This is actually not true. "The other apostles" (those except for Paul), according to the Bible itself, had wives. And according to the explicit statement of the Bible, Peter was accompanied in his travels as an apostle BY HIS BELIEVING WIFE: "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?" - 1 Corinthians 9:5
Jesus never married .. this is true. As for the quotation, I will defer to Karl Keating's analysis of the scriptural passage. (Karl Keating received his undergraduate degree in Applied Math at UCSD in 1972 and went on to get a J.D. at the University of San Diego. )
Last week I wrote about the incident in which our Lord cured Peter's mother-in-law. I noted that the account does not mention the woman's daughter, Peter's wife. Such an omission always has struck me as odd, as though an expected player were left out of a dramatic scene. I speculated that perhaps Peter's wife already was dead.
Some subscribers agreed with my view, and others disagreed. Most of the disagreements centered on 1 Corinthians 9:5: "Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?" (RSV-CE).
This suggests that in his travels Peter (also known as Cephas) journeyed with his wife. If so, then my speculation about her early death would be moot.
The issue is whether the RSV-CE and similar translations are correct. Should the underlying Greek words be rendered as "wife" or as something else? I think the stronger case is with the something else, even though most modern translations do, indeed, have "wife."
In this passage Paul is defending himself and the other apostles against charges from a few disgruntled people. He says he is giving "my defense to those who would examine me" (1 Cor. 9:3). He is talking about a situation or perception that applies to himself, not just to the others, yet he certainly was not accompanied by his wife, since he had no wife. We know from other testimony of his that he was unmarried.
He also is not speaking of a theoretical marriage, one that he might have had or might someday have but does not yet have. He is not saying, "If I had a wife at the moment (which I do not), I would have the right to have her accompany me." He is responding to complaints concerning whichever women actually did accompany him and his male companions. This indicates to me that "wife" probably is not the right translation here.
Up to this point my argument does not rely on a look at the primitive text. Now it is time to go to the Greek. The key words in 1 Corinthians 9:5 are adelphaen gunaika. The first word means "sister," and the second can be translated as either "woman" or "wife." This means the phrase translates as either "sister woman" or "sister wife." Which makes more sense?
In either case the word "sister" is understood by all commentators to refer not to a biological relationship but to spiritual one--that is, a woman so described was a believer, a Christian. A "sister woman" was someone like those pious women who accompanied our Lord (Luke 8:3).
It would make sense for the apostles to be accompanied by "sister women" who could assist them in ministering to women--for example, at full-immersion baptisms, where a question of modesty could arise, or in cases where it would be more appropriate for a woman to perform a charitable or catechetical function.
From other passages we know that those who accepted our Lord's call left everything behind, including their wives. It would seem a bit strange, then, for Paul to be writing about wives who tagged along with their husbands, if the wives had been left behind.
My take on 1 Corinthians 9:5 finds support in the Fathers. "Sister woman" is found in Jerome's Vulgate, and Jerome wrote that "It is clear that [they] must not be seen as wives but, as we have said, as women who assisted them with their goods" (Ad. Jovinian I, 26).
Clement of Alexandria, writing much earlier, said the women were not the wives of the apostles but were female assistants who could enter the homes of women and could teach them there (Stromata III, 6).
Tertullian said, "Those women taken along by the apostles are not described by [Paul] as wives ... but simply as women who were at their service, just like those who followed the Lord" (De Monogamia, 8).
Other ancient references can be found in Christian Cochini's "The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy" (Ignatius).
This issue is not something we can decide with certitude. Whether these "sister women" were "sister wives" or were prototypes of women religious is something Scripture does not try to settle for us. Taking all the little clues together, I still hold to my speculation from last week, but those who hold to a differing opinion will not risk excommunication.