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CELIBACY (Lat. caelibatus, from caele...
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See also:CELIBACY (See also:Lat. caelibatus, from caelebs, unmarried) , the See also:state of being unmarried, a See also:term now commonly used in the sense of See also:complete See also:abstinence from See also:marriage; it originally included the state of widowhood also, and any one was strictly a caelebs who had no existing See also:spouse. Physicians and physiologists have frequently discussed celibacy from their professional point of view; but it will be sufficient to See also:note here the results of statistical inquiries. It has been established by the calculations of actuaries that married persons—women in a considerable, but men in a much greater degree—have at all periods of See also:life a greater See also:probability of living than the single. From the point of view of public utility, the state has sometimes attempted to discourage celibacy. The best-known enactment of this See also:kind is that of the See also:emperor See also:Augustus, best known as Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea. This disabled caelibes from receiving an See also:inheritance unless the testator were related to them within the See also:sixth degree; it limited the amount which a wife could take by a See also:husband's will, or the husband by the wife's, unless they had See also:children; and preference was given to candidates for See also:office in proportion to the number of their children.' Ecclesiastical legislators, on the other See also:hand, have frequently favoured the unmarried state; and celibacy, partial or complete, has been more or less stringently enforced upon the ministers of different religions; many instances are quoted by H. C. See also:Lea. The best known, of course, are the See also:Roman Vestals; though here even the See also:great honours and privileges accorded to these maidens were often insufficient to keep the ranks filled. In the See also:East, however, this and other forms of See also:asceticism have always flourished more freely; and the Buddhist monastic See also:system is not only far older than that of Christendom, but also proportionately more extensive? In See also:early Judaism, chastity was indeed enjoined upon the priests at certain See also:solemn seasons; but there was no See also:attempt to enforce celibacy upon the sacerdotal See also:caste. On the contrary, all priests were the sons of priests, and the See also:case of See also: But See also: Though these extremists were presently branded as heretics for their See also:eccentric ultra-ascetic tenets (Montanists, Cathari), yet as early as See also:Tertullian's time (c. A.D. 220) the right of second marriages was theoretically denied to the priesthood. This was logically followed by a. revival of the old Levitical rule which required that priests should marry none but virgins (Lev. xxi. 7, 13). Both these rules, how-ever, proved difficult of enforcement and seem to have rested only on a vague basis of public See also:opinion; twice-married men (digami) were admitted to the priesthood by See also:Pope See also:Calixtus I. (219-222), and even as See also:late as the beginning of the 5th century we find husbands of widows consecrated to the episcopate. The so-called See also:Apostolical Constitutions and Canons, the latter of which were compiled in the 4th century, give us the first clear and fairly See also:general rules on the subject. Here we find " bishops and priests allowed to retain the wives whom they may have had before ordination, but not to marry in orders; the See also:lower grades, deacons, subdeacons, &c., allowed to marry after entering the church; but all were to be husbands of but one wife, who must be neither a widow, a divorced woman nor a concubine " (Lea i. 28). Many causes, however, were already at work to carry public feeling beyond this See also:stage. Quite apart from the few enthusiasts who would have given a literal See also:interpretation to the See also:text in Matt. xix. 12, vows of virginity became more and more frequent as the virtue itself was lauded by ecclesiastical writers in See also:language of increasing fervour. These vows were at first purely voluntary and temporary; but public opinion naturally See also:grew less and less tolerant of those who, having once formed and published so solemn a See also:resolution, See also:broke it afterwards. Again not only was the church See also:doctrine itself more or less consciously influenced by the Manichaean tenet of the diabolical origin of all See also:matter, including the human body, but churchmen were also naturally tempted to compete in asceticism with the many heretics who held this tenet, and whose abstinence brought them so much popular See also:consideration. Moreover, in proportion as the See also:clergy, no longer See also:mere ringleaders of a despised and persecuted sect, became beneficiaries and administrators of See also:rich endowments—and this at a time when the See also:external safeguards against See also:embezzlement were comparatively weak—a strong feeling grew up among the laity that church revenues should not go to support the See also:priest's See also:family., Lastly, such partial attempts as we have already described to enforce upon the clergy a See also:special rule of continence, by their very failure, suggested more heroic See also:measures. Therefore, See also:side by side with the See also:evidence for difficult enforcement of the old rules, we find an equally See also:constant See also:series of new and more stringent enactments. The first church See also:council which definitely forbade marriage to the higher clergy was the See also:local See also:Spanish See also:synod of See also:Elvira (A.D. 305). A similar interpretation has sometimes been claimed for the third See also:canon of that general council of See also:Nicaea to which we 3I See also:Cor. vii. 25 sq., ix. 5; I Tim. iii. 2, II, 12; See also:Titus i. 6; E. Vacandard in Dict. de Thiol. Cath., s.v. " Celibat." ' This was a natural See also:argument for the defenders of clerical celibacy even in far later times. St See also:Bonaventura (d. 1274) puts this very strongly: " For if archbishops and bishops now had children, they would rob and See also:plunder all the goods of the Church so that little or nothing would be See also:left for the poor. For since they now heap upp See also:wealth and enrich nephews removed from them by almost incalculable degrees of See also:affinity, what would they do if they had legitimate children? ...Therefore the See also:Holy See also:Ghost in His See also:providence hath removed this stumbling-See also:block," &c. &c. (In Sent. See also:lib. iv. dist. See also:xxxvii See also:art. i. quaest. 3). owe the Nicene creed (325), but this is now abandoned by the best authorities on all sides. There can be no doubt, however, that the 4th century opened a wide See also:breach in this respect between the Eastern and Western churches. The modern Greek custom is " (a) that most candidates for Holy Orders are dismissed from the episcopal seminaries shortly before being ordained deacons, in See also:order that they may marry (their partners being in fact mostly daughters of clergymen), and after their marriage, return to the seminaries in order to take the higher orders; (b) that, as priests, they still continue the marriages thus contracted, but may not remarry on the See also:death of their wife; and (c) that the Greek bishops, who may not continue their married life, are commonly not chosen out of the ranks of the married See also:secular clergy, but from among the monks." 1 The Eastern Church, therefore, still adheres fairly closely to the rules laid down by the Apostolical Canons in the 4th century. In the See also:West, however, a decisive forward step was taken by Popes See also:Damasus and See also:Siricius during the last See also:quarter of that century. The famous decretal of Siricius (385) not only enjoined strict celibacy 'on bishops, priests and deacons, but insisted on the instant separation of those who had already married, and prescribed the See also:punishment of See also:expulsion for disobedience (Siric. Ep. i. c. 7; See also:Migne, P.L. xiii. See also:col. 1138). Although we find Siricius a See also:year later See also:writing to the See also:African Church on this same subject in tones rather of persuasion than of command, yet the beginning of compulsory sacerdotal celibacy in the Western Church may be conveniently dated from his decretal of A.D. 385. See also:Leo the Great (d. 461) and See also:Gregory the Great (d. 604) further extended the rule of celibacy to subdeacons. For the next three or four centuries there is little to note but the continual evidence of open or See also:secret resistance to these decrees, and the parallel frequency and stringency of ecclesiastical legislation, which by its very monotony bears See also:witness to its own want of success. At least seven episcopal constitutions of the :8th and 9th centuries forbade the priesj: to have even his See also:mother or his See also:sister in the See also:house.' Nor did the only difficulty See also:lie in such secret breaches of the See also:law; in many districts the priesthood tended to become a mere hereditary caste, to the disadvantage of church and state alike. In See also:northern and See also:southern See also:Italy public clerical marriages were extremely frequent, whether with or without See also:regular forms.3 The see of See also:Rouen was held for more than a century (442–1054) by three successive bishops who were family men and two of whom were openly married.4 In See also:England St See also:Swithun (d. 862) was married, though very likely by special papal See also:dispensation; and the married clergy were apparently predominant in See also:Alfred's time. In spite of See also:Dunstan's reforms at the end of the loth century, the See also:Norman See also:Lanfranc found so many wedded priests that he dared not See also:decree their separation; and when his successor St See also:Anselm attempted to go further, this seemed a perilous novelty even to so distinguished an ecclesiastic as See also: 5 (Migne, P.L. cxxxvi. col. 585). Gulielmus Apulus writes of southern Italy in 1059: "In these parts priests, deacons and the whole clergy were publicly married" (De Normann. lib. ii.). 4 Dom Pommeraye, S. Roiemag. Eccl. See also:Comilla, pp. 56, 65; cf. similar instances on O. 315 of Dr A. Dreedner's Kultur-und Sittengeschichte d..italienischen Geistlichkeit in: io. and ii. Jhdt. (See also:Breslau, 1890)meets as hereditary fiefs, their consequent worldliness and (it must be added) , their vices, aroused the indignation of two very remarkable men in the latter See also:half of the rith century. St Pietro See also:Damiani (988–1072) was a See also:scholar, See also:hermit and re-former, who did more perhaps than any. one else to combat the open marriages of the clergy. He complained that exhdrtation was wasted even on the bishops, "because they despair of attaining to the See also:pinnacle of chastity, and have no fear of condemnation in open synod for the See also:vice of lechery. . If this evil were secret [he adds], it might perhaps be See also:borne." 8 His See also:Liber Gomorrhianus, addressed to and approved by St Leo IX., is sufficient in itself to explain the vehemence of his crusade, though it emphasizes even more strongly the ilnpolicyof proceeding more severely against. the open marriages of the clergy than against,See also:concubinage and other less public vices.6 Damiani found a powerful ally in the equally ascetic but far more imperious and statesmanlike See also:Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. Under the See also:influence of these two men, five successive popes between 1045 and 1073 attempted a See also:radical reform; and when, in this latter year, Hildebrand himself became pope, he took measures so stringent that he has sometimes been erroneously represented not merely as the most uncompromising See also:champion, but actually as the author of the strict rule of celibacy for all clerics in sacred orders. His mind, strongly imbued with the theocratic ideal, saw more clearly than any other the enormous increase of influence which would accrue to a strictly celibate body of clergy, separated by their very ordination from the strongest earthly ties; and no statesman has ever pursued with greater See also:energy and resolution a See also:plan once formulated. In order to break down the desperate, and in many places organized, resistance of the clergy, he did not shrink from the perilous course, so contrary to his general policy, of subjecting them to the See also:judgment of the laity. Not only were concubinary priests-a term which was now made to include also those who had openly married—forbidden to serve at the See also:altar and threatened with actual deposition in cases of See also:contumacy, but the laity were warned against attending See also:mass said by " any priest certainly known to keep a concubine or subintroducta."7
But these heroic measures soon caused serious embarrassment. If the laity were to stand aloof from all incontinent priests, while (as the most orthodox churchmen constantly complained) many priests were still incontinent, then this could only result in estranging large bodies of the laity from the sacraments of the church. It became necessary, therefore, to soften a policy which to the See also:lay mind might imply that the virtue of a See also:sacrament was weakened by the vices of its ministers; and, whereas See also:Peter Lombard (d. r 16o) concludes that no excommunicated priest can effect See also:transubstantiation, St See also: The See also:saint's evidence is carefully weighed by Dresdner. (l.c.), especially on pp. 309 if. and 321 if. 6 Even Pope See also:Innocent III: ivas compelled to decide that priests who had kept two or more concubines, successively or simultaneously, djd not thereby incur the disabilities which attended digamists; or, in other words, that a layman who had contracted two lawful marriages and then proceeded to ordination on the death of his second wife, could be absolved only by the pope; whereas the concubinary priest, " as a See also:man branded with See also:simple fornication," might; receive a valid dispensation from his own bishop (See also:Letter to archbishop of See also:Lund in 1212. Regest. lib. xvi. ep. 118; M~gne, P.L. ccxvi. col. 914). As the great canonist See also:Gratian remarked on a similar decretal of Pope See also:Pelagius, " Here is a case where lechery has more rights at law than has chastity " (Decret. p. i. dist. xxxiv. c. vii. note a). ' The actual originator of this policy was See also:Nicholas II., probably at Hildebrand's See also:suggestion; but the decree remained practically a dead letter until Gregory's See also:accession. 4 Peter Lombard, Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 13; Aquinas, Summa Theol. pars iii. Q. lxxxii . art. 7, 9. adjudged themto actual See also:slavery.' Such enactments naturally defeated their own purpose: More was done by the gentler missionary zeal of the See also:Franciscans and See also:Dominicans in the early 13th century; but St Thomas Aquinas had seen half a century of that reform and =lad recognized its limitations; he therefore attenuated as much as possible the decree of Nicholas II. His contemporary St Bonaventura complained publicly that he himself and his See also:fellow-friars were often compelled to hold their See also:tongues about the evil clergy; partly because, even if one were expelled, another equally worthless would probably take his See also:place, but " perhaps principally lest, if the people altogether lost faith in the clergy, heretics should arise and draw the people to themselves as See also:sheep that have no shepherd, and make heretics of them, boasting that, as it were by our own testimony, the clergy were so vile that none need obey them or care for their teaching." 2 In other passages of his See also:works St Bonaventura tells us plainly how little had as yet been gained by suppressing clerical marriages; and the evidence of orthodox and distinguished churchmen for the next three centuries is equally decisive. See also:Alvarez Pelayo, a Spanish bishop and papal See also:penitentiary, wrote in 1332, " The clergy See also:sin commonly in these following ways . . . fourthly, in that they live very incontinently, and would that they had never promised continence ! especially in See also:Spain and southern Italy, in which provinces the sons of the laity are scarcely more numerous than those of the clergy." See also:Cardinal See also:Pierre d'See also:Ailly pleaded before the council of See also:Constance in 1415 for the reform of " that most scandalous custom, or rather abuse, whereby many [clergy] fear not to keep concubines in public." 3 Meanwhile, . as has been said above, the custom of open marriage among clergy in holy orders (priests, deacons and subdeacons) was gradually stamped out. A series of synods, from the early i 2th century onwards, declared such marriages to be not only unlawful, but null and void in themselves. Yet the custom lingered sporadically in See also:Germany and England until the last few years of the 13th century, though it seems to have died out earlier in See also:France and Italy. There was also a See also:short-lived attempt to declare that even a clerk in lower orders should lose his clerical privileges on his marriage; but See also:Boniface VIII. in 1300 definitely permitted such marriages under the already-quoted conditions of the Apostolic Canons; in these cases, however, a bishop's See also:licence was required to enable the cleric to officiate in church, and the episcopal registers show that the diocesans frequently insisted on the celibacy of See also:parish-clerks. As the middle ages See also:drew to a See also:close, See also:earnest churchmen were compelled to ask themselves whether it would not be better to let the priests marry than, to continue a system under which concubinage was even licensed in some districts.' Serious proposals were made to reintroduce clerical marriage at the great 1 Labbe-Mansi, Conei ia, vol. xix. col. 796 and xx. col. 724. Dr Lea is probably right in suggesting that it was a confused recollection of ,these decrees which prompted one of See also:Cranmer's See also:judges to assure him that his children were bondmen to the see of See also:Canterbury. See also:Strype, Memorials of Cranmer,bk iii. c. 28 (ed. 1812, vol. i. p. 6o1). Bonaventura, Libell. Apologet. quaest. i.; cf. his parallel See also:treatise Quare Fratres Minores praedscent. The first visitation of his friend See also:Odo Rigaldi, archbishop of Rouen, shows that about 15 % of the parish clergy in that, See also:diocese were notoriously incontinent (Regestrum Vzsitationum, ed. Bonnin, Rouen, 1852, pp. 17 ff.). Vacandard ('loc. cit. p. 2087) appeals rather misleadingly to this See also:record as proving the progress made during the half-century before See also:Ode's time. It is probable that there were many more offenders than these 15 % known to the archbishop. Alvarus Pelagius, De Planctu Ecclesiae, ed. 1517, f. 13ra, col. 2; cf. f. Loeb, col. 2 ;.See also:Hermann von der See also:Hardt, Constantiensis Concilii, &c. vol. i. pars. viii. col. 428.
This more or less regular See also:sale of licences by bishops and See also:arch-deacons flourished from the days of Gregory VII. to the 16th century; see See also:index to Lea, s.v. "Licences." Dr Lea has, however, omitted the most striking authority of all. See also:Gascoigne, the most distinguished See also:Oxford See also:chancellor of his See also:day, writing about 1450 of See also: 36). Even See also:Sir Thomas More, inhis polemic against the Reformers, admitted that this concubinage was too often tolerated in See also:Wales (English Works, ed. 1557, p. 231, cf. 619).reforming councils of Constance (1415). and See also:Basel (1432); but the overwhelming See also:majority of orthodox churchmen were unwilling to abandon a rule for which the See also:saints had fought during so many centuries, , and to which many of them probably attributed an apostolic origin.b This conservative attitude was inevitably strengthened by the attacks first of Lollard and then, of Lutheran heretics; and Sir Thomas More was driven to . declare, in See also:answer to See also:Tyndale, that the marriage of priests, being essentially null and void, " defileth the priest more than See also:double or See also:treble whoredom." It is well known that this became one of the most violently disputed questions at the See also:Reformation, and that for eight years it was See also:felony in England to defend sacerdotal marriage as permissible by the law of See also:God (See also:Statute of the Six Articles, 31 See also:Hen. VIII. c. 14). The diversity of practice on this point drew one of the sharpest lines between reformers and orthodox, until the disorders introduced by these religious See also:wars tempted the latter to imitate in considerable See also:numbers the licence of their rivals.s This moved the emperor See also: The working of the system in modern times is perhaps too controversial a question to be discussed here; but one or two points may be noted on which all fairly well informed writers would probably agree. It can scarcely be denied that the Roman Catholic clergy have always owed much of their influence to their celibacy, and that in many cases this influence has been most justly earned by the celibate's devotion to an unworldly ideal. Again, the most adverse critics would admit that much was done by the See also:counter-Reformation, and that modern ecclesiastical discipline on this point is considerably See also:superior to that of the middle ages; while, on the other hand, many authorities of undoubted orthodoxy are ready to confess that it is not See also:free from serious risks even in these days of easy publicity and stringent See also:civil discipline.? Lastly, statistical See also:research has shown that the children of the married See also:British clergy have been distinguished far beyond their mere numerical proportion.8 5 One of Dr Lea's few serious mistakes is his See also:acceptance of the See also:spurious pamphlet in favour of priestly marriage which was attributed in the 11th century to St See also:Ulrich of Augsburg (i. 171). 6 See also:Janssen, Ceschr d. deutschen Volkes, 13th ed., vol. viii. pp. 423, 4 9; 434; Lea ii. 195, 204 if. 7 Lea (ii. 339 ff.) gives a See also:long series of quotations to this effect from church synods and orthodox disciplinary writers of modern times. 8 See also:Havelock See also:Ellis, A Study of British See also:Genius (London, 1904, p. 8o), " Even if we compare the church with the other professions with which it is most usually classed, we find that the eminent children of the clergy considerably outnumber those of lawyers, doctors and See also:army See also:officers put together." Mr Ellis points out, however, that " the clerical profession . . . also produces more idiots than any other class." conclusions are set aside by the See also:abbe E. Vacandard in his contribution to the Dictionnaire de theologie catholsgue (vol. ii. art. " Celibat ecclesiastique "). (G. G. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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