The Vatican said an ancient papyrus fragment which a Harvard scholar says contains the first recorded mention that Jesus may have had a wife is a fake.

Joining a highly charged academic debate over the authenticity of the text, which was written in ancient Egyptian Coptic, the newspaper published a lengthy analysis on the authenticity of the ancient papyrus.

The fragment was recently unveiled by Harvard Professor Karen King as a text from the 4th century at a congress of Coptic Studies in Rome.

Her study divided the academic community, with some hailing it as a landmark discovery while others rapidly expressed their doubts.

Manuscript experts who heard King's presentation quickly took to their blogs to express doubts, noting that the letters were clumsy, perhaps the script of someone unused to writing Coptic.

The idea that Jesus was married resurfaces regularly in popular culture, notably with the 2003 publication of Dan Brown's best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," which angered the Vatican because, among other things, it was based on the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children.

Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married and the Catholic Church, by far the largest in Christendom, says women cannot become priests because Christ chose only men.