Early Christian literature is replete with discussions about marriage, celibacy, and virginity around issues such as how best to practice the Christian life, the meaning of Jesus' incarnation, the relation of Christ to the church, the effects of ritual practice, the nature of moral perfection, and qualifications for leadership. The image of Christ as a bridegroom appears frequently in these discussions, but seldom is the question of the historical (fleshly or incarnate) Jesus' marital status raised,Footnote 1 and never is it asserted that he was married. Now, however, a newly discovered manuscript may offer evidence that some Christians did claim just that. In what follows, I want to argue that one of the Valentinian Christian works recovered from Nag Hammadi in 1945, The Gospel of Philip, represents the incarnate Jesus actually having been married (to Mary Magdalene), and interprets that marriage as a symbolic paradigm for ritual practices (baptism, chrism, Eucharist, and the ritual exchange of a kiss) that effectively transform initiates into members of the body of Christ. By placing the Gospel of Philip in the context of other early Christian claims about Jesus' marital status, especially Ephesians, I hope this study will enable a fuller portrait of ancient Christian views on sexuality and marriage. I begin with a brief overview of relevant attestations about Jesus' marital status, then turn to analysis of the Gospel of Philip.
1. The Question of Jesus' Marital Status in Early Christianity
Historians have long known that controversies among Christians over the place of marriage and sexuality occurred early and were often heated.Footnote 2 Most of these discussions circle around differing interpretations of statements ascribed to Jesus or Paul. Jesus, for example, affirms marriage as God's purpose in creation (Matt 19.3-9), but also praises those who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19.10-12) and denies marriage a role in the resurrected life (Luke 20.34-36; cp. Mark 12.18-27; Matt 22.23-33). In 1 Cor 6.9–7.39, Paul clearly condemns adultery and sexual immorality, but offers more ambivalent advice regarding marriage and divorce. Especially important for our discussion below is 1 Cor 6.15-16, where he argues against men's use of prostitutes.Footnote 3 There Paul appeals both to Gen 2.24 (that in sexual union the two become one flesh) and to the view that Christians' bodies are members of Christ's body, a condition he later links directly to baptism (1 Cor 12.12-13). He concludes that to be united to Christ is to be ‘one Spirit’ with him (6.17) and with each other (12.13). In the process of defending his gospel against competitors, Paul also offers the metaphorical claim that Christ had a bride—the Church (2 Cor 11.4-5).Footnote 4 He represents those who follow what he preached collectively as the pure and virginal bride of Christ, but simultaneously raises the specter of Eve's error by suggesting that those who follow other ‘super apostles’ are being led astray as she was. Earlier in the letter, Paul himself had argued that Christians should not ‘be mismated with unbelievers’, but be separate from them (2 Cor 6.14-18). Both of these passages appeal to the well-known metaphorical analogy that equates Israel's relation to God with betrothal, and idolatrous disobedience to God with sexual immorality (e.g. Hos 2.19-20; 4.12-14).
These materials were used to develop and support widely different positions.Footnote 5 Some early Christians apparently took Paul's statements quite literally and in directions Paul is unlikely to have anticipated. By the late second century, Clement of Alexandria seems to know of Christians who cited 2 Cor 6.16-18 to argue that true believers should separate from married people.Footnote 6 Eventually, some Christians argued that the life of celibacy, embodied most pristinely by virgins, was the true and highest path to God and a preview of the future resurrection.Footnote 7 A few even went so far as to argue that a central purpose of the Savior's mission in the world was to end carnal procreation.Footnote 8 On the other hand, letters pseudonymously ascribed to Paul or Peter ‘Christianized’ marriage by admonishing ecclesial and familial households to retain a patriarchal order based on analogy to the model of divine rule,Footnote 9 by requiring bishops to be married (1 Tim 3.2), or by arguing that women are saved by bearing children (1 Tim 2.15). The author of 1 Tim 4.1-5 rebuked those who reject marriage as liars who are possessed by demons. Similarly Heb 13.4 argued vociferously for the honor of the undefiled marriage bed.
Despite the diversity of their views, however, Christians seem to have agreed on one point: that overcoming sexual desire (ἐπιθυμία) was a necessary part of moral purification and spiritual perfection. They disagreed, however, about how to accomplish this, and especially about whether overcoming desire was compatible with sexual intercourse in marriage. Paul had feared that believers might be ‘aflame with passion’ and ‘lack self-control’ (1 Cor 7.9, 5), but elsewhere he intimated that unlike Gentiles who are ignorant of God, believers could engage in sex without improper, passionate desire (1 Thess 4.3-5).Footnote 10 So, too, Clement of Alexandria argued that although some Christians were given the gift of the celibate life, married believers could also lead holy lives since Christians alone are able to have sexual intercourse in marriage without desire because of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. ‘We are children of will, not desire’, he states.Footnote 11 Sexual intercourse, however, should be for the purpose of reproduction alone and be completely without passion—a husband should not have desire even for his wife.Footnote 12
As far as I have discovered, the earliest surviving reference to the historical (incarnate) Jesus' marital state comes only in the late second century. Clement of Alexandria reports that some Christians appealed to an unmarried Jesus to justify virginal celibacy: They ‘say outright that marriage is fornication and teach that it was introduced by the devil. They proudly say that they are imitating the Lord who neither married nor had any possession in this world, boasting that they understand the gospel better than anyone else.’Footnote 13 Although Clement himself opposes this stark rejection of marriage,Footnote 14 he does not directly contradict the claim that Jesus did not marry. By the late third to early fourth century, John Chrysostom argued that while sexual intercourse within marriage was allowed, celibacy was superior—far, far superior; after all, he claims, Jesus did not marry—a statement he offers apparently with no anticipation of being contradicted.Footnote 15 As the high value placed on celibacy and virginity flourished, the position that Jesus was a virgin who never married becomes widespread. Indeed affirmation of Christ's marriage to the Church tended to produce many ‘brides of Christ’, virgins who pledged themselves in ‘spiritual marriage’.Footnote 16
The first to appeal explicitly to Christ's marriage to the church in support of Christians' marrying seems to be Ephesians.Footnote 17 Ephesians 5.22-33 likens hierarchical, heterosexual relationships to Christ's relationship to the church.Footnote 18 While Ephesians does not state that the fleshly Jesus was married to a wife and had intercourse with her, it does invoke the relationship of Christ to the church positively in relation to human heterosexual marriage. Merz argues that Ephesians' position is formulated explicitly against other Christians who read Paul as devaluing marriage, if not entirely rejecting it.Footnote 19 It would seem that Paul's metaphor of the Church as the bride of Christ was interpreted in two directions: either to require celibacy or to elevate the spiritual value of human marriage.
Yet it was even possible to have it both ways! A century or so later, Tertullian (c. 160–225) refers to Eph 5.31-32 when he suggests that Christ could be considered to be ‘a monogamist in spirit’ insofar as he has one spouse, the Church.Footnote 20 Apparently assuming Paul is the author of Ephesians, he refers his readers to ‘the apostle’ who taught that the spiritual monogamy of Christ and the church corresponds to the monogamy of the flesh that had been prefigured by Adam and Eve.Footnote 21 And yet in this same passage, Tertullian also stated that Christ was ‘entirely unmarried’ (innuptus in totem),Footnote 22 and urged believers to a higher perfection by imitating Christ's state as spado in carne (‘an impotent person’ or ‘eunuch in flesh’).Footnote 23 Indeed Tertullian raised the whole issue of Jesus' marital status not to disallow marriage altogether but to convince fellow Christians that a second marriage was going too far.Footnote 24 In laying out this position, Tertullian makes a clear distinction between Christ's spiritual marriage to the church and his ‘totally unmarried’ flesh. This capacious position on Jesus' marital status was accompanied by a sexual ethic that allowed marriage within certain social and institutional strictures (including female subservience/obedience to males), but nonetheless valorized virginal celibacy as a higher state of sanctity.
In what follows I want to argue that the Gospel of Philip presents an alternative view, but one which draws upon many of the materials and engages some of the same issues discussed above, notably: the Genesis protology; images of Christ and the church in Eph 5; the relationship of sexual desire and (im)purity; and Jesus' marital status.
2. The Gospel of PhilipFootnote 25
The single extant copy of the Gospel of Philip was discovered in 1945 near the village of Nag Hammadi among a cache of fourth-century codices. Preserved only in Coptic, it is thought to have been originally composed in Greek, probably in the late second century ce.Footnote 26 The work's apparent lack of linear-logical coherence has led to considerable speculation,Footnote 27 but it is probably best conceived as a set of excerpts or notes, possibly edited over time.Footnote 28 Its intellectual milieu is that of the so-called ‘Oriental school’ of Valentinian Christianity.Footnote 29
It has long been recognized that one of the main topics of the Gospel of Philip is ritual, including ‘the bridal chamber’.Footnote 30 Numerous studies have discussed how this ritual might have been enacted, as well as what practices and attitudes toward sexuality and marriage are implied by its imagery. Three questions particularly have been at issue: Does the Gospel of Philip depict the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene as ‘spiritual’ companionship or ‘real’ marriage? Was sexual intercourse performed in the ritual of the bridal chamber? What is the general position of the Gospel of Philip on Christians' marrying?Footnote 31 In order to address these questions, we will first consider recent work on the bridal chamber ritual before turning to the marital status of Jesus and the relation of the Gospel of Philip to Ephesians.
2.1. The Ritual of the Bridal Chamber
The Gospel of Philip refers to several ritual practices performed by the Savior: ![ⲁⲡϫⲟⲉⲓ̣[ⲥ ⲣ̄]ϩⲱⲃ ⲛⲓⲙ ϩⲛ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲙⲩⲥⲧⲏⲣⲓⲟⲛ ⲟⲩⲃⲁ[ⲡ]ⲧⲓⲥⲙⲁ ⲙⲛ̄ ⲟⲩⲭⲣⲓⲥⲙⲁ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline1.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
![ⲙⲛ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲉⲩⲭⲁⲣ[ⲓⲥⲧ]ⲓ̣ⲁ̣ ⲙⲛ̣ⲟⲩⲥⲱⲧⲉ ⲙⲛ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲛⲩⲙⲫⲱⲛ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline2.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
(‘The Lord did everything in a mysterious mode: baptism and chrism and Eucharist and redemption and a bridal chamber’; Gos. Phil. 67.27-30).Footnote 32 Scholars have focused discussion on whether these were separate rituals or parts of a single ritual, how these rites were performed, and how to interpret the many statements that the Gospel of Philip makes about them. Most persuasive in my opinion are the arguments of those who see these as a single initiation ritualFootnote 33 involving water baptism, anointing with oil, exchange of a kiss, and a Eucharist meal.Footnote 34 Schmid has argued that this entire complex of ritual actions may have been collectively referred to as ‘the bridal chamber’,Footnote 35 a designation that articulates the Gospel of Philip's conceptuality of salvation as unification.
Thomassen demonstrates convincingly how the Gospel of Philip represents this initiation ritual in a complex of overlapping and mutually intersecting layers of protological narrative, historical events of salvation, and effective spiritual transformation.Footnote 36 The interrelation of these layers is articulated in terms of ‘types and images’, which are used in the world to represent spiritual truth. As Gos. Phil. 67.9-18 says,
(‘The truth did not come into the cosmos naked, but it came in types and images. It will not receive it in any other way. There is a rebirth and an image of rebirth. It is necessary for truth to be born again through the image. What kind is the resurrection and the image? It is necessary to arise through the image. The bridal chamber and the image? It is necessary to enter into the truth, which is the restoration, through the image.’)Footnote 37
Events that happen in the world, whether seen in protological narrative, historical events, or ritual, are not themselves the truth, as such, but only point to the truth as its image or type.Footnote 38 In representing events this way, the Gospel of Philip does not denigrate the material-linguistic world, but in fact indicates that the material cosmos belongs to the divine plan to bring people to salvation.
At the same time, the names given to things in the world have the capacity to distort the truth, and indeed the powers of the world have used that capacity to lead people astray.Footnote 39 As an example, the Gospel of Philip polemicizes against the inadequate beliefs and practices of other Christians who misunderstand central terms of the faith (such as father, son, holy spirit, life, light, church, resurrection), mistaking the names given to them in this world for what is ultimately real (Gos. Phil. 53.23-35). Nonetheless, such names have utility now for they point toward the truth (Gos. Phil. 54.13-15), even though they have no place in the eternal realm (Gos. Phil. 54.4-5). This is a lesson that those being instructed for baptism (and perhaps other Christians as well) have yet to learn.
In addition to names, types, and images, the Gospel of Philip uses the language of ‘mystery’ to articulate the interrelation of ritual and Jesus' incarnate activity. In an illuminating exposition of Gos. Phil. 67.27 (![ⲁⲡϫⲟⲉⲓ̣[ⲥ ⲣ̄]ϩⲱⲃ ⲛⲓⲙ ϩⲛ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲙⲩⲥⲧⲏⲣⲓⲟⲛ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline9.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
, often mistranslated, as ‘The Lord did everything in a mystery’), Thomassen argues that ‘mystery’ does not refer to a particular sacrament, but should be understood adverbially, referring to the mode in which the Lord did everything. The language of mystery, he argues, refers to ‘the symbolic-paradigmatic quality of the incarnated Saviour's acts, and specifically his baptism, where he himself was redeemed and thereby provided the continuously efficient model of the redemption of his followers through ritual acts’.Footnote 40 A good example is Gos. Phil. 70.34–71.3, which presents the ‘historical’ action of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river as the revelation of the fullness of the kingdom of God. It is also interpreted as effecting Jesus' own rebirth, anointing, and redemption. Moreover, Thomassen suggests, Jesus being baptized provides the symbolic paradigm for the effective baptismal ritual performed by initiates: ‘The Savior saves not simply by virtue of his coming to rescue his own kin lost in the cosmos, but also by himself undergoing and prefiguring a process of salvation which is to be re-enacted in ritual acts’.Footnote 41 Although Thomassen here focuses on baptism, his argument encompasses other events of Jesus' bodily existence as well, including his virginal birth and incarnation (Gos. Phil. 71.3-15; 67.9-18), ministry,Footnote 42 and cross and resurrection (Gos. Phil. 70.34–71.3; 73.8-19; 74.18-27)—to these, I will argue below, kissing and marriage should be added. These, too, would have been considered by the Gospel of Philip to be paradigmatic events for the ritual-symbolic enactments that simultaneously effected spiritual perfection and reunification in this world and salvation in the divine realm.
Thomassen makes two further points that are crucial to understanding the relation between the acts of the Savior and Christian initiation ritual in the Gospel of Philip:
First, since the acts of the Savior are, by virtue of their character as symbols, in reality one single act, each of the ritual acts will potentially reflect all of the individual components of the Savior's acts. That is to say that baptism, anointing, eucharist, redemption and the bridal chamber may each be correlated with the Saviour's incarnation as well as with his baptism and his crucifixion. Secondly, the symbolic correlation of Saviour and initiand leads to the assumption by the Saviour of the roles of both Saviour and salvandus.Footnote 43
When these points are added to the hermeneutical principle that divine truth appears in the world in types and images, it is not surprising to find examples where the spiritual joining of male and female in the bridal chamber ritual is described in relation to Jesus' incarnation, baptism, and, I argue, marriage as well.Footnote 44 As Thomassen points out, ‘This method of identifying the various events of the Saviour's work with one another, and these again with the various components of the ritual, creates a nearly inexhaustible source of symbolic multivalence’Footnote 45—and, one might add, considerable potential for theological creativity.
In light of these general conceptions, let us now examine more closely how the Gospel of Philip understands the inter-relation of events in this world, ritual practice, and salvation with regard to the bridal chamber, marriage, and sexuality.
As in other Christian literature, the Gospel of Philip turns to Genesis to understand the human condition. Rather than see death as the result of eating the fruit, however, Gos. Phil. 70.9-17 states that death came into existence because Eve separated from Adam,Footnote 46 so that salvation is achieved by repairing this division through reuniting the two. The separation of woman from man is presumably a reference to Gen 2.21-23, where a ‘rib’ was removed from the first human and made into a woman. Readers are told that Christ's appearance in the world was intended to bring about their reunification. How? The Gospel of Philip 71.16-21 presents the virginal birth of Jesus as a kind of corrective type (a recapitulation?) of Adam's creation:
![ⲡⲉⲥⲗⲟⲟⲧⲉ ⲛ̄ⲧⲁϩϣⲱⲡⲉ ϩⲛ̄ ⲧⲉϩⲟⲩⲉⲓⲧⲉ ⲉϥⲛⲁ̣[ⲥ]ⲉ̣ϩⲱϥ ⲉⲣⲁⲧϥ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline12.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
(‘Adam came into being from two virgins, from the spirit and from the virgin earth. Christ, therefore, was born from a virgin to rectify the fall which occurred in the beginning.’)Footnote 47
Since the ‘fall’ appears to occur not with Adam's creation but in the separation of the woman from him, Jesus' incarnation is understood not only as virginal but also as a proper unification and a product of the ‘great’ bridal chamber:
GosPhil 71.3-15: 
(‘Indeed, it is necessary to utter a mystery. The Father of the All united with the virgin who came down. And a fire illuminated him on that day. He appeared in the great bridal chamber. It was because of this that his body came into being on that day. He went from the bridal chamber like one who came into being from the bridegroom and the bride. This is the way Jesus established the All in it through these.’)
Two bridal chambers are evident here, the ‘great’ bridal chamber of the Father and the virgin, and the one belonging to the bridegroom and the bride. These are identified with each other at Gos. Phil. 69.36-70: ![ⲕⲉ̣[ⲟⲩⲁ ⲁⲛ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲛ̄]ⲡⲁⲥⲧⲟⲥ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline19.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
![ⲉⲓⲙⲏ ⲑⲓⲕⲱⲛ̣ [ⲙ̄ⲡⲛⲩⲙⲫⲱⲛ ⲉⲧⲙ̄ⲡ]ⲥⲁ ⲛⲧⲡ[ⲉ]](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline20.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
(‘[Our] bridal chamber is [nothing oth]er than the image [of the bridal chamber that] is [a]bove’). In this way, the Gospel of Philip links the joining of the Father and virgin in the heavenly bridal chamber with Jesus' virginal birth and the appearance of his body. The passage further suggests that the ‘he’ who exits from the ritual of the bridal chamber is like a child born of a wedded couple.
Remembering Thomassen's point that each act of the Savior implies the rest, we can begin to grasp the multiple levels and mutual implications that this passage suggests. Its complexity is usefully aided by the lack of clear identifications and the use of pronouns whose antecedents are ambiguous. For example, who is meant by the ‘he’ who appeared, whose body came into being, and who went forth from the bridal chamber? Is this one figure or several? Probably several figures (Jesus, the Church, the initiate), and they are all implicated in the several acts that are mentioned (incarnation, bridal chamber, marriage). Thus the incarnation of Jesus is identified with the appearance of the incarnate Church (his body), and the church-body refers to both the collective membership on earth and the individual initiate who through the ritual of the bridal chamber becomes not merely a Christian but a Christ.Footnote 48
Jesus' incarnation results from the unification of the Father of the All with the virgin who came down;Footnote 49 it is said to be the revelation of the heavenly bridal chamber in the material world (Gos. Phil. 71.3-15). As the child of the Father (bridegroom) and the virgin (bride), his birth is ‘an image’ for the spiritual (re)birth of all who receive him.Footnote 50 Similarly everyone who undergoes the bridal chamber ritual becomes a child and receives the light:
(‘If anyone becomes a child of the bridal chamber, he will receive the light. It anyone does not receive it while he is in this place, he will not receive it in the other place.’Footnote 51)
This passage also makes clear that the ritual of the bridal chamber is necessary for salvation. Another passage (Gos. Phil. 58.10-14), probably containing a liturgical formula, represents the joining of male and female in the bridal chamber as the union of the redeemed person's true light-self with his or her heavenly twin (σύζυγος) or angel:
(‘He said on that day in the thanksgiving, “You who have joined the perfect light to the holy spirit, join the angels with us also as the images”’.)Footnote 52
Gospel of Philip 71.3-15 concludes by reiterating that Jesus set firm ‘the All’ (
) in it (the bridal chamber) through these (the bride and bridegroom).Footnote 53 The All, Schenke argues, should be understood here as ‘the entirety of the preexistent body of Christ, which returns to the heavenly Fullness though Jesus’ salvific deeds on earth'.Footnote 54 The bridal chamber ritual thus effects on earth the establishment of the pre-existent Church, the body of Christ, and thereby simultaneously effects the eschatological salvation of its individual members, the children of light, already in this life (‘realized eschatology’).Footnote 55
To summarize thus far: Previous scholarship has shown that the Gospel of Philip presents Jesus' virginal birth, incarnation, and baptism (among other eventsFootnote 56) as symbolic paradigms for the ritual of the bridal chamber in which the individual initiate is reunited with his/her spiritual double through practices of baptism, anointing, kissing, and a Eucharist meal. By receiving spiritual rebirth as a child of the bridal chamber and becoming a Christ, the initiate realizes his/her incarnate role as a member of the Church, which is the pre-existent body of Christ. The bridal chamber ritual thus undoes the believer's separation from God (figured in the separation of Eve from Adam) and effects salvation by the spiritual union of the believer with his/her double (figured by analogy to heterosexual marriage).
2.2. Jesus' Marital Status and its Implications for Christians' Marrying
As we have seen, Thomassen has argued that a central logic of the Gospel of Philip is precisely to inculcate the view that Jesus' incarnate acts simultaneously are ‘real’, have spiritual-symbolic meaning, and are paradigmatic for ritual practices that effect salvation. From this perspective the question of whether Jesus' relation to Mary Magdalene is either spiritual (metaphorical) or real (actual marriage) poses a false dichotomy. Rather, following Thomassen's logic, I want to argue that, according to the Gospel of Philip, the incarnate Jesus' real marital relationship with Mary Magdalene provides the spiritual-symbolic meaning and the paradigm for the image of the initiation ritual as a bridal chamber. That is, the marriage is both actual and spiritual; it does not merely provide the metaphorical meaning of salvation, but effectively enables salvation for those who enter the bridal chamber and are united with their spiritual doubles. The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is thus both real and spiritually effective.
If we turn now to the question of Jesus' marital status, two passages are particularly important. The first is Gos. Phil. 59.6-11, which refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus' 
and 
:
(‘There are three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, who is called his koinônos. For Mary is his sister and [Mary is] his mother and [Mary is] his hôtre.’)
Both terms have been translated neutrally as ‘companion’,Footnote 57 and indeed neither term necessarily implies marriage or sexual intercourse. And yet they often do have such implications, depending upon context. At Gos. Phil. 82.1 and 78.18, the related Greco-Coptic verb 
clearly refers to heterosexual intercourse.Footnote 58 The word group 
(‘join, unite’) is used generally to refer to sexual intercourse and marriage,Footnote 59 as well as specifically to describe ritual unification in the Gospel of Philip.Footnote 60 It is therefore plausible to read this passage as a reference by Jesus to Mary Magdalene as ‘his spouse’Footnote 61 and ‘the one he is joined with’, i.e., in marriage. Marjanen notes that the Gospel of Philip usually uses the term 
when referring to someone's ‘wife’.Footnote 62 The use of these other terms here may work to connect Jesus' relation with her paradigmatically with the marriage of the church with Christ and to invoke their ‘joining’ as a technical term for salvific unification in the bridal chamber ritual. In other words, the terms not only work to convey the reality of the marital relation but also point toward symbolic-paradigmatic significance in ways that the term 
would not. Moreover, the notion that three Marys had a special status in Jesus' life has often been seen as a symbolic pointer toward the triple nature of the Holy Spirit or Christ's syzugos. Such an allegorical reading does not, however, imply that Jesus did not have a mother, a sister, and a wife, each named Mary.Footnote 63 The Gospel of Philip's logic set out by Thomassen clearly makes the need to choose between the metaphorical and the real to be missing the point: both are required to convey how Jesus' incarnation is effective for ritual practice.
A second passage, Gos. Phil. 63.30–64.5, also suggests an intimate relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene:
![ⲧⲥⲱⲫⲓⲁ ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲙⲟⲩⲧ̣[ⲉ ⲉⲣⲟ]ⲥ̣ ϫⲉ ⲧⲥⲧⲓⲣⲁ ⲛ̄ⲧⲟⲥ ⲧⲉ ⲧⲙⲁⲁ[ⲩ ⲛ̄ⲛ̄ⲁⲅ]ⲅ̣ⲉⲗⲟⲥ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline35.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
![ⲁⲩⲱ̣ [ⲧ]ⲕⲟⲓ̣ⲛⲱⲛⲟⲥ ⲙ̄ⲡⲥ[ⲱⲧⲏⲣ ⲙⲁ]ⲣ̣ⲓⲁ ⲧⲙⲁⲅ̣[ⲇⲁ]ⲗⲏⲛⲏ ⲛⲉⲣⲉ ⲡⲥ̣[ⲱⲧⲏⲣ ⲙⲉ]](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline36.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
![ⲙ̣ⲙⲟ̣[ⲥ ⲛ̄]ϩⲟⲩⲟ ⲁⲙ̄ⲙⲁⲑⲏⲧ[ⲏⲥ ⲧⲏⲣⲟⲩ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲛⲉϥ]ⲁⲥⲡⲁⲍⲉ ⲙ̄ⲙⲟⲥ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline37.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
![ⲁⲧⲉⲥ̣[ⲧⲁⲡⲣⲟ ⲛ̄ϩⲁϩ] ⲛ̄ⲥⲟⲡ ⲁⲡⲕⲉⲥⲉⲉⲡⲉ ⲙ̣[ⲙⲁⲑⲏⲧⲏⲥ..]. ⲉⲣⲟ.[.].[..]ⲙⲁ ⲡⲉϫⲁⲩ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline38.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
(‘Wisdom, who is called “barren”, is the mother [of the an]gels and the koinônos of the S[avior, Ma]ry Magdalene. The S[avior loved her] more than [all] the discip[le]s [and he] kissed her [mouth many] times. The other [disciples]… They said to him, “Why do you love her more than us?” The Savior answered them, “Why do I not love you like her?”’)
While the lacuna makes certainty impossible, the Gospel of Philip arguably refers here again to Mary Magdalene as Jesus' 
, and possibly also identifies her as the type of the heavenly Sophia, whose union with the Savior produces the heavenly image for the earthly bridal chamber.Footnote 64
The statement that Jesus kissed Mary offers further support. While kissing can be read to refer metaphorically to spiritual, not carnal relations, there is again no reason to see these interpretive options as mutually exclusive. Moreover, if there were no actual kissing, it would be difficult to understand the jealousy of the disciples, which in this context appears to be an indication that they failed to grasp the spiritual meaning of the kissing. Jesus' reply is a challenge to them (and the reader) to consider further. This perspective is strengthened by considering Gos. Phil. 59.2-6, where the practice of greeting each other with a kiss is explicitly presented as effecting spiritual reproduction: 
(‘For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another, receiving conception from the grace which is in one another’).Footnote 65 The initiation ritual of the bridal chamber would very likely have included this common Christian practice of exchanging a kissFootnote 66 (perhaps in conjunction with the Eucharist), and again Jesus' kissing Mary would have a symbolic-paradigmatic value. The disciples' jealousy becomes a pedagogical opportunity to instruct them not to mistake the things of this world for what is ultimately real (Gos. Phil. 53.23-35), but rather to understand that such acts as kissing are the types through which truth comes into the world (Gos. Phil. 67.9-18). Thus the multivalent representation of Mary as Jesus' koinônos and hotre, her link with the heavenly Sophia or Holy Spirit, as well as Jesus kissing her, all function as symbolic-paradigms for the salvation effected in the bridal chamber.
This logic, however, raises the question of whether sexual intercourse took place between initiates in the bridal chamber, as has sometimes been suggested.Footnote 67 For me, the decisive point is simply that the rite would have been for individuals, not couples. In the same way that Jesus' actual baptism is an image for Christian baptism, the Gospel of Philip presents the marriage of Jesus and Mary as also an actual historical reality that provides a symbolic-paradigmatic model for the spiritual reunification of male and female (the initiate and his/her angel) in the ritual of the bridal chamber.Footnote 68 Thus the bridal chamber is not a ceremony in which two people are actually married or engage in intercourse, but a ritual which unites the individual initiate with his/her angelic/spiritual double. Something ‘real’ happens, but it is reunification not sex.
What does all this imply about the Gospel of Philip's attitude toward Christians' marrying? The facts that marriage and kissing are described spiritually (Gos. Phil. 59.2-6) and that sexual intercourse was not part of the ritual of the bridal chamber do not mean that Christians who went through this initiation ritual did not marry and have children.Footnote 69 A variety of sources indicates that the Christian group associated with the Gospel of Philip, the Valentinians,Footnote 70 married. Clement of Alexandria writes, ‘The Valentinians, who derive marital unions (syzygies) from the divine emanations from above, find marriage acceptable’ (ɛὐαρɛστοῦνται ‘well pleasing’).Footnote 71 Irenaeus also indicates that the Valentinians believed that ‘the ineffable and unnamable syzygia came down from above’ and that it is necessary to marry in this life to attain to the truth.Footnote 72 And the anonymous Testimony of Truth (NHC IX, 3.56-58), probably dating to the third century ce, condemns heretics who allowed sexual intercourse, among them apparently Valentinus and his disciples. It would therefore be entirely plausible that, as a Valentinian work, the Gospel of Philip, too, would approve of marriage between Christians.Footnote 73
This point is supported by noting that the Gospel of Philip refers to human marriage without negative connotations. For example, Gos. Phil. 69.1-4 states that marriage is properly something that belongs to human beings, not animals. It further contrasts those who can properly marry (free men and virgins) with those who cannot (slaves and prostitutes). Schenke even suggests that this passage (like Gos. Phil. 69.36–70.1 and 81.34–82.10) indicates that, in the most noble form of earthly marriage, the Gospel of Philip can perceive an image of the heavenly koinônia.Footnote 74
Moreover, I would argue that the effective performance of the ritual of the bridal chamber could have a real impact on how actual marriage was conceived.Footnote 75 Insofar as these Christians believed that baptism exorcised polluting demons from the soul, they could conceive their own marriages to be pure. For example, while Gos. Phil. 65.1-12 reproduces the ancient view that people are often besieged by impure demons who defile them, it states clearly that when the image and angel are united with one another—presumably in the bridal chamber ritual—then demons cannot enter them.Footnote 76 This point is confirmed at Gos. Phil. 66.2-4, which states that unclean demons are not able to join with anyone who has received the Holy Spirit.Footnote 77 Just as Clement of Alexandria argued that Christians could marry without passion, so, too, Gos. Phil. 81.34-82.10 indicates that baptismal exorcism enables Christians to engage in marital intercourse not from lustful desire, but by the exercise of the will:
Gos. Phil. 81.34-82.10: ![ⲙⲛ̣ [ⲗⲁⲁⲩ ⲛⲁϣ]ⲥⲟⲟⲩⲛ ϫⲉ ⲁϣ ⲡⲉ ⲫⲟ[ⲟⲩ ⲉⲧⲉ ⲫⲟⲟⲩⲧ]](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline45.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
(‘No one can know what is the day that the husband and wife are joined with each other except they themselves. For the marriage of the world is a mystery for those who have acquired a wife. If the marriage of defilement is hidden, how much more is the undefiled marriage a true mystery. It is not fleshly, but pure. It belongs not to desire but to the will. It belongs not to the darkness or the night but it belongs to the day and the light.’)
The Gospel of Philip's distinction between the defiled intercourse of non-Christians and the undefiled marriage of those who have entered the bridal chamber emphasizes that only Christian marriage can be pure. This position is comparable to that of Paul in 1 Thess 4.4-5 or Clem. Alex. Strom. III.58, both of whom insist that marriage must be holy and free from lustful passion. My argument is that the bridal chamber ritual offers no human pairing at all, only the unification of the initiand with his/her angelic double; human pairing in marriage between Christians, when it happens, takes place in usual ways apart from the ritual and does involve sexual intercourse and the reproduction which may be expected to follow from it. Such marriages are considered to be ‘undefiled’ not because they exclude sexual activity but because they are untouched by demonic influence and improper desire.Footnote 78
To summarize: With regard to images and practices of marriage, the Gospel of Philip intricately overlays and inter-relates protology (the separation of Adam and Eve), historical events of salvation (Jesus' acts collectively as a symbolic-paradigm, including his relation to Mary Magdalene as his spousal partner), spiritually transformative ritual (baptism, anointing, exchange of a kiss, and Eucharist, that is the ritual of the bridal chamber which effects purification and unification with one's angelic double), and a moral-social ethos (including proper sexual relations in marriage that are pure because they occur according to a will directed to spiritual matters including love of the Lord,Footnote 79 and that are not polluted by improper desire and demonic influence).
To answer the three questions initially raised: Jesus' relation to Mary Magdalene is represented as both actual and spiritually effective. There is no sexual intercourse in the bridal chamber ritual. And finally, the Gospel of Philip distinguishes non-Christian carnal relations that are polluted by demonic influence and lust from Christian marriages that are not. It does not exclude virginity or celibacy as a way of practicing the Christian life, but it does not promote them or mark them as superior to pure marriage.
2.3. The Gospel of Philip and the Letter to the Ephesians
How now can the Gospel of Philip be situated with regard to the discussions of Jesus' marital status with which we began this essay? While it does not provide reliable historical evidence that Jesus was married, it does illustrate one position taken by some Valentinian Christians in the late second and third centuries. Like other Christian theologies, it focuses on the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve to understand both the human condition and the saving work of Jesus Christ. It draws on widespread Pauline imagery in articulating the efficacy of baptismal ritual to make individuals into members of the body of Christ, the Church, and in figuring the church as the virginal bride of Christ. The Gospel of Philip, I would argue, weaves these common threads within an incarnational theology, which while distinctive, nonetheless participates in the move that other Christians, such as Irenaeus,Footnote 80 are making in this period as they develop the implications of claims like that of John 1.14, that in Jesus God ‘became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth’. The most important intertext for the topic of Jesus' marital status, however, is Eph 5.23-32.
That Ephesians and the Gospel of Philip both use the term ‘mystery’ to refer to marriage has frequently been noted,Footnote 81 but the two texts have other similarities as well. Ephesians contrasts the fornication, impurity, and idolatry of outsiders (Eph 5.3, 5) to Christians who are exhorted to marital behavior that is modeled by Christ's relation to the Church. Christ ‘gave himself up’ for the Church and sanctified her through baptism, with the result that the church, which is comprised of the members of Christ's body, is holy and without blemish (Eph 5.25-27). As we have seen, the Gospel of Philip also contrasts the defiled marriage of outsiders with the pure marriage of those who have been baptized, and it, too, understands the Church as the body of Christ. The conjunction of heterosexual marriage, the salvific and purifying effects of baptism, the image of the Church as the body of Christ, and the analogy of Christ's relation to the Church as heterosexual marriage is striking.
In addition, both texts contrast what is done in secret and darkness with what is done in the light. In particular Eph 5.12-14 (‘For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light’) resonates with Gos. Phil. 82.8-10's statement about undefiled marriage (‘It belongs not to the darkness or the night but it belongs to the day and the light’). While Ephesians is referring to darkness and light as metaphors of immoral vs. righteous behavior, Gos. Phil. 70.7-9 seems also to have in mind the bridal chamber: ‘For one will clothe himself with (perfect) light in the mystery of the union (
)’. Or again, both point to the first union of man and woman in Gen 2.24 (LXX) to expose the limits of non-Christian marriage (Eph 5.31-32; Gos. Phil. 70.9-17). Annette Merz's conclusion about Ephesians might equally well be applied to the Gospel of Philip: ‘No longer do Adam and Eve function as imperfect models [of marriage]; now, the models are Christ the second Adam and his spotless wife the church, for in the context of Ephesians, where salvation is understood as something present here and now, it is only the reality of the redemption that can possess normative character’.Footnote 82 Somewhat less clear parallels, but no less intriguing, are the ways in which baptism is figured. In Eph 5.25-26, Christ ‘giving himself up’ is tied to baptismal ritual in which the Church—the body and wife of Christ—receives ‘the washing of water with the word’. The Gospel of Philip understands the ritual of the bridal chamber to include baptism, as well as the celebration of the Eucharist meal in which eating the bread and wine effectively reproduces the symbolic paradigm of Christ's fleshly crucifixion—in Ephesians' terms ‘he gave himself up’ for the Church.Footnote 83
Although some of these similarities taken individually may indicate knowledge of common materials rather than direct literary reliance, collectively they support the view that Ephesians is one catalyst for the Gospel of Philip's theological reflection.Footnote 84 At the same time, however, it is clear that the Gospel of Philip recontextualizes these similar elements within Valentinian protology and incarnational theology, and thus it differs in many important respects from Ephesians. One of the more notable differences is the marital status of the fleshly (incarnate) Jesus.Footnote 85 While Ephesians can be read to understand the church as Christ's wife (Eph 5.29-30), it does not indicate that the fleshly Jesus married. But while the Gospel of Philip's image of an actually married Jesus therefore cannot be derived from Ephesians, it could conceivably arise in a context in which Ephesians 5 was being read in conjunction with a developing incarnational theology in which Jesus' fleshly life was viewed as a model for Christian behavior. The Gospel of Philip may well have drawn upon the teaching of Eph 5.22-33 in articulating its affirmation that Jesus' marriage functions as a symbolic-paradigm for the mystery of marriage between Christ and the church, and that works effectively—as does all Christian initial ritual—to make believers members of the community and to free them from demonic influence by the reception of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Philip offers evidence of an early Christian theology which presented the view that Jesus Christ in his incarnate life established the paradigm for the undefiled marriage of Christians.
3. Concluding Reflections
Contextualization of the Gospel of Philip has often been limited by restricting it to Valentinianism, by labeling it either as heresy or by treating it as only marginally Christian, and, most problematically, by reinscribing it within polemical inner-Christian denunciations of ‘Gnostics’ (including Valentinians) as body-hating, docetic ascetics—a characterization that clearly does not apply in this case. By placing the Gospel of Philip within the wider historical and theological framework of early Christian discussions of Jesus' marital status, however, its contributions to the history of ancient Christianity become more fully apparent.Footnote 86 In terms of Christology, the Gospel of Philip offers an incarnational theology that includes sexuality and marriage within the compass of the incarnate Jesus' full humanity. In terms of ritual, the Gospel of Philip introduces a rich set of images into the arena of Christian ritual or sacramental theology by referring to Christian initiation as entrance into the bridal chamber, and by theologically elaborating the reception of the Spirit as a reunification of male and female that is modeled paradigmatically in Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene. With regard to ecclesiology, the widespread notion of the church as the body of Christ was interpreted as the corporate incarnate Christ.Footnote 87 And finally, with regard to sexual ethics (or moral theology), the representation of a married Jesus affirms the potential of human sexual relations to be pure and even to reflect the divine pattern of salvation whose image is revealed in the incarnation. These positions expand the historical portrait of Christians' theological, ritual, and ethical reflections and practices concerning sexuality and marriage.
I hope to have shown that the Gospel of Philip's views, while distinctive, are not particularly radical when viewed within the context of ancient Christianity. Although perhaps striking in hindsight, they are nonetheless entirely comprehensible within Christian hermeneutics, incarnational theology, and pro-marriage ethics of the first centuries of Christianity.
, see 
can also translate the Greek συζυγία, a word signifying a ‘yoke of animals’, but also with the sexual connotation of ‘coupling, copulation’. Moreover, in Greek, married partners are commonly referred to as σύζυγος (‘yoked together, paired, united, esp. by marriage), with the feminine substantive meaning ‘wife’ (see ![ⲙ̄ⲡⲥ[ⲱ͞ⲣ ⲧⲉ ⲙⲁ]ⲣ̣ⲓⲁ](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151127085054419-0734:S0028688513000192_inline54.gif?pub-status=live){kind=small}
, abbreviating ‘Savior’ to make room for the subject (theme) of a nominal sentence (
), so that the English translation would now read: ‘Wisdom, who is called “barren”, is the mother [of the an]gels. And the koinônos of the S[avior is Ma]ry Magalene. [The S[avior loved her] more than [all] the discip[le]s [and he] kissed her [mouth many] times.’ My reading agrees with Isenberg in identifying Mary Magdalene as Jesus' koinônos, but is distinguished from him in identifying Wisdom with Mary Magdalene.
(‘mouth’) at Gos. Phil. 64.36. Moreover, I would argue that the verb 
(Greek ἀσπάζɛσθαι), often translated neutrally as ‘greet’, probably implies a kiss of greeting (e.g. Gos. Mary 8.12-13). See also Marjanen, The Woman Jesus Loved, 158-60; Lundhaug, Images of Rebirth, 298-9; van Os, ‘Baptism in the Bridal Chamber’, 101-4.
