Was polygamy accepted in the early Christian church?

Factual Questions
1

In this 2-year-old thread, there’s a discussion about how Roman law influenced the marital practices of Judaism and that polygamy “had the result of irritating the Christian neighbors of those who practiced it.”

However, what was not clear was whether polygamy (specifically, polygyny) was an acceptible practice by ordinary members of the Congregation in the early Christian church.

I’m assuming that the Old Testament (which is decidedly pro-polygyny) probably does not give any indication about what the early Christians practiced. So, I turned to the New Testament. There are 3 clear New Testament restrictions on polygamy: 1 Timothy 3:2 limits bishops to one wife, 1 Timothy 3:12 limits church deacons to one wife, and Titus 1:6 limits Christian town elders to one wife. I could find no verse, though, that explicitly limited non-bishop non-deacon non-elders to one wife.

However, an (admittedly conservative) Christian I know claims that these admonitions meant that bishops, deacons, and elders should only have one wife in their lifetime and should not be allowed to remarry if their one-and-only wife dies. He also claims that the passages about a man cleaving to his wife and becoming one flesh with her (Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7-8) mean that he cannot become one flesh with a second simultaneous wife.

But his strongest claim was that this interpretation was THE interpretation given to those passages by the early (pre-Constantine) Christian church, and that polygamy was never, ever acceptible within early Christianity, even among ordinary non-bishop non-deacon non-elder members of its congregation.
So … was polygamy an acceptible practive in the early Christian church? Do we have any evidence one way or the other?

2

Clearly a question for our esteemed Polycarp.
:wink:

3

Many of the old testament books are historical in nauture. They report many instances of polygamy. But that does not mean that the Old Testament itself is pro-polygamy.

In fact, apart from the kings of Judah and Israel, who took many wives primarily as a way to ratify treaties, there are only about 20 or less examples of polygamous marriage in the entire Old Testament.

And we have Proverbs 5:15-23 to tell us of the norm of one wife through allegory.

4

Okay, perhaps I worded that parenthetical statement too strongly. I shouldn’t say that the Old Testament is decidedly *pro-*polygyny. I should, instead, say that the Old Testament is decidedly *not anti-*polygyny.

Nevertheless, the Old Testament isn’t what I want to dwell on here, except insofar as its influence on the early Christian church with respect to polygamy.

5

Again, I respectfully disagree.

But, to go back to your question, was polygamy accepted in the early Christian church?

No.

Jesus speaks out against it in Matthew chapter 5. and in Matt: 19:9

Paul admonishes aginst more than one wife in Romans and in 1 Corinthians.

Nowhere in the New Testament is there a polygamus marriage that is held up as good.

6

I apologize, this is the part of your post I meant to politely disagree with. :o

7

Matt 5:32 speaks out against divorce, and against marrying a divorced woman. Matt 19:9 speaks out against a man marrying another woman after he divorces. While this certainly could serve as indirect evidence against polygamy, I’d like to see something a little more solid. (An early Christian writing that didn’t make it into the New Testament, perhaps?)

Hmmm … searching for “wife” or “marry” in 1 Corinthians yields a lot of verses that say, basically, either “Get married only as a means of keeping yourself from giving in to extramarital sex” or “don’t get divorced.” (There are also a lot of mentions of “his wife” and “her husband”, but then again, if I say that that hot dog sitting on the table is “Joe’s hot dog”, that doesn’t mean that Joe has no other hot dogs in the world).

As far as Romans goes, I couldn’t find any hits. Which specific verses in Romans admonish against having more than one wife?

8

Why would there be specific admonishments to church officials to have only one wife if it weren’t common or accepted practice for any other church member to do otherwise? I think that’s the reason for the interpretation of “only one wife in a lifetime” (even though it doesn’t exactly say that) from people who want to insist that only monogamy was ever acceptable to the Church. Otherwise they’re stuck with the logical conclusion that only church leaders are singled out for single-minded spousery, and for practical rather than moral reasons and the rest of the populace can do as their consciences and resources dictate.

9

(Is “spousery” a real word?)

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, SparrowHawk, but that (admittedly conservative) Christian I know insists that the “only one wife in a lifetime” interpretation is the interpretation given to those passages by the first Christians.

I’d just like to see some harder evidence one way or the other. Right now, all we have is two sides whose only evidence (either way) is the New Testament.

10

Not to my knowledge.
:smiley:

11

How solid do you need? How about 1 Timothy 3:2 “…an overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife…”

Surely you wouldn’t take this as proof that only church officials have only one wife?

Well, for starters the word for “wife” is always singular. It never says “wives”

Plus, back to the old testament for a moment, Malachi 2:14 says “…the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth…”

shouldn’t that say wives of your youth if it was ok to have more than one?

and right back to the beginning in Genesis 2:21-24 we find God instituting the whole design for marriage.

Sorry, I did not mean to reference Romans, I must have been thinking of the verses about judement.

But let’s turn it around, can you find any scripture that specifically states that more than one wedding has the blessing of God? Aside from historical references, I don’t believe you can.

12

The full text of 1 Timothy 3:2-3 is [NIV translation]:

“Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.”

It seems you’re interpreting that as meaning “in order to be considered above reproach, the overseer must be (A) the husband of one wife, (B) temperate, (C) self-controlled, …”

However, when I read that, I saw it as: “The overseer must be (A) above reproach, (B) the husband of one wife, (C) temperate, (D) self-controlled, …”

In other words, I read it as a list of separate qualifications for being an overseer, but it seems like you’re reading it as a list of qualifications for what it means to “be above reproach” (which an overseer must be).

Malachi chapter 2 also contradicts the Torah, in that verse 16 says “‘I hate divorce’ says the LORD God of Israel.” – this despite divorce being specifically allowed in the Torah. Perhaps by the time of Malachi, marital standards for divorce had changed. Malachi is also complaining that Israelite men who had married Issraelite women in their youth were now going out and taking wives from foreign nations (verse 11) – it seems to be the foreignness of these women, not the plurality of the marriage, that Malachi is attacking here.

Well, if by “scripture” you mean to include the Old Testament, then yes. :wink: (e.g. King David had 4 simultaneous wives, but the only two things he ever did that the LORD was displeased with in the O.T. was killing a man so that he could marry that man’s wife, and taking a direct census of the population.)

But, of course, none of that matters at the time of the early Christians. The New Testament matters – or, rather, as much of the New Testament and other early Christian writings as your average Early Christian had access to, since the New Testament wasn’t really codified until the Council of Nycea in 325 A.D… And the social expectations of those early Christians also matters.

And that’s what I’m wondering about: The social expectations of the early Christians, with respect to polygamy. The New Testament can be read in a way that condemns polygamy universally, but it is not at all clear that that’s the way it was read and understood by the early Christians. I’m looking for something more solid. Are there other writings of the early Christian church that aren’t part of the New Testament, which give a more definitive answer? Are there historical sources outside the Church that comment on their marital behavior?

13

Here is one claimed view of early Christian thought on marriage:
http://www.marriagedivorce.com/mdgodsword3.htm

Unfortuately, they simply list the authors whose views they claim to represent without citing works or passages, so we cannot say whether they have put some spin on their interpretations.

I would note that many of the authors they cite lived sufficiently late that their views certainly seem consistent with later views. Of the authors they identify, only Clement wrote anything earlier than 100. Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, and Jerome all lived several hundred years after Christianity irrevocably broke with Judaism. Justin Martyr, (The Shepherd of) Hermas, and Origen appeared through the second century.

One thing to recall is that the Greeks (who had dominated the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia since the end of the fourth century B.C.E.) and the Romans (who dominated the Western Mediterranean and then wrested the Eastern Mediterranean away from the Greeks in the first century B.C.E.), both practiced monogamy. The Jews and some Arabs tribes to their South and East were nearly alone in their practice of polygyny in the area proselytized by Christianty in the first century. There would have been little cause for the Christians to rant against a practice that they would have never culturally embraced as more and more converts entered from Hellenistic or Roman populations. For a parallel example, we find very few (if any) condemnations of religious human sacrifice in early Christian writings since it was not a culturally accepted practice in the Roman world in the first or second century.

14

I don’t have a cite, but if I remember correctly, I think some Xian sects practised a limited form of polygyny; where if a man’s brother died, he was supposed to take his brother’s widow (and children) into his home as his wife.

Also “as his wife” may only mean/have meant support, not actually married, with bedroom benefits. Even if not true polygyny, I beleive this was a common practice (that is to say- support, not actual marriage or sex)

Wasn’t this the start of Mormon polygyny? :confused:

For what it’s worth Wikipedia sez: “However, it was not accepted in ancient Greece or Rome, and has never been accepted in mainstream Christianity (early Mormonism was a notable exception).”

15

The divorce mentioned in the Old testament of which I believe you’re speaking of is from Dueteronomy 24:1 when Moses allowed a man “to write a certificate of divorce and put her away”

it say Moses “allowed” not Moses “commanded”. It was because of the hardness of men’s heart’s that it was allowed. God hates divorce, Moses allowed divorce in some circumstances, I don’t believe this is a contradiction.

16

[quote=“tracer, post:12, topic:309572”]

The full text of 1 Timothy 3:2-3 is [NIV translation]:

“Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.”

It seems you’re interpreting that as meaning “in order to be considered above reproach, the overseer must be (A) the husband of one wife, (B) temperate, © self-controlled, …”

However, when I read that, I saw it as: “The overseer must be (A) above reproach, (B) the husband of one wife, © temperate, (D) self-controlled, …”

In other words, I read it as a list of separate qualifications for being an overseer, but it seems like you’re reading it as a list of qualifications for what it means to “be above reproach” (which an overseer must be).

actually, the explanation is simple …
“one” in those verses is “mia” …

in other places of new testament it is translated as “a”. “first”, “one”

actually, it only means that men for those positions must be a married man

this would fit with the requirement of the leader showing that he could keep his house, and being able to take care of the fellowship … which is the actual subject of those three misapplied and misused passages in Timothy and Titus.

an unmarried man would not have this ability to show that he could take care of his house and be proven.

This does not apply at all to the “number” of wives! He just gotta be married.

17

Not really. I’ve seen some apologetics that use that as an justification. But it was never used early on. Mainly early on it appears to be a cover for Joseph Smith’s adultery. His wives included young girls, who though married to Joseph “in every deed,” would reside with their parents. Likewise Joseph had an interesting habit of marrying other men’s wives and then sending them elsewhere on missions. But they would continue to live with their husbands, or at least in their homes, if they were abroad.

There were also a number of more or less truly “spiritual” only marriages, where Joseph married older women for the spiritual blessings it would give them in the afterlife. For example I don’t suspect that Fanny Young ever was married to Joseph in any real sense.

But none of these marriages were to provide support for the wife. Joseph only provided support for his first wife Emma. Several did board with him… but generally Emma kicked them out when she would discover the other marriage. In some cases, like the Partridge sisters, they continued to work for him as servants. In none of the early cases was it an example of some poor widow, who needed a man to support her. It occasionally worked out that way later in Utah. But by then, I think it was more a matter of prestige. So no woman was going to remain unattached for long.

18

Is this specifically a Christian issue at all? I have always been under the impression (I am open to being corrected) that the culture of both the Roman Empire, and of the Jews, in this period was monogamous. Even Emperors, I think - even someone like Caligula - would only have one actual wife at one time (although they might also have had multiple concubines, and few scruples about divorcing, or even killing, one wife if they wanted to take another). Christians had no need to be specific or emphatic about monogamy, or even to think about the issue very much, because it was already the norm for the culture in which they were embedded.

19

Very good … there is one passage that tends to be overlooked here.
God hates divorce, but yet He did divorce one of the two sisters for adultery, and cut off the house of Israel.
Yes, it is because of the hardness of heart, on Israel’s part.

20

Monogamy was the “norm” only for Rome, but it wasn’t for Jews and the early believers of the apostolic line. Among those, it went on at least until about 1000 CE. This can be seen by the fact that there were two “treaties” forced onto them by Rome, in 600 and 1000 CE to stop polygamy, which they signed under pressure of persecution (under duress).
There are many references in the early history, and in scriptures, that polygamy was indeed practiced by Jews and the apostolic believers.
Christians were not of apostles, but of Rome. In Rev. 2:9, the “synagogue of Satan” tried to get into the fellowship by claiming they were Jews (not as “Christians”!).