The Christian World has always been involved in the fierce debate over Jesus' marital status. Dan Brown's 2003 book, "The Da Vinci Code" which suggested that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene, and the notion that their lineage exists even today, was widely condemned by Christians all over the world and was seen as an attack on Roman Catholic Church.

Now, a new relic deciphered by a Harvard Scholar may very well reignite the debate.

Karen King, the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School unveiled a fourth century previously unknown scrap of papyrus Tuesday, which, she says, includes the words "Jesus said to them, my wife," written in Egyptian Coptic language used by early Egyptian Christians.

She revealed the existence of the ancient relic at the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies held every four years and hosted this year by the Vatican's Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome.

Vatican City has not responded to the discovery which is unlikely as Vatican newspaper and Vatican Radio frequently cover such academic conferences, reports The Associated Press. However, King's paper was one of nearly 60 delivered Tuesday at the vast conference, which drew 300 academics from around the globe.

Christian tradition has strongly believed that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support the claim, King said.

"This new gospel doesn't prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage," she said.

King and colleague AnneMarie Luijendijk, an associate professor of religion at Princeton University, believe that the fragment is part of a newly discovered gospel. They have named it, "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" for reference purposes.

King dates the gospel to be written around second century as it shows close connections to other newly discovered gospels written at that time, especially the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Philip.

She said that the Early Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was over a century after Jesus's death, she says, 'before they began appealing to Jesus' marital status to support their positions.'

The relic is owned by an anonymous private collector who contacted King to help translate and analyze it, and is believed to have been discovered in Egypt or Syria.

Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York and Ariel Shisha-Halevy, a Coptic expert at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, believes the fragment to be authentic.

But, further examination by her colleagues will be conducted to rule a final judgment on its authenticity.

King's analysis of the fragment is slated for publication in the Harvard Theological Review in January 2013.