a vision of Jesus and his wife sitting around the kitchen table, or that Jesus and his wife said, “Saul, why are you persecuting us?, or Saint Peter said, “Quo Vadis Lord, where are you and Mrs. Jesus going?”  

If you like free flowing ideas that are all over the place without regard for the truth, and that tell you at the same time that you are getting special secrets that only some can know, you probably would have been a Gnostic back then, and today you probably get thrills from the most bizarre blogs.

My ridicule of domestic ideas is to point out the singularity of the story of salvation as revealed in history by so many witnesses who died for the truth.The idea of Jesus having a wife is not to die for.

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Here is Thomas L. McDonald on the latest from the Gnostic Noise Machine: 

I was going to let the whole “Jesus had a wife” thing pass by in silence, since the discovery of a minor fragmentary unprovenanced 4th century papyrus of a probable Gnostic text is about as relevant to actual Christianity as an episode of Scooby Doo.

If it turns out to be authentic (big if) it may very, very slightly and incompletely expand our knowledge of some of the fringe backwaters that burbled up and rapidly drained away in the early centuries of Christianity. Honestly, though, it doesn’t even really add much to our store of knowledge about Gnosticism (one of the earlier Christian heresies) that we didn’t already know. READ THE FULL POST HERE.

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And here is Fr. Robert Barron in conversation with Dr. Scott Hahn about Gnosticism and modern spirituality.  Why Gnosticism, like Dan Brown and other conspiracy theories of our times, appeals to the perpetual adolescent in us.