The Place of the Gospel of Philip in the Context of Early Christian Claims about Jesus’s Marital Status

Abstract

It has long been recognized that one of the main topics of the Gospel of Philip is ritual, including ‘the bridal chamber’, and numerous studies have discussed what practices and attitudes toward sexuality and marriage are implied by this imagery. This article will build on these studies to argue that the Gospel of Philip portrays the incarnate Jesus as actually married (to Mary Magdalene) and it represents that marriage as a symbolic paradigm for the reunification of believers with their angelic (spiritual) doubles in Christian initiation ritual, a ritual which effectively transforms initiates into members of the body of Christ and also enables ‘undefiled marriage’ for Christian partners by freeing them from demonic influences. The article aims to show that this distinctive position on Jesus' marital status was catalyzed by reading Ephesians 5 in conjunction with Valentinian incarnational theology.