Forbes on Article XXXII: Of the Marriage of Priests

THE first point here to be observed is the title, and though we have observed that there is a certain loose ness in the use of terms in the titles of the Articles, ,ret here and there there are indications of a set pur pose in the phraseology used. Now both the title and the contents of the Article of 1571 differ from the earlier digest. In the title of Article XXXI. of 1553, it is laid down categorically, ” The state of single life is commanded of no man by the word of God ;” or as it is said in the Latin, Ccelibatus ex verbo Dei praecipitur

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nemini. This pr&ceptum of the title is changed in the body of the Article into mandatum, ” neither is any one compelled, jure divino, to abstain from matrimony.” The revised Article uses the expression De conjugio sacerdotum. The language in the second place is a little strengthened, and both the ideas of mandatum and prteccptum are conjoined — nullo mandate divino prce- ceptum est ; and it then goes on to add that the clergy in this respect may act as other Christian men. Now not only is the marked contrast of the clergy with other Christian men an observable thing, but the use of the word sacerdotum shews how entirely the English Reformers repudiated the idea of a mere minister, and assumed that of a \eirovpyos or sacerdos. Had the word stood alone we might have supposed it to be a slip, but bearing in mind the employment of it in Article XXXI., we may suppose that it was no incuria, but intentionally done. If so, we have the identity of the priesthood before and after the Reformation asserted, just as actually we find maintained in the amended Statutes of Corpus Christi College, where it is held that the Fellows, ” though discharged from massing/’ were still of necessity to be Priests a.

And the word, in being used to cover the three sacred orders, adds to the importance of the phrase ology ; for though in the primitive Church, in St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, the word is used for the Episcopate, just as the corresponding term iepei/s is used by St. Chrysostom ; and though after- » Vide Statutes, Corpus Christi College.

wards it was sometimes with and sometimes without the specification secundi ordinis, used for the Presby- terate ; the including the Diaconate in the term, shews how high in the Article is the estimate of all the orders according to the old definition : — ” Sacerdos, quasi sacrum dans, a Dei mysteria administrando b.” The early use of sacerdos and levita for Priest and Dea con, derived into the Christian phraseology through the Yulgate, shews how completely the new law was looked upon as the continuation and supplement of the old law.

The proposition that the celibacy of the priesthood is not jure drnno is absolutely Catholic. It has ever been regarded as a matter of pure discipline, varying with the different ages, and the necessities of the Church. The law might be relaxed to-morrow over the whole world ; but it is the distinguishing feature of Christianity to be at once both real and ideal. It throws itself into the world, accepts the complex phe nomena of civilization, and deals with men as it finds them. And yet it never loses sight of the thought that its real home is not on earth but in heaven, and that it has to transmute the elements of this world into a higher order. Compounded of the divine and the human, it has to subdue and elevate its inferior nature, and the actions of this mixed creation are referred to celestial personality. The divine Person of our Lord shines down upon His work, and just as it was the Divinity and not the Humanity which supplied the

b Ducange, ad verb.

G28 ARTICLE XXXII.

Personality to Him, so in His work on earth it is the nobler element that must dominate. In our Divine Lord the Godhead determined the operation of the Humanity, which was assumed as the instrument of the Divinity ; His Personality was not human, but Divine ; His Human Will ever followed His Divine Will ; His Human acts were deified ; of that Humanity we are partakers, and through It, St. Peter says, we are ” partakers of the Divine Nature c.” The tendency, therefore, of religion will always be to the ideal ; it will at least recognise a high standard, however far it may come short of it.

Now we find that this actually was the fashion, on which our Lord promulgated the Gospel. While He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, to give it a fresh sanction and larger grace, while He was manifested that He might elevate the ordinary society of men, and make them live so as that by His merits they might attain everlasting life, He also instituted, as we have seen in a previous Article (XIY.), what are termed Counsels of Perfection. He gave the rule of a higher life, formed upon His own most holy life, for ” such as could receive it.” Voluntary poverty, in imitation of Him who had not where to lay His head; voluntary obedience, as following Him Who for our sakes was subject to Joseph and Mary, the works of His hand; virginal purity, at the foot of Him Who was the Yirgin Son of a Yirgin Mother, become those higher exceptional graces — the ideal, in short, of c 2 Pet. i. 4.

Christianity, the highest manifestations of the re suIts of the Gospel; a law, not for all but for the few : yet these few, lights of the world in their seve ral generations.

A view like this could not but profoundly affect the sacerdotal requirement. Even in the lowest types of Christianity, as has been already stated under Article XXVI., it is always expected that the clergy shall be an example to the flock, shall lead a somewhat stricter life than others, shall abstain from certain harmless amusements, and deny themselves in what is permitted freely to their people. Still more was this the case in the early Church, when the new re ligion in all its strength was the regenerating power of the world ; when, in the face of a corrupt and effete Paganism, it was giving new life to society. Then the demand for any high qualifications in the clergy naturally took the shape of an exaction of adherence to the Counsels of Perfection. Yet neither our Lord, nor His Apostles, nor again their successors the early Bishops, strained human nature beyond what it could bear. While our Lord laid down the rule of perfection for such as could bear it, He allowed the Apostles to choose as clergy men who were married once d. St. Paul makes provision for the conduct of

d ” He [St. Paul] says that a Bishop must be blameless, husband of one wife. He so saith, not enacting this as a law, but hindering un- restrainedness.” St. Chrys. in I Tim., Horn. x. The Bishop of Thy- atira, consecrated probably by St. John, was, according to the un doubted reading (Rev. ii. 20), married, though his marriage turned out ill. ” Thy wife, Jezebel.” ” The word aov is in the best and oldest

such married men, and for the regulation of their families. While recognising the claims of ” the present necessity” freely, he allows St. Timothy and St. Titus to ordain as Bishops once-married men who were blame less and well conducted in the ordinary rules of life e. The injunction to St. Titus at least, implies that such as were married, were married before ordination. The Greek Church was very strict in enforcing this limi tation.

The Apostolic Canons, or Ante-Nicene Eastern Code, while they forbid any of the three sacred orders to put away their wives on plea of religion, exclude digamists and those who have married widows or divorcees ; and absolutely forbid marriage after ordination f. At Neo- csesarea, in 314, Priests married after ordination are to be degraded g. At Ancyra the same rule is laid down, but Deacons signifying their intention of marry ing before ordination may do soh. The Synod of Gangra condemned those, who, misled by the heretical teaching of Eustathius, the Semi-Arian Bishop of Sebaste, on marriage, would not receive communion from a married priest, as though he ought not to minister \

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MSS., the Syrian and older Latin version (in Cyprian and Primasius ‘uxorem tuani’), and is therefore rightly received into the text by Meyer, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Buttmann. Only Diisterdick re jects it, manifestly on grounds other than critical, for the evidence is overwhelming in its favour.” — (Dollinger, ” First Ages of the Church,” p. 293, not. 2. Eng. Tr.)

e 1 Tim. iii. 2 ; Tit. i. 5, sqq. f Can. v., xviv xvii., xxv.

K Can. i. h Can. x. l Cau. i.

however, implies a co-existent life of celibacy both of men and women. For to celibates only could there either be temptation to, or plea for, this strange and perilous custom. There are notices of its extending to some few clergy, and this implies an existing custom of clerical celibacy. For when corrupt ways or self- deceits are noticed, it implies that such self-deceit was an exception. The abuse was the resource of those, who having, in whatever way or on whatever ground, given up marriage, wished for the solace of the intimate society of the other sex, meaning no sin, though too often, after a time, involved in it. St. Cy prian, indeed, who first mentions the abuse, expressly states that one Deacon only was involved in it ; and he was at once excommunicated •>. But in Antioch, which the heathenized Paul of Samosata did what in him lay to demoralize (A.D. 260), a formal name (crvv- eio-d/cTot) was invented by the inhabitants for those virgins who were domiciled among men. Paul him self had several such with him, as had his Presbyters and Deacons k. This, then, is a trace of celibacy of clergy, even in the luxurious Antioch. They were living as celibates, till Paul corrupted them. Leontius, who, when a Priest, was deposed for this practice in an aggravated form *, was also an insulated case ; yet

j See S. Cypr., Up. ad Pompon., p. 7, and note in Oxford Translation. In Ep. xiv., St. Cyprian speaks of the Presbyters and Deacons as re straining these evils.

k Ep. Synod. Cone. Ant. in JEus., H. E. vii. 30.

each such bad case implies that celibacy had an emi nence, which bad men wished to attain without its sacrifices.

At the Council of Nicsea it was proposed to forbid the use of marriage to Bishops, Priests, and Dea cons, who had married as laymen. It was “vehe mently resisted” by St. Paphnutius, an aged confessor, as ” a heavy yoke which ought not to be imposed on consecrated men, lest from excessive preciseness the Church should be injured.” His authority, the more strong because he himself had led a virgin -life, was suffi.cient to prevent any law being made upon the subject. Marriage, then, among the clergy remained unforbidden. St. Gregory Nazianzen was the son of the bishop of that see. Eusebius and Socrates have many instances of a married clergy m.

Custom, however, had gone further than law. The Canon of Nicaea, which forbade that “any Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, or any other of the Clergy, should have a GvveicraKTos with him, unless it were mother, sister, or aunt, or person liable to no suspicion n,” implies

out any allusion to clergy. St. Clement, of Rome, in his first Syriac Epistle, c. 10, warns against the custom of those ” who dwell with virgins under pretence of piety.” Later, St. Jerome mentions the ” Aga- petse and the virgins who daily fall.” (Ep. xxii. ad Etistocfi., n. 13, 14.) St. Chrysostom has two homilies on sulintroducti and subintroductce, but with no reference to the clergy. Gieseler’s statement, that ” this custom chiefly burst in among unmarried clergy,” is unsupported by evi dence. His statement also, that it is alluded to in Hermas, Pastor 1. iii. sim. 9, § 11, is altogether a mistake j nor does there seem to be any allusion to this abuse in Tert. dejej., c. 17.

m Socr., i. 11 ; Soz., i. 23. n Can. iii.

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an extensive clerical celibacy, which it protects from scandal. St. Epiphanius says, that ” the priesthood sets out mostly from virgins, or, if not, from monks ; but if they suffice not for the service, from such as are continent as to their own wives, or are widowers from a single marriage […] he says, ” prevailed as to Deacon, Priest, Bishop, and Subdeacon, especially where the Canons of the Church were accurately ob served p.” ” In some places/’ he adds, ” Presbyters, Deacons, and Subdeacons had children, because men’s minds had grown relaxed, and, for the multitude, Clergy were not found.” St. Jerome, who says that some Bishops required those whom they ordained to be previously married, and that the people sometimes preferred to elect married Priests to be Bishops, lays it down broadly as the rule of the East [i.e. the Patri archate of Antioch] and Egypt, as well as Rome, that the Clerks should be either virgins or continent, whether out of or in marriage q. Yet his saying that there were “as many twice-married Bishops as at Arimi- numr” [300], though vaguely said and spoken ap parently of such twice-married, as had married once only since their Baptism, implies an extensive married clergy.

Origen had laid down, as the ground of clerical con- tinency, St. Paul’s words, that the married were not to defraud one another, except by consent for a season, that they might give themselves unto prayer. If so,

0 Expos, fid., ii. 21. P Hcer. 59, n. 4.

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“it is certain that the perpetual sacrifice is impeded to those subject to conjugal necessities. Whence it seems to me, that to offer the perpetual sacrifice be longs to him alone, who should have devoted himself to unceasing and perpetual chastity s.” Eusebius follows him, when comparing the Gospel with the old law. He quotes St. Paul’s words, ” the husband of one wife,” but adds, ” but for the consecrated, who are engaged in the service of God, it is fitting that they refrain them selves from marital intercourse V” St. Cyril, of Jeru salem, uses the argument, “if he, who fulfils well*0- the office of Jesus’ Priest, refrains himself from women x,” against those who denied the Incarnation. St. Gre gory, of Nyssa, urges Moses’ command y, as a ground of sacerdotal continency z.

The GEcumenical Council of Chalcedon prefaces its prohibition to Headers and Cantores to wed with Pagans, Jews, or heretics, unless they promised to ac cede to the orthodox faith, with the words, ” Since in some Eparchies they are allowed to marry.” Yet in the East, after this, we find Bishops having children by their lawful wives during their Episcopate. The discipline in the East was stereotyped by the Council at Trullo. It forbade clergy who had risen to the Subdiaconate to marry after ordination ; but it allowed those who should marry previously, to live with their wives, except at their turn to celebrate, that they

s Horn. 23 in Num., n. 3 ; Opp., ii. 358. * Dem. Ev., i. 8,

fin. p. 33. tt Ka\£>s. x Lect. xii. n. 26, p. 136, 0. T.

y Ex. xix. 15. z De Virgin. Jin., Opp., iii. 178.

might gain what they ask of God a. Bishops were for bidden to do this, on pain of deposition b. If a married Priest was advanced to the Episcopate, his wife, having first been separated by mutual consent, was, after his consecration, to enter some distant monastery, being provided for by the Bishop c.

In the West, Tertullian stated it to be an admitted rule, that a second marriage excluded from orders. “I remember some twice-married to have been de posed from their order.” “No other can be a Priest, than he who, as a layman, had only once been a hus band’1.” Elsewhere he insults the Catholics for having twice-married Bishops e. The inconsistency is nothing strange in Tertullian ; perhaps the solution may lie in the different senses given to ‘digamus,’ which some times includes those only who married twice after their baptism, sometimes those also, who, as Christians, had married once only f. Hippolytus, however, in the Philosophumena, makes it one of the charges against Pope Calixtus, that they had begun to be lax on this subject. ” In his time digamous and trigamous Bi shops, Priests, and Deacons, began ($pf$wrp) to be ad vanced to the clericate. If any also who was among the clergy (ev /cXijpw &v) married, such an one remained

a Can. vi., xiii.

b Can. xii. The Canon speaks of the custom as prevailing in Africa, Libya, and other places, and of the offence which it occasioned to the people.

e De Monogamia, c. 12.

f See Dr. Fusey on Tertullian, note N, pp. 420—432.

in his office as if lie had not sinned g.” In Spain, the Council of Elvira, A.D. 309, forbade marital intercourse to the three orders, on pain of remotion from their office h.

The law presupposes, however, the previous marriage of many clergy, which is recognised also in another Canon1, prohibiting a Bishop or any other Clerk to have any other with him, except a sister or a daughter dedicated to God. This implies also that the clergy were of mature age. ” Very many (plurimi) Priests and Deacons, however, continued to have children iu, or even out of marriage/’ (as St. Siricius states in his answer to Exuperius of Tarragona, A.D. 398,) maintain ing this custom on the ground of the Old Testament law k. Laymen also were ordained, who had been more than once married1, and this the Spanish bishops did, as if it had been enjoined rather than forbidden ni. St. Siricius lays down that, on the principles of the old law, “all we, Priests and Deacons, are bound by an indissoluble law, to give hearts and bodies to sobriety and chastity.” Those who used marriage in the priest hood were to be deposed ; but it was allowed to live in single marriage till thirty, which was fixed as the age of the Diaconate n.

The second Council of Toledo, A.D. 405, required that those dedicated by their parents to Holy Orders,

« Philosoph., ix. 12, p. 290. h Can. xxxiii.

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n Ibid., n. 9. Five years more were required for the Presbyterate; ten more for the Episcopate.

and educated under the Bishop’s eye, should, at eigh teen, be interrogated publicly, as to their wish to marry. From those who so will, they say, ” we cannot take away what is granted by the Apostles,” but such were to be admitted to Holy Orders only in advanced age, when, by mutual consent, they had renounced the use of marriage °.

In Africa, in the Council of Carthage, AD. 428, the same enactment was made as at Elvira, that ” what Apostles taught, and antiquity observed, we, too, may keep P.”

St. Innocent I., in his answer to Yictricius, Bishop of Rouen, A.D. 404, abridging the arguments of Siricius, lays down the continence of Priests and Deacons as an Apostolic tradition, observed in the Roman Church ^.

St. Leo’s answer to the inquiry of Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, whether Deacons were allowed the use of marriage, lays down, as the recognised law of the Church, that the ministers of the altar, equally with the Bishops and Presbyters, were prohibited from this.

0 Can. i. The eighth Council of Toledo, A.D. 636, forbids the marriage of Subdeacons, as a breach of previous law.

P Cone. Garth, ii., can. ii. In the fifth Council of Carthage, A.D. 438, (Cod. Eccl. Afr., can. xxv.,) this enactment was received as ” having been established in diverse Councils.” Those who infringed it were to ” be removed from the ecclesiastical office.”

1 ” For the sake of those who, through ignorance or sloth, do not maintain ecclesiastical discipline, and venture on many things not to be ventured on, thou hast rightly asked that in those parts the form be observed which the Roman Church hoWs, not so that any new precepts be commanded, but that we wish that those things, which have been neglected through the sloth of some, be observed by all, which yet were constituted by Apostolic tradition and of the fathers.”

” In order that from a carnal, it should become a spiri tual marriage, they must not send away their wives, yet they must have them as though they had them not, that the love of wedlock may be unimpaired, and the act of marriage may cease r.” In his letter to Anas- tasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, he expressly includes the Subdeacon as bound by this law, and lays down that none was to be advanced to the three higher orders, who was found not to have so refrained s.

In Gaul, the Council of Turin, A.D. 401, forbade those who had children, while in the ministry, to be admitted to higher orders *. The first Council of Orange, A.D. 441, forbade any married men to be or dained, unless with purpose of conversion, they should first profess chastity; Deacons, who used marriage, were to be deposed u. The second Council of Aries, A.D. 452, forbade any one in the bond of wedlock to be raised to the priesthood, unless he should first be converted ; a Deacon, or any upwards, who for his solace should have any woman, except grandmother, mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, or wife, converted with him, was excommunicate x. It also adopted the two Canons of the Council of Orange ?. The first Council of Tours, A.D. 460, relaxed a constitution of their fathers, which withheld from communion any Priest or Deacon who continued to have children, but forbade such to offer sacrifice to God, or minister to the people, or to rise

r Up. clxvii. Inq. 3, p. 1422. s Up. xiv. c. 4, p. 687.

1 Can. viii. u Can. xxii. Can. xxiii. provided that

a Deacon, breaking this rule, should be put aside from his office. x Can. ii., iii. J” Can. xliii., xliv.

any higher order2. The Council of Agde, A.D. 506, enforced ” the rule of ecclesiastical life and discipline which had gone from Bishop Siricius to the provinces,” incorporating a portion of the letter of Innocent I. a The third Council of Orleans, A.D. 538, renewed the old Canon about clerical continency. The second Council of Tours, A.D. 567, had still to re-enact, ” that a Bishop should have a wife as a sister;” and that ” a Bishop, who had not an episcopa, was not to be fol lowed by any crowd of women, but that the ministers of the Church, especially the Clerks who serve the Bishop and ought to guard him, should have liberty to eject strange women from frequent co-dwelling b.” The Council also states that ” not indeed all, but many [_plures\ Archpresbyters of villages, Deacons, and Sub- deacons, were suspected by the people of remaining with their wives.” It enjoined that they should be accompanied by other Clerks. A Presbyter, Deacon, or Subdeacon, found with his presbytem, or diaconissa, or subdiacomssa, was to be excommunicated for a year, and deposed from all clerical office c. The wives, how ever, of married Priests or Bishops were not withdrawn into convents, as appears from the history of Stephania, wife of Pope Adrian II. In A.D. 868, Eleutherius, who had deceived and married her daughter, being already espoused to another d, murdered mother and daughter.

The greater strictness of law in the West led to

z Can. ii. a Can. ix. b Prcef. and can. ii. c Can.

xii., xiii., xix. d Hincmari Remensis Annales, A. 868, in Pertz,

Mon. Germ., i. 476.

greater laxness of practice. The Western Councils of the ninth century f, and still more in the tenth cen tury &, indicate that concubinage prevailed, and a sort of half-recognised marriage was very common. There were frequent Canons of Councils that no son should succeed to the benefice of his father.

The Council of Mayence, A.D. 888, had absolutely to prohibit the clergy from having any females what ever, even the allowed relations, in their dwellings, much guilt, even incest, having been the result h. The Council of Metz, in the same year, made the like enactment, though alluding only to the evils1. The constitution of Biculfus, Bishop of Soissons k, A.D. 889, and a Council of Nantes (exact date unknown) refer to the same, and speak of other sins by reason of the attendants1. Even a saint, St. Peter Damiani, had to write against horrible sins of the clergy, which one can neither name nor even remotely allude to m. The work was stolen, and suppressed for a time, because he could not but speak plainly11. But one remedy, the marriage of the clergy, became extensive. Leo VII., in a letter to the Kings, Dukes, Bishops, Abbots, Counts, and specially to the Bishops of Salzburg, Ratisbon, Frisingen, Seben, and the rest of the Bishops through out Gaul, Germany, Bavaria, Swabia, A.D. 939, speaks of the clergy taking wives, like the rest of Christians °.

f Aux. 836, Mayence, 888. * Poitiers, 1,000, can. vi.

h Can. x. l Can. v. k c. 14. ’ Can. iii.

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Guido, early in the eleventh century, says that this was done throughout Italy p. Benedict VIII., in the preface to a Council of Ticino, inveighs against the publicity and extent of these marriages, which, by the provision made for the children, impoverished even wealthy Churches. He re-enacted the old laws, which were confirmed by the Emperor Henry II. (This was between 1014 and 1024.) The name presbyterissa was a recognised name, and appeared in public instruments 1. The instance of the Church of Milan, in which ” all the Priests and Deacons,” and even the Archbishop was married r, was the more remarkable on account of the proverbial excellence of its clergy 8. They had even a tradition that St. Ambrose formally allowed single marriage *.

The laxity infected even Monastic bodies. In the Celtic provinces of Europe the Church lands came to be hereditary in the Abbot’s or Priest’s family. Sacerdo talism became hereditary, and the names Mactaggart, the priest’s son ; MacNab, the abbot’s son ; Mactavish,

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i Aventinus, 1. v. p. 346. From stress of time the following facts are put together from the authorities given in Gieseler’s KirchengeschicMe.

8 “Mediolanum in clericis, Papia in deliciis, Roma in sedificiis, Ravenna in Ecclesiis.” (Landulf, Hist. Mediol., iii. 1.) Gieseler quotes also Anselm of Lucca (Alexander II.), “Unless all the Priests and Deacons of this city had wives, in preaching and in other good manners they were very effective.” (Ib. 4.) ” The Papal legate, P. Damiani, attested, that ‘verily he had never seen such a clergy.’” (Arnulf., Hist. Med., iii. 12.) Ib.

Tt

the nun’s son, are abiding testimonies of the laxity of the discipline of the Scoto-Irish Church. It was the same throughout Europe, as an accurate historian, Sir James Mackintosh, one by no means likely to over-esti mate the work of a great Church-reformer, has declared his opinion, that Gregory VII. incidentally saved re ligion in Europe from becoming a caste-religion, like Brahminism, with all the withering influences which such caste-religion implies.

One of that Pontiff’s weapons in restoring disci pline was the enforcement of clerical celibacy. This was adopted with certain modifications by Lanfranc in 1076, an exception being made for the country clergy who had already married wives ; but St. Anselm, in 1102, at the Council of Westminster, forbade marriage, separated those married, suspended them a divinis, and forbade the faithful to be present at their services. The law of the English Church, thenceforward till the Reformation, exacted celibacy in the clergy.

But, “quid leges sine moribus vanse proficiunt?” An old Saxon Chronicle says, ” all those decrees had no effect ; all retained their wives, by the king’s per mission, as they had done before u.” For the Bishops “left it to the king to judge as to the focaria of the priests ; and the matter ended with the gravest scandal. For the king took infinite money from the Presbyters to redeem their focarice x.” In 1208, in the reign of King John, all the house-keepers (focarice) of the Pres byters and Clerks throughout all England were taken tt Ad A. 1129, in Wilkins’ Cone., i. 411. x Matt. Paris, A. 1129.

by the king’s officers, and obliged to redeem them selves at a heavy sum. So it was in other Northern kingdoms. The rule of clerical celibacy was enforced with difficulty, and broken. The long list of decrees of Councils against ” the concubines, house-keepers (focarice), and servants (pedissequte)” of the clergy y, is an indication of the efforts to maintain clerical celi bacy, and of their failure. Sometimes the Bishops connived at its breach ; at times, it is said, ” for money or some other temporal advantage z,” more often, it is to be hoped, looking upon the forbidden quasi-marriage as the least of two evils a. The gloss on the decree, that those Clerks who had offspring ” should be re moved from the sacerdotal office b,” said, ” But it is commonly said that for simple fornication one ought not to be deposed, since few are found without that vice.” A Chancellor of Paris said publicly, ” in the hearing of his whole school, which was full of so many men, of so great account and learning,” ” that never did the old enemy, in any matter, so circumvent the Church of God as in the utterance of that vow c” [of

r Schrockh (K. G. Th. 27, pp. 205, 6) enumerates 24, between A. 1207—1302.

a Such quasi-marriages were often, however, contracted with a bad conscience ; some changing the person repeatedly _totiens mutent~, all putting them away in extremis. Antigraphum Petri, (written between A. 1153 — 1173) in Gieseler, par. 3, Abschn. 3, § 65, n. d.

b Dist. 81, c. 6.

c Peter Comestor, reported by his pupil, Giraldus Cambr., an ear- witness, in Cave, Hist. Lit.

the continency of the clergy]. A celebrated summist lays down, “that a Confessor, who advised an Acolyte, who had not the gift of continency, to marry secretly, evading the eyes of his Bishop, commits no great sin. For we believe it to be a less sin to retain his benefice [contrary to law] with a secret marriage, than to have fornicaria against the divine prohibition. But if sub sequently he be compelled by his prelates to come to Holy Orders, we believe that it is a less sin, uxore ttti, than to fornicate with another, if he will not wholly to contain d.” William Durand, Bishop of Mende, sug gested whether, since all the efforts of Councils and Popes had been unavailing, ” it would be expedient that, in the Western Church, the custom of the Eastern Church, as to the vow of continency, should be retained in regard to those to be advanced [to Holy Orders], especially since in the time of the Apostles the custom of the Eastern Church was observed e.” In Hungary, Synods allowed the marriage of the clergy in the eleventh century. Compulsory celibacy was first esta blished there, in Denmark, Sweden, and Poland in the thirteenth. In Silesia, a Bishop of Breslau wrote against it in the twelfth; and in Bohemia, in the thirteenth century, complaints were made to Inno cent III. of an Archbishop of Prague, who notori ously had a wife, by whom he had children f.

A Summa qua incipit Commiserationes Domini, c. 165, in Flacii Cat. Test. Verit.,\. 662, Lugd. 1597. e De modo gen. cone, celebr., p. ii. rubr. 46. f. xxxv. u. f See authorities in Gieseler, 1. c.

In the fourteenth century, a fresh indication of ex isting evils appears, in that the laity compelled the clergy to take concubines, thinking it necessary for the safety of their own families s. In some parts of Ireland and Norway, it was the custom of the country that the Bishops and Priests should have concubines publicly ; they accompanied the Prelates on visitations ; the amasice, or wives of the Presbyters, took rank ; Presbyters who had none paid double procurations, as infringers of their country’s custom h. ” Much the same ways as to luxury were altogether observed, as to the priests of Gascony, Spain, and Portugal, and the coun tries contiguous to Africa ; whence in all those parts there were more natural than legitimate children, and more such were openly promoted and preferred in the grant of ecclesiastical titles h.” In Spain, Asturia, Gal- licia, and elsewhere, Presbyters and others in Holy Orders married publicly’. In Italy fines were imposed by successive Councils J; that of Bergamo, A. 1311,

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1 Alv. Pelag. de planctu eccles., ii. 27. ” With a marriage-feast, as if lawful wives. Sometimes with a public instrument, promising not to part with them, especially noble ladies, and endowing them with the goods of the Church.”

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imposed twice as large a fine on a Prelate as on an ordinary Clerk k. The Council of Presburg, A. 1309, imposed on concuUnarii publici the forfeiture of one- fourth of the income of the benefice, avowedly as being more effective than excommunication1. The Council of Mayence, A. 1300, imputes its revival to the avarice of some who counted gain to be godliness m. Bishops were said not to presume to rebuke as being them selves tainted11. The Emperor Charles IV. threatened to sequestrate the revenues of those who gave occasion to this scandal, but was checked by Innocent VI., as interfering with the freedom of the Church °.

The complaints of previous centuries heightened in the fifteenth. In the beginning of the century, it was said for certain that clergy of the Roman Curia still had their concubines without shame, notoriously to allp. Card. Julian assigned as his ground for acquiescing in the Council of Basle, to which he had been indisposed • ” the deformity and dissoluteness of the clergy of Ger many, whereby the laity are beyond measure irritated

pected persons; Benevent., A. 1331, c. 55, 56; Constitt. Eccl. Ferr., A. 1332, c. 31.

k Ten librae of Pavia for a Prelate or Rector, five for a common Clerk. Ruhr. 6. 1 Cone. Posoniens., c. 5.

m Nic. de Clamengis complained that ” in most dioceses Rectors of parishes commonly and publicly have concubines at a fixed price settled with their prelates.” (De ruina EccL, c. 22.)

n Theobald, publ. conq. in Cone. Const., in v.d. Hardt. Cone. Const., t. i. P. xix., p. 909. He made sti-onger charges.

0 iv. JZp. ad Carolum.

P P. de Pulka in C. of Constance, A. 1416. On the horrible state of the Court at Avignon, something is quoted from Petrarch, more alluded to in Milm. Lat. Chris., v. 500, n. g.

against the clerical order, induced me to come here. It is much to be feared that, unless they mend, the laity will, as they publicly declare, like the Hussites, burst upon the whole clergy. A deformation of this sort gives great boldness to the Bohemians, and greatly colours their errors, because they inveigh chiefly against the foulness of the clergy. Wherefore, even if a Gene ral Council had not been instituted here, it would have been necessary to form a Provincial Council — for re forming the clergy ; since it is, in truth, to be feared, that unless that clergy correct itself, even if the heresy of Bohemia should be extinguished, another should be aroused 1.” The Council of Paris, A. 1429, states, that “for the crime of concubinage, whereby many eccle siastics and religious are infected, the Church of God and the whole clergy are held in derision, abomination, and reproach among all nations ; and that most abomin able wickedness has so prevailed in the Church of God, that simple Christians do not now believe that forni cation is mortal sin T.” The fine on concubines was forbidden8, but practised*, probably in the hope that

Julian, ad Eug. iv. in Fasc. rev. fug. et expet., Lond., p. 56. r c. 23.

“A penalty of ten florins for not dismissing concubines ovfocaria, or other women suspected of incontinency,” was imposed by a Synod of Breslau between 1447 and 1458. (Hartzkeim Cone. Germ., v. 445.) ” Complaints were made of this by Fel. Hammerlin, Dionys. Carth.

the mulct might deter at least the poorer clergy. Those, who so offended, boasted of itu; the laity were some times scandalised, sometimes copied it v. It is a grave and pious Abbot, no mere declaimer against the vices of his times, who says of the clergy, ” By the ex ceeding badness of their lives, they slay miserably the sheep of Christ — ’ Pro libris sibi liberos comparant, pro studio concubinas amant/ — Let not then the Priests wonder that the laity despise them, since themselves despise the commands of Christ. I fear vehemently that shortly graver things will arise against the clergy x.” Popes would ordinarily be selected from the better clergy ; but, besides that the century closed with the thirty years of Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. , Alexander VI., ^Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II., answers with levity his father’s blame, that he had had a son from sin, treating it as a matter of course. ” Wide-spread is this plague, if plague it is to be called, to do what is natural V &c. ” Let a Presbyter be avari cious, an usurer, glutton, &c., if he be not incontinent,

(de vita et regim. ArcUdiac., Art. 19, ” against the dangerous, vicious, and damnable custom of visiting and receiving money fromfornicarii”) Herm. Ryd. de Seen (de vita et honest, cleric., c. 1). Theodoric, Arch- Irishop of Cologne, A. 1423, commanded under severe penalty the dis missal of the concubines, but changed soon. “The Bishop took money from the priests, and left them their concubines ; perhaps he knew not how to meet the wickedness of the times by any other remedy, or, scared by the number, he despaired of effecting anything.” Jac. Sibert. (de calamit. huj. temp.)

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v Ludov. Episc. Spir. in summons to Martini Synod., A. 1486.

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y L. i. Ep. xv. He relates his seduction of the mother.

he is accounted by all to be holy and honest z.” ” The priesthood was held so low, and daily lower, that many were ashamed to become Clerks, or allow their people to become so a.” One only token there was, that God had not forsaken His Church, that while the world was full of satires on these excesses b, earnest men in every portion of it complained of itc. “In no cen tury,” it is said, “were there so many decisions of Synods and Bishops against concuUnarii as the fif teenth d ;” or so many complaints of their uselessness. Stringent measures in Italy produced, it is saidj still worse evils and a more degraded clergy e.

z Lavacr. Consc., c. 6. ” Why is it that the rest of mankind, of whatever condition, hate us ? Certes, we cannot say, that the children of this world persecute us, as children of light — for we are not children of light, but of darkness. No other ground occurs to us, except that we are transgressors of the law.” Ib. 8 Ib., c. 7.

b Gieseler quotes several. The contemporary Epigram on Innocent VIII. was but too forcible ; the more so, for its allusion to his title, as Pope, the ” father.”

c Gieseler refers to the following well-known names : St. Laurence Justinian, Patriarch of Venice (de complanctu Xt. Perf., Opp., ii. 6) ; Tostatue, Bishop of Avila (c. cleric, concub., Opp., xxv. 58) ; St. Anto ninus, Archbishop of Florence (Summa Conf. P. iii. de der. pral. Ep.,

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e J. P. Picus, Lord of Mirandula, Orat. ad Leonem P. M. et Cone. Lat. de reform, mor., A. 1517, in Brown’s Fasc., p. 419.

These scandals had become so intolerable at the time of the Reformation, that it is not wonderful that there should be a mighty reaction. The Church had, indeed, struggled against the abuses. The Council of Basle had, in its twentieth Session, ordained that ” any cleric, of whatsoever state, condition, religion, dignity, even Papal and otherwise eminent, who shall after due notice … be a public concubinary, shall in the space of three weeks be, ipso facto, suspended, and de prived of the fruits of his benefice; if he dismiss not his concubine, or take her back when dismissed, he shall be deprived of all his benefices.” A public con cubinary is denned to be, ” he who retains a woman suspected of concubinage and defamed, who, when ad monished by his superior, does not in effect dismiss her.” These canons had been re-affirmed by various provincial synods : in Scotland, so late as the Pro vincial Synods of Linlithgow and Edinburgh in 1549, and again in 1558 and 1559 ; but they had failed. The Church had to be reminded, as it is in the terms of the Article, that clerical celibacy is not of divine institu tion, and that, being a matter of discipline, it was in the power of the Church, in view of the intolerable corruption of the times, to allow men to marry at their own discretion, “as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.” This had seemed to some the only remedy in the fifteenth century. Setting aside the sort of proverb of Pius II., as Pope, “With great reason marriage had been withdrawn from the Priests ; with greater, it seems, would it be restored f/’ (for f Platina de vitis Pontif., p. 762, ed. 1645.

his own previous history takes away its weight s), the well-known Canonist Panormitamis (himself an Abbot and afterwards Archbishop) discusses the ques-

s He had said, however, earnestly, as neas Sylvius, ” Perhaps it would be no worse, that very many _quam plures\ should be married, since many might be saved in a married priesthood, who are damned in a sterile Presbyterate.” (Hist. Cone. Bas., 1. ii. p. 86.) As Cardinal, he an ticipated that another Pope [perhaps himself] might give dispensations. (Ep. cccvii.) See also in Gieseler, extracts from the so-called Reforma tion Sigismunds, “an important voice from that time,” and the so-called ” Eeformation Friederichs III. ;” Fel. Hammerlin (de lib. Eccl. ; Alain Chartier, Secretary of King Charles VI. and VII., who says, ” The avaricious disorders of Priests have detached Bohemia from the Church of Rome. Why say I, Bohemia ? nay almost all Christendom. For the people of the Church have by their faults so debased themselves and their office, that they are despised by all in the Church, great or small, and hearts are estranged from the obedience of holy Church by the dissoluteness of her ministers. For, as was said, they have left espousals, but they have taken instead lawless, vague, and dissolute luxuries. What has the law against the marriage of Priests effected, but to turn lawful generation into adultery, and honest co-habitation with one wife into multiplication of scandalous luxury ?” Card. Job. Ant. in S. Georgio said, that ” this command gives occasion of ensnaring many souls, and therefore he believes that as the Church brought in this precept of continence, it will at some time revoke it. And such revocation will be conformable to the Apostle’s saying, ‘as to virgins, I have no command ment, but I give counsel.’ ” Editor of Aur. et singul. lectura super iv. decretaliwm ad tit. vi., ” Qui clerici vel voventes matrimonium con- trahere possunt.” The desirableness of revoking the prohibition was advocated by Jo. le Maire, Historiographer of Louis XII., de Schism. et Cone. Eccl. univ. diff., P. i. c. 2, P. iii. c. 15 ; Polyd. Verg., de rer. invent. v. 4. Adolf, Bishop of Merseburg, Prince of Anhalt, ” The im moral unmarried life of the clergy was before his eyes. Wherefore he and many thought it good, that marriage should be again allowed them in Council, since otherwise this evil was not to be hindered.” (In Georg. Fiirst zu Anhalt, Vorr. zu d. Pred. v. d.falsch. proph. Bapt. Mant., the Carmelite, dwells on men’s censures against the prohibition, Fasti, 1. i., de S. Hilario, Opp., t. ii. f. 252.

tion, and decides in favour of the removal of the prohibition : ” Can the Church at this day enact, that a Clerk may contract marriage, as do the Greeks ? I believe that it can ; and I not only believe that the Church has the power of enacting this, but I believe that it would be a healthful statute for the good and salvation of souls, that those who wish to use continence and to merit the more, should be left to their will ; but those who will not to contain, may marry : for experience teacheth, that quite the contrary effect follows from that law of continence, since at this time they do not live continently nor are pure, but are stained by unlawful intercourse, with gravest sin to themselves, whereas with their own wife it would be purity, as it is said, cap.Niccena h ; whence the Church ought to act, like a good physician, and if experience shews that a medicine rather hurteth than profiteth, should take it away. And would that this were done in all positive constitutions, that at least they should bind, as to the penalty, not as to [involving] fault. For positive statutes have so multiplied, that scarce any can be found who have not corrupted their ways ”

Nothing is said in the Article to the disparagement of the single state. On the contrary, the tone of the Article and of the Marriage Service is at variance with modern notions on this subject. They by no

k Decret. Gratian., p. i., Dist. xxxi. c. 12.

means regard marriage as a matter of course, upon the part either of the clergy or people. The Article claims for the clergy the same freedom as the people ; but it sets before both, as the one ground, which “shall serve better to godliness?” Not earthly happiness, nor ” Isaac’s pure blessings and a verdant home/3 not the union of souls in holy love, nor anything else on this earth, is proposed as its measure; but this only, “Is marriage likely or not to benefit the immortal soul?” The question implies, that what is, in itself, free, is not free to each. For no one can be free to do that which, to him, does not, in his judgment, serve best to godliness. The Marriage Service goes further, by speaking of marriage as, with other motives, a remedy for those who ” have not the gift of continency.” For those who have any gift of God clearly are responsible for it. Much more the clergy, by how much their office brings them nearer to Gfod. When God bestows the gift, the argument for such celibacy is founded on the very words of our Saviour Himself, where He commends a single life, and concludes with the significant comment, ” He that is able to receive this saying, let him receive it.” Contrasting the Law of Moses, in which divorce was allowed on account of the hardness of men’s hearts, with the law of grace and divine strength which He came to announce and to inspire, He rests the benediction of the single life on those additional graces whereby under the new covenant men are able, in a higher degree than under any previous dispensation, to fulfil the will of God.

The next argument is found in the counsels of St. Paul k, with regard to virginity. Plainly, the “present necessity” is not, as has been sometimes sup posed, the condition of persecution in which the early Corinthian converts were presumed to live. For in neither Epistle is there any evidence of such persecu tion. On the contrary, the Christians in that com munity were living on perfect terms of friendship with the heathen around them. The ” present neces sity,” therefore, must apply to the world under Chris tianity, and so the spirit of St. Paul’s counsels must apply to all time.

Again, in that primeval religion handed down by early tradition among the heathen, which, in its fore- shadowings, omens, and prophecies, is such a strong proof of the adaptation of the eventually - revealed Christianity to the wants and aspirations of man, we find side by side with sacerdotal caste, which implies a hereditary married priesthood, a higher and holier ideal, in which the virgin life is made the condition of ministration in the most sacred functions. Among the Indo-European races, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Indians, as well as among those Oriental races, where the malignity of matter and the purity of mind were distinguishing principles, we find that the ideal of heathenism had handed on the tradition of those earlier truths which had ever subsisted in the old and simple religions of nature.

Moreover, as there lurked in the old heathenism k 1 Cor. vii.

a certain appreciation of the highest ideal of life, so even in Gnosticism we see a caricature and distortion of the same. It is Gnosticism, which St. Paul describes and condemns where he speaks of the early heretics forbidding to marry ; they erred in maintaining the body to be absolutely sinful, and the work of an in ferior demiurge. The truth in this system was a cer tain aspiration after the higher life. The Church at once met the error, and the truth ; the error, by assert ing the sanctity and quasi -sacramental character of marriage, the truth lurking in Gnosticism, which was the sanctity of nature and the immaterialism and spiri tuality of the human mind, by elevating virginity l.

As the Jewish Priests, during their ministration, were obliged to abstain from their wives, when they com memorated God’s mercies to the Jewish people, pro pitiated Him for their sins, and lived in habitual com munion with Him ; so the Christian Priest, who is not bound to a mere monthly attendance at the temple, but to a constant service, would seem to have a more continual call to the continent life.

Upon whom or how many in any given period, God is or would be pleased to bestow the gift of continence ; whom, among men, He has created for the virgin life, lies in the secrets of the Divine Predestination. It is for individuals to learn for themselves, whereto God has called them, and neither to hold back from His calling, nor thrust themselves, uncalled, into a vocation for which God has not fitted them. Individuals, doubt-

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less, may obtain, as well as lose, a vocation for them selves ; but they must obtain it before they venture upon it. It is a problem for the Church, to provide, as far as in her lies, that none should miss that voca tion, whom God, in His eternal counsels, has created for it, and, on the other hand, to secure that those, who have not that calling, should, as St. Paphnutius advised at the Council of Mce, not have a burden laid upon them which they are unable to bear, God not having designed them for it. The Church has tried different ways. The Greek Church has one stereotyped plan of gathering into monasteries those who have the calling to the celibate life, and, while requiring of her Priests that they should marry before the priesthood, selecting for the Episcopate those who have ever led the virgin life, or who, being widowed, have been withdrawn from secular to monastic life. Of old, in the Western Church, together with the enforcement of continence on the three higher orders, there was a pro vision, more or less extensive, that those destined for the Clericature, who did not feel, in themselves, the gift of continency, should marry very early, so that children might be born to them, for some twelve years, before they should enter upon the service of the altar m. The middle ages witnessed an attempt and failure to enforce an universal celibacy of the clergy from the first. Since the Reformation, a more careful training of the future clergy in the Clerical seminaries has guarded those who would be guarded from that knowledge of sin, which increases tenfold the dimcul- » See above, pp. 636, 637.

Notes

• St. Ath., Apol. profuga, § 26; Ep. ad Mon., § 38. The Synod of Ancyra forbade virgins to live as “sisters” with any, can. 19, but with-
• Can. xlviii. d De Exhort. Cast., c. 7.
• Can. xxvii. k IE p. ad Exup., n. 7.
• Heribert, A. 1019—1046. Chron. Medial, in Murat. Scriptt. Her. Ital., t. iv. p. 122, quoted by Gies.
• • Land. i. 11, quoted ib.
• Prelates, who should do so, are sentenced to the like penalty with the offenders, by Cone. Lat. iv. A. 1215, can. xiv. Both rules were enforced in the Constitt. Edmund. Cantuar., A. 1236, c. 4.
• The Council of Palencia, A. 1322, c. 7, fin., excommunicated indivi duals, and laid an interdict on any community who should do so. Nic. de Clamengis says that ” in most parishes they would not tolerate a Priest who had not a concubine, so persuaded were they of the universal in- continency, and that even this precaution sufficed not.” (De Preesul. Simoniacis, Opp., p. 165.) In the next century the Frisons with difficulty allowed of any other, on the same ground. JEneas Sylvius, A. 1440. (Cosmogr., ii. 35.)
• By Cone. Paris., A. 1429, c. 23 ; Cone. Dertus., A. 1429, c. 2. The Council of Basle prohibited it, ” under paiu of eternal malediction, and a fine of the double of such receipt ; required prelates to remove the persons, if need be, by aid of the secular arm, and not to permit the sons so born to remain with their father.” (Sess. 20, Deer. 1.)
• Lect. sup. c. cum olim, De clericis conjugatis, Deer. Greg., 1. iii. tit. iii. c. 6.