Gibson on Article XXXII: Of the Marriage of Priests

It is found in this form in the MS. signed by the six royal chaplains ; but before publication the last clause (placed above in italics), with its deliberate encouragement to priests to break the vows which they had taken, was omitted, so that the Article in English was simply this :

” The State of Single Life is commanded to no Man by

the Word of God.

” Bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded to

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VOW the state of single life without marriage, neither by God’s law are they compelled to abstain from matrimony.”

The language of the Article has not been traced to any earlier source, though there is a very lengthy Article on the same subject headed like our own, ” De conjugio Sacerdotum,” in the Confession of Augsburg ; ^ and the prohibition of matrimony to the clergy is condemned as a suggestion of the devil in the Beformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum}

There are two main statements in the Article, each of which requires separate treatment.

1. There is no prohibition of the marriage of the clergy in Scripture.

2. It is lawful for the clergy to marry if they think it advisable.

I. There is no Frohihition of the Marriage of the Clergy

in Scripture.

Bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded by God’s law, either to yow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage.

This subject admits of the briefest treatment, for the statement made in the Article will scarcely be denied by the most ardent advocate of the rule of clerical celibacy ; nor has the Roman Church ever committed herself to the assertion that it is more than an ecclesiastical law. There is certainly no single passage of Holy Scripture which can be cited as containing any command to the

clergy either to ” YOW the estate of single life,” or to ” abstain from marriage.” On the contrary, the

injunctions of S. Paul distinctly contemplate the ordination of married men, and contain no hint that they are

expected to abstain from the use of marriage: “The bishop must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded,” etc. (1 Tim. iiL 2). “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest … appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge : if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children that believe,” etc. (Titus L 5, 6). ” Let the deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well ” (1 Tim. iiL 1 2). So elsewhere he claims for himself […] although he was content to forego the exercise of it — ” to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas ” (1 Cor. ix. 5). These texts are conclusive. There is plainly nothing unscriptural in the existence of a married clergy ; and we may pass on to the consideration of the next subject.

IL It is lawful for the Clergy to 7)iarry if they think it

advisable.

It is lawful also for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serYC better to godliness.

For the existence in early days of a married clergy there is abundant evidence. But in considering it, two distinct questions present themselves which require separate treatment, (a) Was the use of marriage permitted to those clergy who had married before their ordination ? and {b) was marriage after ordination permissible ? The two questions must be examined separately ; for it is not fair to quote, as is sometimes done, passages which imply the existence of a married clergy, as if they necessarily involved the fact that marriage was permitted to those who had previously entered into holy orders.

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(a) There is no room whatever for doubting that during the first three centuries the use of marriage was freely allowed, and many allusions to the existence of a married clergy might be cited. Kg. Clement of Alexandria says that S. Paul certainly admits the husband of one wife, ” whether he be presbyter, or deacon, or layman, using marriage blamelessly ” ; and the sixth of the “Apostolical Canons” forbid bishops, presbyters, and deacons to separate from their wives upon the pretext of piety, on pain of exconmiunicf.tiion and deposition. In the fourth century, for the first time, we find objection to this raised in the West, especially in Spain, which has throughout taken the lead in advocating strictness. Thus, at the Council of Elvira, at which Hosius was present (a.d. 306), the clergy were positively forbidden to live in wedlock with their wives. A canon enforcing the same prohibition was pressed (not improbably by Hosius himself) on the Council of NiccTa (325) for its acceptance as a rule of the universal Church. It was, however, rejected at the earnest entreaty of the Bishop Paphnutius, himself an unmarried man, and the stricter rule has never received the sanction of the whole Church.* In spite of this, we trace a growing feeling in various quarters against the ministrations of a married clergy. The Council of Gangra (350) endeavoured to check it by condemning those who held aloof from the ministrations of such. But in the West the feeling made rapid progress, and before the close of the fourth century

[…]

» C<mc. niih. Can. xxxiii.; cf. Dale, Synod of Elvira, p. 197.

« Canon iv. See Hefele, Councils, vol. ii. p. 329 (Eng. tr.).

began to obtain official sanction from the Church. A Council held at Carthage, under Genethlius, in 387 or 390, commands the bishops, priests, and deacons to separate from their wives ; ^ and later Councils in Spain ^ and France ^ insist upon the same rule. In the East, with partial exceptions, the stricter rule was never enforced. Socrates tells us that in the fifth century the custom of the Church in Greece, Macedonia, and Thessaly was peculiar, as those clergy who continued the use of marriage after ordination were degraded ; whereas elsewhere in the East there was no rule against this, and ” there have been among them many bishops who have had children by their lawful wives during their Episcopate.” * In process of time this liberty was no longer conceded to hishojpSf but for priests and deacons it has remained intact to the present day. The Council in TruUo (692) speaks strongly on the subject, and notes the divergence between the East and West in this matter. ” As we know that the Roman Church has ruled that candidates for the diaconate or the presbyterate are to make profession that they will no longer live with their wives, we, observing the ancient canon of apostolical perfection and order, declare that the marriages of all in holy orders are to be henceforth accounted valid, and we refuse to forbid cohabitation, and will not deprive them of conjugal intercourse at proper times. Therefore, if a man is found fit to be ordained subdeacon, deacon, or priest, he is not to be refused on the ground of living with his wife. Nor at the time of ordination is any one to be required to profess that he will abstain from inter-

•- 1. Toledo (Canon i.) in 400, Hefele, p. 419; and IX. Toledo (Canon X.) in 655, Hefele, iv. p. 473.

»II. Aries (Canon xliv.) in 452, and I. M^on (Canon xi.), Hefele, p. 404.

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course with his lawful wife ; lest we thus do dishonour to marriage, which was instituted by God and blessed by His presence. … If, then, any one, in despite of the apostolic canons, be induced to forbid priests, deacons, and subdeacons to live with their lawful wives and hold intercourse with them, let him be deposed. And likewise, if any priest or deacon dismisses his wife on the pretext of piety, let him be excommunicated ; and if he be obstinate, let him be deposed.” ^ The present custom in the East is for bishops to be always selected from the ranks of the monks and unmarried clergy. But to others, both priests and deacons, marriage before ordination is freely conceded.

(&) With regard to the second question raised above, Was marriage after ordination regarded as permissible in the early Church? it must be candidly admitted that there is very little evidence for an answer in the afi&rma-tive, and that the prohibition of marriage to the clergy appears in very early days. The fierce attack of Hip-poly tus upon Callistus (c. 220) shows that early in the third century it was not usual to permit those already ordained to marry; for Hippolytus says that Callistus determined that ” if any one of the clergy should marry, he might remain in the clergy as not having sinned,” evidently implying that it was the first time that such a thing had been allowed.^ The apostolical canons permit marriage only to readers and singers.^ The Council of Ancyra (314) allows deacons to marry, provided that they had given notice of their intention to do so at the time of their ordination.* That of Neo-Csesarea provides that ” if a priest marry, he shall be removed from the

ranks of the clergy”; ^ and the rule of the Eoman Synod under Innocent (402) is absolute: ” Bishops, priests, and deacons must remain unmarried.”*

In spite, however, of these canons, and of the growing feeling against the ministrations of a married clergy, a strict rule of clerical celibacy was found very difficult of enforcement, and in the eleventh century married clergy were still common. Gregory vn. set his face vigorously against them, and under his influence more stringent rules than ever were made. At a Synod held in Kome in 1074 he passed a decree which “in its inexorable provisions went beyond the sternest of his predecessors,” absolutely forbidding the laity to avail themselves of the ministrations of married priests.^ The rigour of Gregory’s rule was somewhat mitigated in England by the good sense of Lanfranc, as the Council of Winchester (1076), while absolutely forbidding marriage to the capitular clergy, ordered that the married priests who were scattered up and down the country in towns and villages should not be compelled to dismiss their wives, though for the future no married men were to be ordained.* A few years later, under Anselm, a stricter law was framed at the Council of Westminster (1102), and an absolute rule of celibacy “became for the first time the universal law of the English Church.”^

But it was one thing to frame rules on this subject and quite another to enforce them, and there is much

[…] vol. i p. 367 ; of. Freeman’s Norman Canqtiest, vol. iv. p. 423.

• Freeman, voL v. p. 223 ; and see Wilkins’ Concilia^ vol. i. p. 382.

painful evidence that ” the newly-devised rigour only led to laxity of a worse kind than any which it was intended to stop.” ^ Clerical concubinage was only too common, and was often secretly permitted by ecclesiastical authority.2 And the evil results of the stringent rules were so patent that in the sixteenth century Reformers of various schools of thought were all agreed on the necessity for some relaxation of them ; and even before any alteration had been made in the law on the subject, clerical marriages were by no means uncommon.^ Thus Cranmer himself, whose first wife had died before his ordination in 1523, contracted a second marriage in 1532, very shortly before his elevation to the Archi-episcopate. It is impossible to defend such an act on his part, since at this time there had been no relaxation made by the ecclesiastical authorities in the law of the national Church; and naturally Cranmer was involved in considerable difficulties by his act. In 1539 Convocation, in answer to questions submitted by Cromwell, asserted that “priests, after the order of priesthood received, as afore, may not marry by the law of God,” * and the statement was embodied in the statute of the Six Articles (” the whip with six strings *’) of the same year. The “Bishops’ Book” of 1537 had passed over the subject in silence; but in the “King’s Book” of 1543 it was stated that the estate of matrimony ” is not commanded as necessary to any particular man, but left at liberty to all men, saving priests^ and to others, which of their free liberty, by vow advisedly made, have chosen the state of continency, who, according to their free

^ Freeman, vM supra.

choice, must freely and willingly continue in the same.” ^ Shortly afterwards, however, a change was made in the law on this matter. In 1547, soon after the accession of Edward vi., a large majority of the Convocation agreed to the following : ” That all such canons, laws, statutes, decrees, usages, and customs, heretofore made, had or used, that forbid any person to contract matrimony, or condemn matrimony already contracted by any person, for any vow or promise of priesthood, chastity, or widowhood, shall from henceforth cease, be utterly void, and of none effect.” ^ At the same time the statute of the Six Articles was repealed. Two years later, in 1549, any doubts as to the legality of the marriage of the clergy were set at rest by an Act of Parliament which repealed all the positive laws and canons which stood against it, and declared all to be free to marry, provided that it was according to the rites of the new Prayer Book ; ^ and in 1553, and again in 1563, the decision of the Church as to the freedom of the clergy to marry was embodied in the series of Articles. There is no need to pursue the subject further.* It is quite clear from what has been said above that there is no law of God which forbids the marriage of the clergy. Any prohibition of their right to marry which may be cited (and it has been shown that such can be quoted from comparatively early days) is merely a matter of ecclesiastical discipline, and belongs to those “traditions of the Church” which “may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s word ” (Art. XXXIV.). The experience of several

• Strype’s Cranmer, Bk. II. c. iv,

centuries had shown to our Eeformers the grave evils that flowed from the rigid rule which had been customary ; and they were perfectly justified in holding that the national Church was competent to settle the matter for herself, and that she was well within her rights in altering her rule.^

^ It may be added that the subject was considered at Trent in the twenty-fourth session (November 1563), when the following canon was passed: “Si quis dixerit Clericos in sacris ordinibus constitutes, vel Regulares, castitatem solemniter professos, posse matrimonium contrahere, contractumque validum esse, non obstante lege Ecclesiastica, vel voto, et oppositum nil aliiid esse, quam damnare matrimonium, posseque omnes contrahere matrimonium, qui non sentiunt se castitatis, etiam si earn voverint, habere donum, anathema sit: cum Deus id recte petentibus non deneget, nee patiatur nos supra id, quod possumus, tentari.” — Cone. Trid. Sess. xxiv. c. ix. According to this, any one who says that the clergy in holy orders can marry is to be anathema. This makes it very difficult for Rome ever to review her position, or for Roman ecclesiastics to hold any opinion favourable to a relaxation of their existing rule. See the Church Historical Lectures, Series i. p. 68.

Notes

• Confessio Augiistana, Pars II. art. ii. 2 Eef, Legum Ecdtsiast^ De Hares, c. 20.
• Socrates, H. E, I. c. xi. ; Sozomen, H. E. I. c. xxiii.
• Canon ii. Hefele, op. cit. p. 390.
• Socrates, H. E. V. c. xxii.
• Canon xiii. See Hefele, vol. v. p. 226. 2 See Wordsworth’s ffippolyttis, p. 91. ’ Canon xxv. See Hefele, vol. i. p. 488. ** Canon x. See Hefele, voL i. p. 210.
• Canon i. See Hefele, vol. i. p. 223.
• Canon iii. See Hefele, vol. ii. p. 429.
• Milman, Laiin CTiristianityf vol. iv. p. 31 : “Uxoratos sacerdotes a divino officio removit, et laicis missam eorum audire interdixit, novo exemplo, et (ut multis visum est) inconsiderato prejudicio contra sanctoram patrum sententiam,” etc. Sigeberht (Pertz, vol. vi. p. 362).
• See the horrible story told by Gascoygne in the fifteenth century, Liher Feritatis, p. 35 (ed. Rogers).
• See Strype’s Cranmer^ Bk. I. c. xviii.
• Wilkins, vol. iii. p. 845 ; cf. Dixon, ii. p. 133.
• Formularies of Faith, p. 293.
• 2 and 3 Edw. vi. c. 21 ; cf. Dixon, vol. iii. p. 6 scq.
• • Mention may be made of Elizabeth’s “Injunctions” of 1559, which require the clergy to obtain the bishop’s permission before marriage. — Cardwell’s Documentary Annals, vol. i. p. 224.