tions, of which the Apostle does not stoi> to speak. We must always bear in mind that it is a mistake to interpret a biblical passage with reference to the bearmg that it bason later Christian practice ; a disciplinary rule, by its nature, is not intended to be for all time, however suitable it may have been for the First Age. Another passage in these Epistles may also be noticed. St. Paul denounces as a heresy the prohibition of marriage (1 Ti 4") ; though this does not involve any ch.augeof view as compared with the earlier Epistles. In what has been here said, the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles is assumed ; if this be lot allowed, the alteration of the Christian view as to the expediency of celibacy between the earli '.r and the later periods still holds good. But n i argument against the Pauline authorship must b* deduced from it, for a change of view is very natural in the course of a decade or more, during which a longer experience showed that tlio early expectation of Jesus' immediate return was founded on a too hasty assumption ; and, moreover, the Epistles of the Captivity serve as a bridge between the earlier and the later views.
In the apostolic period we read of a few persons who led the celibate life. St. Paul himself was un- married (1 Co 7"' 9°) ; so were the four daughters of Philip the Evangelist who 'prophesied' (Ac 21") ; St. John Evangelist was frequently known in the early Church as o TapB^vos, as in the 3rd cent. Gnostic work Pistis Sophia ; Tertullian had already called him a 'celibate {spado) of Christ' (de Mono- gam. 17). It is not quite easy to say who are meant by the 'virgins' (masc.) of Rev 14*. The word is interpreted by Tertullian {de Bcs. Cam. 27, referring to Mt 19'-) of celibates ; but Swete (Com. in loi:.) gives good reasons for thinking that it must apply to married as well as unmarrieil chastity, and ' be taken metaphorically, as the symbolical character of the Book suggests. . . . No exclusion of the married from the highest blessings of the Christian life finds a place in the NT.'
In interpreting the NT it is of some importance to note the comments of those writers who imme- diately followed the apostles. Ignatius' idea of celibacy {Polyc. 5) does not go further than our Lord's teaching. 'My sisters' (he says) are to love the Lord and be content with their spouses (<ru/i^Ioi!) in Hesh and spirit; ' my brothers ' are to love their spouses as the Lord loved the Church (cf. Eph 5-"). If anyone can abide in purity {ayvdr;., i.e. 'virginity') to the honour of the flesh of the Lord (cf. 1 Co 6'^), let him abide without boasting. If he boast, he is lost ; and if it be known beyond the bishop {v'Kiov tov imaKdirov : not ' if he be more famous than the bishop '), he is corrupted. All who marry should do so with the consent of the bishop, that the marriage may be after the Lord (cf. 1 Co 7''). Thus, in Ignatius' opinion, the bishop is to be taken into the confidence both of those who marry and of those who wish to remain celibates ; in the latter case the intention must not be noised abroad. Similarly Clement of Rome (ad Cor. i. 38) says : ' He that is pure (dv^is) in the flesh, let him be so, and not boast, knowing that it is Anotlier who bestows his continence {iyKparaav) upon him.' We note that both Ignatius and Clement use dyKis or aypeia of celibacy, though they do not say that celibacy is the higher state. Hermas, on the other hand, in his Shepherd {Mand. iv. 4), describes the chastity both of the married and of the unmarried as d7:'£ia. The phrase of Ignatius, ' virgins who are called widows' (Smyrn. 13), has been much discussed. It can hardly mean unmarried women included in the order of widows, for Ignatius in that case would have omitted in his salutation all those who were literally widows,
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and sucli a custom is treated as unheard of by TertuUian (rf<; Virg. Vel. 9); and 'viij;ins' is therefore proljably to be interpretfd synibolioally as in Kev 14* (above), of woiiifu «'bo are jmre in heart (see Lightfoot, ApostvHc Fathers-, \>t. ii. : ' S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp,' London, 18S9, ii. 323 f.).
3. Marriage ceremonies. — The betrothal pre- ceded the actual nuirriage by several months, but not by more than a year (Edersheim, op. cit. i. 354). It is referred to in 2 Co 11-, where St. Paul says that he betrothed {-npiJ-oirdnriv, here only in the NT) the Corinthians to Christ ; of. I)t 28^", Pr PJ". In arranging for the betrothal, the intended bride- groom took no part, anil matters were settled, as they still are in the Kast, by the resjicctive parents, or, it they were not alive, by the brother or nearest relative. In the parable the father is said to make a marriage, or a marriage feast (Troieri' yd/ioi'), for his son (Jit 22-') ; so in the OT, Gn 24^ (Abraham and his steward for Isaac) 34^- " (Hamor for Shechem) 3S« (Judah for Er), Jg 14=-"* (Manoali for Samson). When the father was not available, the mother sometimes acted, as when Hagar acted for Ishmael (Gn 21-') or the mother for her son (2 Es 9'"). It is instructive to see how marriage customs, as well as others, persistently survive in the East from biblical times, and we find that among the Oriental Christians of to-day the same practice obtains (Maclean-Browne, Cathalicos of the East, p. 144) ; courtship in the Western sense of the term is little known, and the courting ia done by the parents. The lietrothal, having been accomplished by crowning with garlands and with some ceremony (Edersheim, loc. cit.), was, and is, absolutely binding, and a breach of it is treated as adultery 'in Dt 22^'- (ct. v.=«, Lv 19™) ; this is illus- trated by the position of Joseph as a betrothed husband in Mt 1". It is suggested by Plummer (HDB i. 326) that the woman taken in adultery (Jn 8^) was betrothed, not married, as she was to be stoned, not strangled. This may be so, since stoning is mentioned in Dt 22"'*, but not in Lv 20'", which gives the death-penalty for the adultery of married persons. Yet in Ezk 16^"''" married adul- teresses seem to be meant, and there stoning is mentioned. Strangling was a later form of execu- tion.