CELIBACY 



45 



tin- liNio]. is told he must ! the husband of 

 OIK- wife, and rule his household and his children 

 well; and 'forbidding to marry' is reckoned 

 among the 'doctrine* of devils." But a remote 

 sanction for the later discipline ha- been sought 

 for in the regulations or the Jewish priest- 

 hood. The Mosaic law forbade priests to marry 

 ilivorred women or liarlots, and enjoined continence 

 ii|ion all when preparing to oiler sacrifice. Jerome 

 argues tliat the Christian priest should otter sacrifice 

 il.iilv, and should therefore be perpetually con- 

 tinent; and Pope Siricius (385 A.D.) insists that 

 marriage was permitted to the priest of the old law 

 inly l>tvanse the sacerdotal order was then limited 

 to the tribe of Levi, but now that the tribal restric- 

 tion is removed, the license is abrogated also. 



The ecclesiastical legislation on celibacy was de- 

 veloped gradually and unequally in the several 

 parts of the church. In the 2d century it became a 

 pious custom to make vows of chastity, and it was 

 thought becoming in the higher clergy to renounce 

 matrimony; and although there are examples of 

 bishops and priests in the first three centuries living 

 with their wives and begetting children, it has been 

 confidently asserted that no instance can be quoted 

 of a marriage contracted at this period after ordina- 

 tion. The obligations of the marriage contract 

 were, however, considered sacred ; and the Apostolic 

 Canons impose the penalty of deposition on bishop, 

 priest, or deacon, who should separate from his wire 

 ' under the pretence of piety. ' At the end of the 

 3d and beginning of the 4th century, marriage after 

 ordination was prohibited by formal legislation. A 

 further and important step was taken in the year 

 305 by the Spanish council of Elvira, which decreed 

 that sacred ministers who were already married, 

 should live in continence. At the Council of Nicaea 

 an attempt was made to impose this new rule upon 

 the whole church, but it was frustrated by the 

 opposition of a venerable monk, Paphnutius, him- 

 self a celibate ; and the law to this day has never 

 been accepted in the Eastern Church. In the West, 

 however, a series of synodal enactments and papal 

 decrees established or renewed the more rigorous 

 rule. But in no matter of ecclesiastical discipline 

 must the distinction between theory and practice 

 be more carefully observed. The clergy everywhere 

 resisted the law, and resisted with considerable 

 success. St Patrick, who tells us that his father 

 and grandfather were in holy orders, when laying 

 down rules in one of his Irish synods for the con- 

 duct of his clergy, directs that ' their wives should 

 keep their heads covered.' In the province -of 

 Milan, indeed, the marriage of priests continued to 

 be perfectly legal. Discipline and usage varied in 

 different countries, but it may be safely said that 

 for many centuries the celibacy of the uncloistered 

 clergy was little more than a pious fiction, until 

 Hildebrand, afterwards Gregory VII., by his great 

 influence and vigorous measures, secured a more 

 strict observance of the rule. 



From the 12th century (first and second Lateran 

 Councils ) a great change took place in ecclesiastical 

 law. The marriage of priests was now declared to 

 be not only sinful but invalid. It became hence- 

 forward difficult for any priest to justify his mar- 

 riage on the plea that the prohibition of such 

 marriage was abrogated by custom, or not bind- 

 ing under supposed exceptional circumstances. 

 The clerical consorts became no longer wives but 

 concubines ; and, further, the priest who went 

 through the marriage ceremony was held to commit 

 a far greater crime than if he had contented himself 

 with simple fornication. Yet in spite of all this 

 the law was to a large extent set at defiance. In 

 many parts of Europe it was a common thing for 

 benefices to pass from father to son. Influential 

 bishops obtained letters of legitimation for their 



children, and provided for them out of the property 

 of the church. Avaricious princes and prelate** 

 made traffic of the concubinage of the lower clergy 

 by levying a species of blackmail, under the name 

 of fines, on the tacit understanding that the focaria, 

 or occupant of the priest's hearth, should not be 

 disturbed. At the time of the Council of Trent, 

 the Emperor Charles, in the expectation that Home 

 relaxation would be made in the lawn on the sub- 

 ject, permitted in 1548, by the arrangement known 

 as the Interim, married priests to retain their wives 

 until the council should come to a decision. The 

 Emperor Ferdinand a little later ( 1562) urged ni.on 

 the same council the abrogation of celibacy. But 

 the Catholic reaction was too strong, and the 

 council in November 1563 pronounced, ' If any one 

 shall say that clerks constituted in holy orders, or 

 regulars who have solemnly professed chastity, are 

 able to contract matrimony, or that, being con- 

 tracted, such matrimony is valid ... let him be 

 anathema. ' 



It should be observed, however, that in the United 

 Greek Church Rome tolerates a married clergy 

 i.e. a man already married may be ordained pnest, 

 and continue to' live with his wife, though con- 

 tinence is imposed upon him at certain times. It is 

 the custom for the young candidate for orders to 

 leave the seminary for a while to get a wife, and 

 then return for ordination. If he should become 

 a widower, he cannot of course marry again, and 

 no married priest can be made a bishop. The 

 bishops are therefore, as a rule, taken from the 

 monasteries. 



Since the Council of Trent, the observance of 

 celibacy has been comparatively well maintained. 

 This is especially true of those countries where the 

 Catholic community is mixed with or surrounded 

 by Protestant neighbours, and watched by a vigi- 

 lant press. Away from the high-roads of civilisa- 

 tion, in Mexico, Brazil, and other parts, concubinage 

 has again become the rule, less openly perhaps, but 

 quite as obstinately as in the miadle ages. 



The moral loss or gain to the church from her dis- 

 cipline in this matter is a question of controversy 

 which from time to time has been raised within her 

 own communion. But the attention paid by biolo- 

 gists to the hereditary transmission of human 

 faculties and dispositions has recently exhibited 

 the effects of celibacy in a new light. Mr Galton 

 has remarked that the Roman Church has acted 

 as if she ' aimed at selecting the rudest por- 

 tion of the community to be alone the parent of 

 future generations. ' The policy which attracts men 

 and women of gentle natures fitted for deeds of 

 charity, meditation, or study to the unfruitful life 

 of the cloister and the priesthood, appears from 

 this point of view to be ' singularly unwise and 

 suicidal,' tending, as it must, though by impercep- 

 tible degrees, to the deterioration of the race. To 

 the enforcing of this discipline in Spain, for ex- 

 ample (coupled with the cutting off of independent 

 thinkers by the Inquisition ), Mr Galton attributes 

 much of the decadence of the country during the 

 last three centuries. In France, where the most 

 promising lads of the village are successively picked 

 out by the parish priest for the bishop's seminary, 

 the process of elimination must in the long run tell 

 upon the general character of the population. In 

 small Catholic communities, again, where the 

 priestly vocation is held in high esteem by the 

 educated classes, and where mixed marriages are 

 discountenanced, a similar result cannot fail to 

 occur. The controversial literature on the matter 

 is abundant. The most complete treatment of the 

 subject, from the historical point of view, will be 

 found in Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian 

 Church, by Henry C. Lea (Philadelphia, 1867). 

 See also MONACHISM. 



