[721] Thus, for example, in the rather worthless apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclae, which are first mentioned by, Tertullian (De Baptismo, c. 17, as the production of a certain Asiatic presbyter), and must therefore have existed in the second century. There Paul is made to say: Makarioi hoi enkrateis, hoti autois lalesei ho theos makarioi hoi echontes gunaikas hos me hechontes, hoti autoi kleronomesousi ton theon makaria ta somata ton parthenon, hoti auta euarestesousin to Theo kai ouk apolesousin ton misthon tes hagneias auton . See Tischendorf: Acia Apostolorum Apocrypha. Lips. 1851, p. 42 sq.
[722] En akauchesia meneto.
[723] Ean gnosthe plen tou episkopou, according to the larger Greek recension, c. 5, with which the Syriac (c. 2) and Armenian versions agree. But the shorter Greek recension reads pleon for plen which would give the sense: "If he think himself (on that account) above the (married) bishop; si majorem se episcopo censeat."
[724] Epiphan. Haer. 67; August. Haer. 47. Comp. Neander, Walch, and the articles of Harnack in Herzog (VI. 100), and Salmon in Smith & Wace (III. 24). Epiphanius, the heresy hunter, probably exaggerated the doctrines of Hieracas, although he treats his asceticism with respect. It is hardly credible that he should have excluded married Christians and all children from heaven unless he understood by it only the highest degree of blessedness, as Neander suggests.
[725] See § 99, p. 367.
[726] Nuptae Deo, Christo.
[727] Adelphai, sorores (1 Cor. 9:5); afterwards cleverly called gunaikes suneisaktoi, mulieres subintroductae, extraneae.
[728] Simil. IX. c. 11 (ed. Gebhardt & Harnack, p. 218). The Virgines, who doubtless symbolically represent the Christian graces (fides, abstinentia, potestas, patientia, simplicita, innocentia, castitas, hilaritas, veritas, intelligentia, concordia, and caritas, Comp. C. 15), there say to Hermas, when he praises an evening walk Ou dunasai aph' hemon anachoresai Meth' hemon koimethese hos adelphos , kai ouch' hos aner hemeteros gar adelphos ei; Kai tou loipou mellomen meta sou katoikein, lian gar se agapomen. Then the first of these virgins, fides, comes to the blushing Hermas, and begins to kiss him. The others do the same; they lead him to the tower (symbol of the church), and sport with him. When night comes on, they retire together to rest, with singing and prayer; kai emeina, he continues, met' auton ten nukta kai ekoimethen para ton purgon. Estrosan de ai parthenoi tous linous chitonas eauton chamai, kai eme aneklinan eis to meson auton, kai ouden holos epoioun ei me proseuchonto; Kago met auton adialeiptos proseuchomen . It cannot be conceived that the apostolic Hermas wrote such silly stuff. It sounds much more like a later Hermas towards the middle of the second century.
[729] Ep. I, Xll., also V. and VI.
§ 108. Celibacy of the Clergy.
G. Calixtus (Luth.): De conjug. clericorum. Helmst. 1631; ed. emend. H. Ph. Kr. Henke, 1784, 2 Parts.
Lud. Thomassin (Rom. Cath., d. 1696): Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina. Lucae, 1728, 3 vols. fol.; Mayence, 1787, also in French. P. I. L. II. c. 60-67.
Fr. Zaccaria (R.C.): Storia polemica del celibato sacro. Rom. 1774; and Nuova giustificazione del celibato sacro. Fuligno, 1785.
F. W. Carové, (Prot.): Vollstöndige Sammlung der Cölibatsgesetze. Francf. 1823.
J. Ant. & Aug. Theiner (R.C.):Die Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den Geistlichen u. ihre Folgen. Altenb. 1828; 2 vols.; second ed. Augsburg, 1845. In favor of the abolition of enforced celibacy.
Th. Fr. Klitsche (R.C.): Geschichte des Cölibats (from the time of the Apostles to Gregory VII.) Augsb. 1830.
A. Möhler: Beleuchtung der (badischen)Denkschrift zur Aufhebunq des Cölibats. In his "Gesammelte Schriften." Regensb. 1839, vol. I. 177 sqq.
C. J. Hefele (R.C.): Beitröge zur Kirchengesch. Vol. I. 122-139.
A. de Roskovany (R.C.): Cöstibatus et Breviarium ... a monumentis omnium saeculorum demonstrata. Pest, 1861. 4 vols. A collection of material and official decisions. Schulte calls it "ein gönzlich unkritischer Abdruck von Quellen."
Henry C. Lea (Prot.): An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. Philadelphia, 1867 2d ed. enlarged, Boston, 1884 (682 pp.); the only impartial and complete history down to 1880.
PROBST (R.C.): Kirchliche Disciplin, 1870.
J. Fried. von. Schulte (Prof. of jurisprudence in Bonn, and one of the leaders among the Old Catholics): Der Cölibatszwang und, lessen Aufhebung. Bonn 1876 (96 pages). Against celibacy.
All the above works, except that of Lea, are more or less controversial. Comp. also, on the Roman Cath. side, art. Celibacy, Martigny, and in Kraus, "Real-Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer" (1881) I. 304-307 by Funk, and in the new ed. of Wetzer & Welte's "Kirchenlexicon;" on the Prot. side, Bingham, Book IV. ch. V.; Herzog^2, III. 299-303; and Smith & Cheetham, I. 323-327.
As the clergy were supposed to embody the moral ideal of Christianity, and to be in the full sense of the term the heritage of God, they were required to practise especially rigid sexual temperance after receiving their ordination. The virginity of the church of Christ, who was himself born of a virgin, seemed, in the ascetic spirit of the age, to recommend a virgin priesthood as coming nearest his example, and best calculated to promote the spiritual interests of the church.
There were antecedents in heathenism to sacerdotal celibacy. Buddhism rigorously enjoined it under a penalty, of expulsion. The Egyptian priests were allowed one, but forbidden a second, marriage, while the people practiced unrestrained polygamy. The priestesses of the Delphic Apollo, the Achaian Juno, the Scythian Diana, and the Roman Vesta were virgins.
In the ante-Nicene period sacerdotal celibacy did not as yet become a matter of law, but was left optional, like the vow of chastity among the laity. In the Pastoral Epistles of Paul marriage, if not expressly enjoined, is at least allowed to all ministers of the gospel (bishops and deacons), and is presumed to exist as the rule. [730] 30 It is an undoubted fact that Peter and several apostles, as well as the Lord's brothers, were married, [731] 31 and that Philip the deacon and evangelist had four daughters. [732] 32 It is also self-evident that, if marriage did not detract from the authority and dignity of an apostle, it cannot be inconsistent with the dignity and purity of any minister of Christ. The marriage relation implies duties and privileges, and it is a strange perversion of truth if some writers under the influence of dogmatic prejudice have turned the apostolic marriages, and that between Joseph and Mary into empty forms. Paul would have expressed himself very differently if he had meant to deny to the clergy the conjugal intercourse after ordination, as was done by the fathers and councils in the fourth century. He expressly classes the prohibition of marriage (including its consequences) among the doctrines of demons or evil spirits that control the heathen religions, and among the signs of the apostacy of the latter days. [733] 33 The Bible represents marriage as the first institution of God dating from the state of man's innocency, and puts the highest dignity upon it in the Old and New Covenants. Any reflection on the honor and purity of the married state and the marriage bed reflects on the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, yea, on the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. [734] 34
There was all early departure from these Scripture views in the church under the irresistible influence of the ascetic enthusiasm for virgin purity. The undue elevation of virginity necessarily implied a corresponding depreciation of marriage.
The scanty documents of the post-apostolic age give us only incidental glimpses into clerical households, yet sufficient to prove the unbroken continuance of clerical marriages, especially in the Eastern churches, and at the same time the superior estimate put upon an unmarried clergy, which gradually limited or lowered the former.
Polycarp expresses his grief for Valens, a presbyter in Philippi, "and his wife," on account of his covetousness. [735] 35 Irenaeus mentions a married deacon in Asia Minor who was ill-rewarded for his hospitality to a Gnostic heretic, who seduced his wife. [736] 36 Rather unfortunate examples. Clement of Alexandria, one of the most enlightened among the ante-Nicene father, describes the true ideal of a Christian Gnostic as one who marries and has children, and so attains to a higher excellence, because he conquers more temptations than that of the single state. [737] 37 Tertullian, though preferring celibacy, was a married priest, and exhorted his wife to refrain after his death from a second marriage in order to attain to that ascetic purity which was impossible during their married life. [738] 38 He also draws a beautiful picture of the holy beauty of a Christian family. An African priest, Novatus--another unfortunate example--was arraigned for murdering his unborn child. [739] 39 There are also examples of married bishops. Socrates reports that not even bishops were bound in his age by any law of celibacy, and that many bishops during their episcopate begat children. [740] 40 Athanasius says: [741] 41 "Many bishops have not contracted matrimony; while, on the other hand, monks have become fathers. Again, we see bishops who have children, and monks who take no thought of having posterity." The father of Gregory of Nazianzum (d. 390) was a married bishop. and his mother, Nonna, a woman of exemplary piety, prayed earnestly for male issue, saw her future son in a prophetic vision, and dedicated him, before his birth, to the service of God, and he became the leading theologian of his age. Gregory of Nyssa (d. about 394) was likewise a married bishop, though he gave the preference to celibacy. Synesius, the philosophic disciple of Hypasia of Alexandria, when pressed to accept the bishopic, of Ptolemais (a.d. 410), declined at first, because he was unwilling to separate from his wife, and desired numerous offspring; but he finally accepted the office without a separation. This proves that his case was already exceptional. The sixth of the Apostolical Canons directs: "Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived." The Apostolical Constitutions nowhere prescribe clerical celibacy, but assume the single marriage of bishop, priest, and deacon as perfectly legitimate. [742] 42
The inscriptions on the catacombs bear likewise testimony to clerical marriages down to the fifth century. [743] 43
At the same time the tendency towards clerical celibacy set in very early, and made steady and irresistible progress, especially in the West. This is manifest in the qualifications of the facts and directions just mentioned. For they leave the impression that there were not many happy clerical marriages and model pastors' wives in the early centuries; nor could there be so long as the public opinion of the church, contrary to the Bible, elevated virginity above marriage.
1. The first step in the direction of clerical celibacy was the prohibition of second marriage to the clergy, on the ground that Paul's direction concerning "the husband of one wife" is a restriction rather than a command. In the Western church, in the early part of the third century, there were many clergymen who had been married a second or even a third time, and this practice was defended on the ground that Paul allowed remarriage, after the death of one party, as lawful without any restriction or censure. This fact appears from the protest of the Montanistic Tertullian, who makes it a serious objection to the Catholics, that they allow bigamists to preside, to baptize, and to celebrate the communion. [744] 44 Hippolytus, who had equally rigoristic views on discipline, reproaches about the same time the Roman bishop Callistus with admitting to sacerdotal and episcopal office those who were married a second and even a third time, and permitting the clergy to marry after having been ordained. [745] 45 But the rigorous practice prevailed, and was legalized in the Eastern church. The Apostolical Constitutions expressly forbid bishops, priests, and deacons to marry a second time. They also forbid clergymen to marry a concubine, or a slave, or a widow, or a divorced woman, and extend the prohibition of second marriage even to cantors, readers, and porters. As to the deaconess, she must be "a pure virgin, or a widow who has been but once married, faithful and well esteemed." [746] 46 The Apostolical Canons give similar regulations, and declare that the husband of a second wife, of a widow, a courtesan, an actress, or a slave was ineligible to the priesthood. [747] 47