[1] The second syllable is accented.
CELERY (_Apium graveolens_), a biennial plant belonging to the natural
order Umbelliferae, which, in its wild state, occurs in England by the
sides of ditches and in marshy places, especially near the sea,
producing a furrowed stalk and compound leaves with wedge-shaped
leaflets, the whole plant having a coarse, rank taste and a peculiar
smell. It is also widely distributed in the north temperate region of
the Old World. By cultivation and blanching the stalks lose their acrid
qualities and assume the mild sweetish aromatic taste peculiar to celery
as a salad plant. The plants are raised from seed, sown either in a hot
bed or in the open garden, according to the season of the year, and
after one or two thinnings out and transplantings, they are, on
attaining a height of 6 or 8 in., planted out in deep trenches for
convenience of blanching, which is effected by earthing up and so
excluding the stems from the influence of light. A large number of
varieties are cultivated by gardeners, which are ranged under two
classes, white and red,--the white varieties being generally the best
flavoured and most crisp and tender. As a salad plant, celery,
especially if at all "stringy," is difficult of digestion. Both blanched
and green it is stewed and used in soups, the seeds also being used as a
flavouring ingredient. In the south of Europe celery is seldom blanched,
but is much used in its natural condition.
_Celeriac_, or turnip-rooted celery (_Apium graveolens_ var.
_rapaceum_), is a variety cultivated more on account of its roots than
for the stalks, although both are edible and are used for salads and in
soups. It is chiefly grown in the north of Europe. As the tops are not
required, trenching is unnecessary, otherwise the cultivation is the
same as for celery.
CELESTE, MADAME (1815-1882), French dancer and actress, was born in
Paris on the 16th of August 1815. As a little girl she was a pupil in
the ballet class at the Opera. When fifteen, she had an offer from the
United States, and made her debut at the Bowery theatre, New York.
Returning to England, she appeared at Liverpool as Fenella in
_Masaniello_, and also in London (1831). In 1834 she aroused such
enthusiasm in America that her admirers carried her on their shoulders
and took the horses out of her carriage in order to pull it themselves.
It is even said that President Jackson introduced her to his cabinet as
an adopted citizen of the Union. Having made a large fortune, she
returned to England in 1837. She now gave up dancing, and appeared as an
actress, first at Drury Lane and then at the Haymarket. In 1844 she
joined Benjamin Webster in the management of the Adelphi, and afterwards
took the sole management of the Lyceum till 1861. She made a third
visit to the United States from 1865 to 1868, and retired in 1870. Her
favourite part was Miami in Buckstone's _Green Bushes_. She died in
Paris on the 12th of February 1882.
CELESTINA, LA, the popular alternative title attached from 1519 (or
earlier) to the anonymous _Comedia de Caliste y Melibea_, a Spanish
novel in dialogue which was celebrated throughout Europe during the 16th
century. In the two earliest known editions (Burgos, 1499, and Seville,
1501) the _Comedia_ consists of sixteen acts; the reprints issued after
1501 are entitled _Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_, and contain
twenty-one acts. Three of these reprints include a twenty-second act
which is admittedly spurious, and the authenticity of Acts XVII.-XXI. is
disputed. The authorship of the _Celestina_ and the date of its
composition are doubtful. An anonymous prefatory letter in the editions
subsequent to 1501 attributes the book to Juan de Mena or Rodrigo Cota,
but this ascription is universally rejected. The prevailing opinion is
that the author of the twenty-one acts was Fernando de Rojas, apparently
a Spanish Jew resident at the Puebla de Montalban in the province of
Toledo; R. Foulche-Delbose, however, maintains that the original sixteen
acts are by an unknown writer who had no part in the five supplementary
acts. Some scholars give 1483 as the date of composition; others hold
that the book was written in 1497. These questions are still unsettled.
Though profoundly original in treatment, the _Celestina_ has points of
analogy with the work of earlier writers, such as Juan Ruiz (q.v.), the
archpriest of Hita; his rapid sketches of Trota-conventas, Melon and
Endrina no doubt suggested the finished portraits of Celestina, Calisto
and Melibea, and the closing scene in the _Celestina_ recalls the
suicide in Diego Fernandez de San Pedro's _Carcel de Amor_. Allowing for
these and other debts of the same kind, it cannot be denied that the
_Celestina_ excels all earlier Spanish works in tragic force, in
impressive conception, and in the realistic rendering of characters
drawn from all classes of society. It passed through innumerable
editions in Spain, and was the first Spanish book to find acceptance
throughout western Europe. At least twenty works by well-known Spanish
authors are derived from it; it was adapted for the English stage as
early as 1525-1530, and was translated into Italian (1505), French
(1527) and other European languages. A Latin version by Caspar Barth was
issued under the title of _Pornoboscodidascalus latinus_ (1624) with all
the critical apparatus of a recognized classic. James Mabbe's English
rendering (1631) is one of the best translations ever published. The
original edition of 1499 has been reprinted by R. Foulche-Delbose in the
_Bibliotheca Hispanica_ (1902), vol. xii.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--R. Foulche-Delbose, "Observations sur la Celestine" in
the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, 1900), vol. vii. pp. 28-80 and (Paris.
1902) vol. ix. pp. 171-199; K. Haebler, "Bemerkungen zur Celestina" in
the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, 1902), vol. ix. pp. 139-170; and M.
Menendez y Pelayo's introduction to the _Celestina_ (Vigo, 1899-1900)
(J. F.-K.)
CELESTINE (CAELESTINUS), the name of five popes.
CELESTINE I., pope from 422 to 432. At his accession the dissensions
caused by the faction of Eulalius (see BONIFACE I.) had not yet abated.
He, however, triumphed over them, and his episcopate was peaceful. When
the doctrines of Nestorius were denounced to him, he instructed Cyril,
bishop of Alexandria, to follow up the matter. The emperor Theodosius
II. convoked an ecumenical council at Ephesus, to which Celestine sent
his legates. He had some difficulties with the bishops in Africa on the
question of appeals to Rome, and with the bishops of Provence with
regard to the doctrines of St Augustine. To expedite the extirpation of
Pelagianism, he sent to Britain a deacon called Palladius, at whose
instigation St Germanus of Auxerre crossed the English Channel, as
delegate of the pope and bishops of Gaul, to inculcate orthodox
principles upon the clergy of Britain. He also commissioned Palladius to
preach the gospel in Ireland which was beginning to rally to
Christianity. Celestine was the first pope who is known to have taken a
direct interest in the churches of Britain and Ireland. (L. D.*)
CELESTINE II., pope in 1143-1144. Guido of Citta di Castello (Tiferno),
born of noble Tuscan family, able and learned, studied under Abelard
and became a cardinal priest. Elected the successor of Innocent II. on
the 26th of September 1143, he died on the 8th of March following. He
removed the interdict which Innocent had employed against Louis VII. of
France. At the time of his death he was on the verge of a controversy
with Roger of Sicily.
See A. Certini, _Vita_ (Foligno, 1716); M. Bouquet, _Recueil des
historiens des Gaules_ (Paris, 1738 ff.), tome 15, 408-411; Migne,
_Patrologiae cursus completus_, 179, 765-820; P. Jaffe, _Regesta
Pontificum Romanorum_, 2nd ed. vol. ii. (Lipsiae, 1888), 1 ff.; Wetzer
und Welte, _Kirchenlexikon_, 2nd ed. vol. iii. (Freiburg, 1884), 578
ff.; Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_, 3rd ed. vol. iv. (Leipzig,
1898), 201.
CELESTINE III. (Giacinto Bobo), pope from 1191 to 1198, was cardinal
deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin as early as 1144, and had reached the
age of eighty-five when chosen on the 30th of March 1191 to succeed
Clement III. The first pope of the house of the Orsini, his policy was
marked by mildness and indecision. Henry VI. of Germany at once forced
the pontiff to crown him emperor, and three or four years later took
possession of the Norman kingdom of Sicily; he refused tribute and the
oath of allegiance, and even appointed bishops subject to his own
jurisdiction; moreover, he gave his brother in fief the estates which
had belonged to the countess Matilda of Tuscany. Celestine did not dare
so much as to threaten him with excommunication. It was Celestine's
purpose to lay England under the interdict; but Prince John and the
barons still refused to recognize the papal legate, the bishop of Ely.
Richard I. had been set free before the dilatory pope put Leopold of
Austria under the ban. In his last sickness Celestine wished to resign
his office, but the cardinals protested. Death released him from his
perplexities on the 8th of January 1198.
See "Epistolae Coelestini III. Papae," in M. Bouquet, _Receuil des
historiens des Gaules et de la France_, tome 19 (Paris, 1738 ff.);
J.P. Migne, _Patrologiae cursus completus_, tome 206 (Paris, 1855),
867 ff.; further sources in _Neues Archiv fur die altere deutsche
Geschichtskunde_, 2. 218; 11. 398 f.; 12.411-414; P. Jaffe, _Regesta
Pontificum Romanorum_, vol. ii. (2nd ed.. Leipzig, 1888), 577 ff.
(W. W. R.*)
CELESTINE IV. (Godfrey Castiglione), pope in 1241, son of a sister of
Urban III. (1185-1187), was archpriest and chancellor at Milan. After
Urban's death he entered the Cistercian monastery at Hautecombe in
Savoy. In 1227 Gregory IX. created him cardinal priest of St Mark's, and
in 1233 made him cardinal bishop of Sabina. Elected to succeed Gregory
on the 25th of October 1241, he died on the 10th of November, before
consecration, and was buried in St Peter's.
See A. Potthast, _Regesta Pontificum Romanorum_, vol. i. (Berlin,
1874), 940 f.
CELESTINE V. (St Peter Celestine), pope in 1294, was born of poor
parents at Isernia about 1215, and early entered the Benedictine order.
Living as a hermit on Monte Morrone near Sulmone in the Abruzzi, he
attracted other ascetics about him and organized them into a
congregation of the Benedictines which was later called the Celestines
(q.v.). The assistance of a vicar enabled him to escape from the growing
administrative cares and devote himself solely to asceticism, apparently
the only field of human activity in which he excelled. His _Opuscula_,
published by Telera at Naples in 1640, are probably not genuine; he was
_indoctus libris_. A fight between the Colonna and the Orsini, as well
as hopeless dissensions among the cardinals, prevented a papal election
for two years and three months after the death of Nicholas IV. Charles
II. of Naples, needing a pope in order that he might regain Sicily,
brought about a conclave. As the election of any cardinal seemed
impossible, on the 5th of July 1294 the Sacred College united on Pietro
di Morrone; the cardinals expected to rule in the name of the celebrated
but incapable ascetic. Apocalyptic notions then current doubtless aided
his election, for Joachim of Floris and his school looked to monasticism
to furnish deliverance to the church and to the world. Multitudes came
to Celestine's coronation at Aquila, and he began his reign the idol of
visionaries, of extremists and of the populace. But the pope was in the
power of Charles II. of Naples, and became his tool against Aragon. The
king's son Louis, a layman of twenty-one, was made archbishop of Lyons.
The cardinals, scarcely consulted at all, were discontented. The pope,
who wanted more time for his devotions, offered to leave three cardinals
in charge of affairs; but his proposition was rejected. He then wished
to abdicate, and at length Benedetto Gaetano, destined to succeed him as
Boniface VIII., removed all scruples against this unheard-of procedure
by finding a precedent in the case of Clement I. Celestine abdicated on
the 13th of December 1294. There is no sufficient ground for finding an
allusion to this act in the noted line of Dante, "Che fece per viltate
il gran rifiuto" ("who made from cowardice the great refusal,"
_Inferno_, 3, 60). Boniface at length put him in prison for safe
keeping; he died in a monastic cell in the castle of Fumone near Anagni
on the 19th of May 1296. He was canonized by Clement V. in 1313.
See Wetzer und Welte and Herzog-Hauck (with excellent bibliography) as
above; Jean Aurelien, Superieur de la Congregation des Celestins, _La
Vie admirable de ... Saint Pierre Celestin_ (Bar-le-Duc, 1873); H.
Finke, _Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII._ (Munster, 1902), pp. 24-43.
(W. W. R.*)
CELESTINE, or CELESTITE, a name applied to native strontium sulphate
(SrSO4), having been suggested by the celestial blue colour which it
occasionally presents. This colour has been referred to a trace of iron
phosphate, but in some cases such an explanation appears doubtful. The
mineral is usually colourless, or has only a delicate shade of blue.
Celestine crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, being isomorphous
with barytes (q.v.). The angle between the prism faces is 76 deg. 17'.
The cleavage is perfect parallel to the basal pinacoid, and less marked
parallel to the prism. Although celestine much resembles barytes in its
physical properties, having for example the same degree of hardness (3),
it is less dense, its specific gravity being 3.9. Celestine is a less
abundant mineral than barytes. It is, however, much more soluble, and
occurs frequently in mineral waters. W.W. Stoddart showed that many
plants growing on Keuper marls containing celestine near Bristol
appropriated the strontium salt, and the metal could be detected
spectroscopically in their ashes.
Celestine occurs in the Triassic rocks of Britain, especially in veins
and geodes in the Keuper marl in the neighbourhood of Bristol. At
Wickwar and Yate in Gloucestershire it is worked for industrial
purposes. Colourless crystals, of great beauty, occur in association
with calcite and native sulphur in the sulphur deposits of Sicily, as at
Girgenti. Fine blue crystals are yielded by the copper mines of
Herrengrund, in Hungary; a dark blue fibrous form is known from Jena;
and small crystals occur in flint at Meudon near Paris. Very large
tabular crystals are found in limestone on Strontian Island in Lake
Erie; and a blue fibrous variety from near Frankstown, Blair Co., Penn.,
is notable as having been the original celestine on which the species
was founded by A.G. Werner in 1798.
Celestine is much used for the preparation of strontium hydrate, which
is employed in refining beetroot sugar in Germany. The mineral is used
also as a source of various salts of strontium such as the nitrate,
which finds application in pyrotechny for the production of red fire.
(F. W. R.*)
CELESTINES, a religious order founded about 1260 by Peter of Morrone,
afterwards Pope Celestine V. (1294). It was an attempt to unite the
eremitical and cenobitical modes of life. Peter's first disciples lived
as hermits on Mount Majella in the Abruzzi. The Benedictine rule was
taken as the basis of the life, but was supplemented by regulations
notably increasing the austerities practised. The form of government was
borrowed largely from those prevailing in the mendicant orders. Indeed,
though the Celestines are reckoned as a branch of the Benedictines,
there is little in common between them. For all that, St Celestine,
during his brief tenure of the papacy, tried to spread his ideas among
the Benedictines, and induced the monks of Monte Cassino to adopt his
idea of the monastic life instead of St Benedict's; for this purpose
fifty Celestine monks were introduced into Monte Cassino, but on
Celestine's abdication of the papacy the project fortunately was at once
abandoned. During the founder's lifetime the order spread rapidly, and
eventually there were about 150 monasteries in Italy, and others in
France, Bohemia and the Netherlands. The French houses, twenty-one in
number, formed a separate congregation, the head-house being in Paris.
The French Revolution and those of the 19th century destroyed their
houses, and the Celestine order seems no longer to exist.
Peter of Morrone was in close contact with the Franciscan Spirituals of
the extreme type (see FRANCISCANS), and he endeavoured to form an
amalgamation between them and his hermits, under the title "Poor Hermits
of Celestine." On his abdication the amalgamation was dissolved, and the
Franciscan element fled to the East and was finally suppressed by
Boniface VIII. and compelled to re-enter the Franciscan order. The habit
of the Celestines was black.
See Helyot, _Histoire des ordres religieux_ (1792), vi. c. 23; Max
Heimbucher, _Orden und Kongregationen_ (1896), i. S 22, p. 134; the
art. "Colestiner" in Wetzer und Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_ (ed. 2), and
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (ed. 3). (E. C. B.)
CELIBACY (Lat. _caelibatus_, from _caelebs_, unmarried), the state of
being unmarried, a term now commonly used in the sense of complete
abstinence from marriage; it originally included the state of widowhood
also, and any one was strictly a _caelebs_ who had no existing spouse.
Physicians and physiologists have frequently discussed celibacy from
their professional point of view; but it will be sufficient to 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 life a greater
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 kind is that of the emperor Augustus, best
known as _Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea_. This disabled _caelibes_ from
receiving an inheritance unless the testator were related to them within
the sixth degree; it limited the amount which a wife could take by a
husband's will, or the husband by the wife's, unless they had children;
and preference was given to candidates for office in proportion to the
number of their children.[1] Ecclesiastical legislators, on the other
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. Lea.
The best known, of course, are the Roman Vestals; though here even the
great honours and privileges accorded to these maidens were often
insufficient to keep the ranks filled. In the East, however, this and
other forms of asceticism have always flourished more freely; and the
Buddhist monastic system is not only far older than that of Christendom,
but also proportionately more extensive.[2] In early Judaism, chastity
was indeed enjoined upon the priests at certain solemn seasons; but
there was no attempt to enforce celibacy upon the sacerdotal caste. On
the contrary, all priests were the sons of priests, and the case of
Elizabeth shows that here, as throughout the Jewish people, barrenness
was considered a disgrace. But Alexander's conquests brought the Jews
into contact with Hindu and Greek mysticism; and this probably explains
the growth of the ascetic Essenes some two centuries before the
Christian era. The adherents of this sect, unlike the Pharisees and
Sadducees, were never denounced by Christ, who seems on the contrary to
have had real sympathy with the voluntary celibacy of an exceptional few
(Matt. xix. 12). St Paul's utterances on this subject, though they go
somewhat further, amount only to the assertion that a struggling
missionary body will find more freedom in its work in the absence of
wives and children. At the same time, St Paul claimed emphatically for
himself and the other apostles the right of leading about a wife; and he
names among the qualifications for a bishop, an elder and a deacon,
that he should be "the husband of one wife." Indeed it was freely
admitted by the most learned men of the middle ages and Renaissance that
celibacy had been no rule of the apostolic church; and, though writers
of ability have attempted to maintain the contrary even in modern times,
their contentions are unhesitatingly rejected by the latest Roman
Catholic authority.[3]
The gradual growth of clerical celibacy, first as a custom and then as a
rule of discipline, can be traced clearly enough even through the scanty
records of the first few centuries. The most ascetic Christians began to
question the legality of second marriages on the part of either sex, as
even paganism had often reprobated second marriages of women. Though
these extremists were presently branded as heretics for their eccentric
ultra-ascetic tenets (Montanists, Cathari), yet as early as 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, however, proved difficult
of enforcement and seem to have rested only on a vague basis of public
opinion; twice-married men (_digami_) were admitted to the priesthood by
Pope Calixtus I. (219-222), and even as late as the beginning of the 5th
century we find husbands of widows consecrated to the episcopate. The
so-called Apostolical Constitutions and Canons, the latter of which were
compiled in the 4th century, give us the first clear and fairly 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 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 stage. Quite apart from the few enthusiasts who
would have given a literal interpretation to the text in Matt, xix. 12,
vows of virginity became more and more frequent as the virtue itself was
lauded by ecclesiastical writers in language of increasing fervour.
These vows were at first purely voluntary and temporary; but public
opinion naturally grew less and less tolerant of those who, having once
formed and published so solemn a resolution, broke it afterwards. Again
not only was the church doctrine itself more or less consciously
influenced by the Manichaean tenet of the diabolical origin of all
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 consideration.
Moreover, in proportion as the clergy, no longer mere ringleaders of a
despised and persecuted sect, became beneficiaries and administrators of
rich endowments--and this at a time when the external safeguards against
embezzlement were comparatively weak--a strong feeling grew up among the
laity that church revenues should not go to support the priest's
family.[4] Lastly, such partial attempts as we have already described to
enforce upon the clergy a special rule of continence, by their very
failure, suggested more heroic measures. Therefore, side by side with
the evidence for difficult enforcement of the old rules, we find an
equally constant series of new and more stringent enactments.
The first church council which definitely forbade marriage to the higher
clergy was the local Spanish synod of Elvira (A.D. 305). A similar
interpretation has sometimes been claimed for the third canon of that
general council of Nicaea to which we 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 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 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 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 secular
clergy, but from among the monks."[5] The Eastern Church, therefore,
still adheres fairly closely to the rules laid down by the Apostolical
Canons in the 4th century. In the West, however, a decisive forward step
was taken by Popes Damasus and Siricius during the last 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
punishment of expulsion for disobedience (Siric. _Ep._ i. c. 7; Migne,
_P.L._ xiii. col. 1138). Although we find Siricius a year later writing
to the 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. Leo the Great (d. 461) and 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 secret resistance to these decrees, and
the parallel frequency and stringency of ecclesiastical legislation,
which by its very monotony bears witness to its own want of success. At
least seven episcopal constitutions of the 8th and 9th centuries forbade
the priest to have even his mother or his sister in the house.[6] Nor
did the only difficulty lie in such secret breaches of the law; in many
districts the priesthood tended to become a mere hereditary caste, to
the disadvantage of church and state alike. In northern and southern
Italy public clerical marriages were extremely frequent, whether with or
without regular forms.[7] The see of Rouen was held for more than a
century (942-1054) by three successive bishops who were family men and
two of whom were openly married.[8] In England St Swithun (d. 862) was
married, though very likely by special papal dispensation; and the
married clergy were apparently predominant in Alfred's time. In spite of
Dunstan's reforms at the end of the 10th century, the Norman Lanfranc
found so many wedded priests that he dared not decree their separation;
and when his successor St Anselm attempted to go further, this seemed a
perilous novelty even to so distinguished an ecclesiastic as Henry of
Huntingdon, who wrote: "About Michaelmas of this same year (1102)
Archbishop Anselm held a council in London, wherein he forbade wives to
the English priesthood, heretofore not forbidden; which seemed to some a
matter of great purity, but to others a perilous thing, lest the clergy,
in striving after a purity too great for human strength, should fall
into horrible impurity, to the extreme dishonour of the Christian name"
(lib. vii.; Migne, _P.L._ cxcv. col. 944). Yet this was at a time when
the decisive and continued action of two great popes ought to have left
no possible doubt as to the law of the church.
The growing tendency of the clergy to look upon their endowments as
hereditary fiefs, their consequent worldliness and (it must be added)
their vices, aroused the indignation of two very remarkable men in the
latter half of the 11th century. St Pietro Damiani (988-1072) was a
scholar, hermit and reformer, who did more perhaps than any one else to
combat the open marriages of the clergy. He complained that exhortation
was wasted even on the bishops, "because they despair of attaining to
the pinnacle of chastity, and have no fear of condemnation in open synod
for the vice of lechery.... If this evil were secret [he adds], it might
perhaps be borne."[9] His _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 impolicy of
proceeding more severely against the open marriages of the clergy than
against concubinage and other less public vices.[10] Damiani found a
powerful ally in the equally ascetic but far more imperious and
statesmanlike Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. Under the
influence of these two men, five successive popes between 1045 and 1073
attempted a 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
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 energy and resolution a 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 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 altar and threatened with actual
deposition in cases of contumacy, but the laity were warned against
attending mass said by "any priest certainly known to keep a concubine
or _subintroducta_."[11]
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 lay mind might imply that the
virtue of a sacrament was weakened by the vices of its ministers; and,
whereas Peter Lombard (d. 1160) concludes that no excommunicated priest
can effect transubstantiation, St Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) agrees with
all the later Schoolmen in granting him that power, though to the peril
of his own soul.[12] For, by the last quarter of the 13th century, the
struggle had entered upon a new phase. The severest measures had been
tried, especially against the priests' unhappy partners. As early as the
council of Augsburg (952) these were condemned to be scourged, while Leo
II. and Urban II., at the councils of Rome and Amalfi (1051, 1089),
adjudged them to actual slavery.[13] Such enactments naturally defeated
their own purpose. More was done by the gentler missionary zeal of the
Franciscans and Dominicans in the early 13th century; but St Thomas
Aquinas had seen half a century of that reform and had 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 fellow-friars were often compelled to hold their tongues
about the evil clergy; partly because, even if one were expelled,
another equally worthless would probably take his place, but "perhaps
principally lest, if the people altogether lost faith in the clergy,
heretics should arise and draw the people to themselves as 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."[14] In other passages of his 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. Alvarez Pelayo, a Spanish bishop and papal penitentiary, wrote
in 1322 "The clergy sin commonly in these following ways ... fourthly,
in that they live very incontinently, and would that they had never
promised continence! especially in Spain and southern Italy, in which
provinces the sons of the laity are scarcely more numerous than those of
the clergy." Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly pleaded before the council of
Constance in 1415 for the reform of "that most scandalous custom, or
rather abuse, whereby many [clergy] fear not to keep concubines in
public."[15]
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 12th century onwards,
declared such marriages to be not only unlawful, but null and void in
themselves. Yet the custom lingered sporadically in Germany and England
until the last few years of the 13th century, though it seems to have
died out earlier in France and Italy. There was also a short-lived
attempt to declare that even a clerk in lower orders should lose his
clerical privileges on his marriage; but Boniface VIII. in 1300
definitely permitted such marriages under the already-quoted conditions
of the Apostolic Canons; in these cases, however, a bishop's 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
parish-clerks. As the middle ages drew to a close, 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.[16] Serious proposals were made to
reintroduce clerical marriage at the great reforming councils of
Constance (1415) and Basel (1432); but the overwhelming majority of
orthodox churchmen were unwilling to abandon a rule for which the saints
had fought during so many centuries, and to which many of them probably
attributed an apostolic origin.[17] 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 answer
to Tyndale, that the marriage of priests, being essentially null and
void, "defileth the priest more than double or treble whoredom." It is
well known that this became one of the most violently disputed questions
at the Reformation, and that for eight years it was felony in England to
defend sacerdotal marriage as permissible by the law of God (Statute of
the Six Articles, 31 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 wars tempted
the latter to imitate in considerable numbers the licence of their
rivals.[18] This moved the emperor Charles V. to obtain from Paul III.
dispensations for married priests in his dominions; and his successor
Ferdinand, with the equally Catholic sovereigns of France, Bavaria and
Poland, pleaded strongly at the council of Trent (1545) for permissive
marriage. The council, after some hesitation, took the contrary course,
and in the 9th canon of its 24th session it erected sacerdotal celibacy
practically, if not formally, into an article of faith. In spite of
this, the emperor Joseph II. reopened the question in 1783. In France
the revolutionary constitution of 1791 abolished all restrictions on
marriage, and during the Terror celibacy often exposed a priest to
suspicion as an enemy to the Republic; but the better part of the clergy
steadily resisted this innovation, and it is estimated that only about
2% were married. The Old Catholics adopted the principle of sacerdotal
marriage in 1875.
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 counter-Reformation, and that modern ecclesiastical
discipline on this point is considerably 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 free from serious risks even in
these days of easy publicity and stringent civil discipline.[19] Lastly,
statistical research has shown that the children of the married British
clergy have been distinguished far beyond their mere numerical
proportion.[20]
AUTHORITIES.--Henry Charles Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_ (3rd
ed., 1907, 2 vols), is by far the fullest and best work on this
subject, though a good deal of important matter omitted by Dr Lea may
be found in _Die Einfuhrung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit_ by the
brothers Johann Anton and Augustin Theiner, which was put on the Roman
_Index_, though Augustin afterwards became archivist at the Vatican
(Altenburg, 1828, 2 vols.). The history of monastic celibacy has not
yet been fully treated anywhere; the most important evidence of the
episcopal registers is either still in MS. or has been published only
in comparatively recent years. The most learned work on clerical
celibacy from the strictly conservative point of view is that of
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, _Storia Polemica del celibato sacro_
(Rome, 1774); but many of his most important conclusions are set
aside by the abbe E. Vacandard in his contribution to the
_Dictionnaire de theologie catholique_ (vol. ii. art. "Celibat
ecclesiastique"). (G. G. Co.)