“which seems to undermine the “apostles cannot be married” thesis.”
Puhleeze. Where in the world do you get the idea that I or any Catholic or Orthodox says that apostles were not permitted to be married.
Some early Church bishops were married. No one disputes that, not even those who believe in mandatory priestly (and episcopal) celibacy.
Do you get that?
But being married, they were expected to be continent. And when later a lot of priests ignored their pledge of continence, they were eventually forbidden to be married at all (1000s).
Peter doesn’t help your effort to refute the plain history. He’s the only apostle known to have been married. After him, some bishops were married. But none of the other apostles are known to have been married. Some might have been but you cannot offer positive proof that they were.
And with Peter, the evidence of his having been married is a slender thread, inferred from the brief mention of his mother-in-law.
So, even with Peter, we have no positive evidence that he was “actively married” at the time of or following his vocation to be the leader of the Twelve Apostles. To put it bluntly, “that Peter was actively married when he served as an Apostle”
AIN’T IN SCRIPTURE
That he at some point was married and that he MIGHT have been actively married while serving as an apostle, is possible but has to be “read out of Scripture” (”for good reason,” like the thimbles of grape juice).
These scraps of evidence all make it quite plausible to conclude that the Church preferred unmarried men (like Paul) for her bishops but did not avoid ordaining already married men, if they and their wives pledged continence.
A hint that supports this inference is the “husband of one wife” phrase in Titus or Timothy or whereever. As Peter Brown (the premier scholar of late antiquity in the world, not a Catholic as far as I know) points out, widowed men who chose not to remarry were highly respected in ancient secular Rome and in the Church. Not to remarry showed you could control yourself and you want self-control in all sorts of ways in a leader in a time of danger and persecution. Someone posted an excerpt on this thread about Fr. De Smet and how the Indians admired priests who could choose to live celibately. It was like that in the early Church.
So, although married men were ordained bishops and priests (pledging continence), the preferred pattern was unmarried or widowed but not remarried men, as “Paul” writes to Timothy (or Titus?).
But I never advanced an “apostles cannot be married thesis.” Whatever gave you the impression that I said that?
>> But I never advanced an “apostles cannot be married thesis.” Whatever gave you the impression that I said that?
The following quote gave that impression ...
— “Something about the apostle’s role precludes the “normal” cares and concerns of marriage”
“Preclude” and “cannot” are synonyms. Peter was married, and thus was not precluded from the normal cares and concerns of marriage by his role as apostle. If you would argue that Peter was, in fact, not married or was chaste during his role as apostle — fine, though I see no justification for that belief aside from conjecture.
I am aware that the Catholic church has required chastity in the past — I am arguing whether that requirement is justifiable. For priest, bishops, etc. that are married before their ordainment, I believe the requirement of chastity is wrong (even by mutual consent). For those that are not married at the time of ordination, I think chastity/ celibacy is laudable and fine-by-me, but I see no justification for making it mandatory.
SnakeDoc