The termination of Paul's marriage?

(Was: 1 Corinthians 7:27-28)

There is nowhere in the NT where Paul says something to the effect,

"previously I was married." However, there are seven lines of
evidence which (inho) strongly indicate that he had been married
and was no longer married at the time he wrote 1 Corinthians. In a
post of acceptable length I can only indicate what these seven are,
without putting the case in full detail:
1. Writers in the early church held the view that Paul had been
married, and many of them took the view that Phil 4:3 refers to his
wife. Although such an interpretation of Phil 4:3 would not be
accepted today, this widespread view amongst the Fathers (a)
shows that they did not think there was some reason why he would
not have married, and (b) may well reflect some oral tradition to
this effect. Calvin ("Commentary" on Phil 4:3) disscusses and rejects
the interpretation that Paul is here referring to his wife, but
entertains the possibility that Paul had been married.
2. It was the cultural norm for every Jewish man to be married by
the time he reached his mid-twenties at the latest. Marriages for
Jewish young people were arranged by their parents, and it was a
matter of shame for the family if a marriage could not be arranged.
There are no grounds for thinking that this would not have taken
place in Paul's family, who were strict Hebrew Jews (Phil 3:5); Paul
says (Acts 23:6), "Brothers, I am a Pharisee and the son of
Pharisees."
3. Paul expressly states (Acts 22:3; Phil 3:4-6; and especially Gal
1:13-14) that he followed the traditions of his people. When he says,
"I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and
was extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors", he is
telling us, amongst other things, his situation as far as marriage is
concerned: for what he says of his zeal for the traditions of his

ancestors would not be true if he had failed to conform to the very

significant Jewish tradition about marrying.
4. There is evidence that to be a married man was a requirement for
membership of the Sanhedrin. It would appear from the evidence
that Paul (Saul) was a member of the Sanhedrin.
5. Paul was a chosen and prepared vessel for the ministry he was
given. His perception of the nature of the marriage relationship
(especially in 1 Cor 7:2-5 and Eph 5:21-33E) strongly suggests that
the Lord is enabling him to understand the nature of a relationship
with which he himself is familiar from experience. Now it would be
POSSIBLE for the Lord to use, as the vehicle for the Bible's teaching
about the nature of the marriage relationship, a person who had
never been married. But the Lord's usual way is to work through
someone whom he has prepared for a particular role, and the
normal preparation for a person to write about the nature of
marriage would be to be married.
6. It cannot be argued that Paul rejected marriage on the basis of
Christian conviction or because of the dangerous or demanding
nature of his future ministry, since Paul's parents would have
arranged his marriage when he was younger, some time prior to his
conversion to Christ. And far from rejecting marriage for Christian
leaders in general, Paul accepted that it was the norm for Christian
leaders to be married, and that in this regard he and Barnabas were
exceptions (1 Cor 9:5).
7. Paul does not refer to himself as a (parathenos), a virgin, one who
has never married, nor class himself with such, nor does he suggest
in any way that he had never married. On the contrary: in 1 Cor 7:8
Paul writes, "Now to the (agamoi) and widows I say: it is good for
them to stay as I am." That is, he classes himself with the (agamoi) ,
those who had previously been married. And he recommends to his

readers that in this regard they follow his example and not remarry,
unless and until it becomes clear that God is continuing to give them
the gift of a nature requiring marriage: in which case they should in
fact remarry (1 Cor 7:7,9). There is no evidence on the other side,
that is, is support of the view that Paul had never married; and there
are no reasonable grounds for holding such a view. It is possible that
Paul had been divorced: F F Bruce (1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 68) says,
"His wife may have left him and returned to her family because of
his conversion to Christianity." Certainly, the kind of wife to whom
such a person as Paul would have been wedded, with his strict
Pharisee family background and his zeal for Judaism, would have
found his conversion difficult to take: in Phil 3:4-8 Paul refers to his
old life in Judaism before his conversion, and adds, "... Christ my
Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things" - which may have
included his wife (cf. Luke 14:26; 18:29). The evidence which we
have, however, is best explained on the basis that Paul was a
widower. The least likely possibility is that Paul had never married
at all. The above is a brief survey of the issue.