A Harvard University professor has unveiled a fourth-century piece of papyrus with an ancient scrawling on it, and says that Jesus explicitly cites his ‘wife’ in the text, reports The Guardian. The words, written in a language of ancient Egyptian Christians, translate to "Jesus said to them, my wife," according to a statement.

Karen King, an expert in the history of Christianity, said the text contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to "my wife," whom he identifies as Mary, which should fascinate anyone, religious or not, but mainly religious. Despite sufficient evidence, Christian tradition has always maintained that Jesus was unmarried. King explains: “The new gospel tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry," she said, "but it was over a century after Jesus's death before they began appealing to Jesus's marital status to support their positions."

So what does this actually mean? Well, if the piece actually refers to the Jesus that Christians cite as the Son of God, then it means he was married, quite simply. We do, for the moment at least, have to take Karen King on her word here, as we can’t quite speak ancient Christian Egyptian (still waiting for that Rosetta Stone DVD to be released). Still, it’s interesting – old stuff – isn’t it?