head or acknowledged legislative power. Each patriarch or metropolitan,
surrounded by his provincial synod, established regulations for his own
region, with no standard but the canon of Scripture, being responsible
only to the opinion of his compeers, who might refuse to receive
his clergy to communion. Under this democratic autonomy the church
had outlived persecution, had repudiated and cast out innumerable
successive heresies, and, thanks to external pressure, had managed to
preserve its unity. The time, however, had now come for a different
order of things. Constantine, following the dictates of his unerring
political sagacity, allied himself with the Christians and professed
conversion; and Christianity, powerful even when merely existing on
sufferance, became the religion of the state. As such, the maintenance
of its unity was a political necessity, to accomplish which required
some central power entitled to general respect and implicit obedience.
The subtle disputations concerning the fast-spreading Arian heresy
were not likely to be stilled by the mere _ipse dixit_ of any of
the Apostolic Sees, nor by the secular wisdom of crown lawyers and
philosophic courtiers. A legislative tribunal, which should be at
once a court of last appeal and a senate empowered to enact laws of
binding force, as the final decisions of the Church Universal, was
not an unpromising suggestion. Such an assemblage had hitherto been
impossible, for the distances to be traversed and the expenses of
the journey would have precluded an attendance sufficiently numerous
to earn the title of Œcumenic; but an imperial rescript which put
the governmental machinery of posts at the service of the prelates
could smooth all difficulties, and enable every diocese to send its
representative. In the year 325, therefore, the FIRST GENERAL COUNCIL
assembled at Nicæa. With the fruitlessness of its endeavors to
extinguish the Arian controversy we have nothing to do, but in its
legislative capacity its labors had an influence upon our subject
which merits a closer examination than would appear necessary from the
seemingly unimportant nature of the proceedings themselves.
With the full belief that the canons of a general council were the
direct operation of the Holy Ghost, they were of course entitled to
unquestioning reverence, and those of Nicæa have always been regarded
as of special and peculiar authority, cutting off all debate on any
question to which they might be applicable. The third of the series has
been the main reliance of sacerdotal controversialists, and has been
constantly appealed to as the unanswerable justification for enforcing
the rule of discipline which enjoined celibacy on all admitted to
holy orders. Its simple phraseology would hardly seem to warrant such
conclusion. “The Great Synod has strictly forbidden to bishop, priest,
and deacon, and to every ecclesiastic, to have a ‘subintroductam
mulierem,’ unless perhaps a mother, a sister, an aunt, or such person
only as may be above suspicion.”[83]
This is the only allusion to the subject in the Nicene canons. As it
does not include wives among those exempted from the prohibition of
residence, we can hardly be surprised that those who believe celibacy
to be of apostolic origin should assume that it was intended to
pronounce an absolute separation between husband and wife. As the
Council of Elvira, however, contains the only enunciation of such a
rule previous to that of Nicæa, and as those of Ancyra and Neocæsarea
and the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons, directly or indirectly,
allow the conjugal relations of ecclesiastics to remain undisturbed,
we are certainly justified in assuming the impossibility that an
innovation of so much importance would be introduced in the discipline
of the universal church without being specifically designated and
commanded in terms which would admit of no misunderstanding. That the
meaning of the canon is really and simply that alone which appears on
the surface—to put an end to the disorders and scandals arising from
the improper female companions of unmarried priests—is, moreover, I
think, susceptible of easy demonstration.
The term “subintroducta mulier”—γυνη συνεισακτος—is almost invariably
used in an unfavorable sense, and is equivalent to the “fœmina
extranea,” and nearly to the “focaria” and “concubina” of later times,
as well as to the “agapeta” and “dilecta” of earlier date. We have
already seen how Cyprian, seventy-five years before, denounced the
agapetæ who even then were so common, and whose companionship proved
so disastrous to all parties, but the custom continued, and its evil
consequences became more and more openly and shamelessly displayed. In
314 the council of Ancyra denounced it in terms implying its public
recognition.[84] At the close of the same century, Jerome still finds
in it ample material for his fiery indignation; and his denunciations
manifest that it was still a corroding cancer in the purity of the
church, prevailing to an extent that rendered its suppression a matter
of the utmost importance.[85] The testimony of Epiphanius is almost
equally strong, and shows that it was a source of general popular
reproach.[86] Such a reform was therefore well worthy the attention of
the Nicene fathers, and that this was the special object of the canon
is indicated by Jerome himself, who appeals to it as the authority
under which an ecclesiastic refusing to separate himself from his
agapeta could be punished; it was to be read to the offender, and if he
neglected obedience to its commands, he was to be anathematized.[87]
That it had no bearing upon the wives of priests can moreover be proved
by several reasons. The restriction on matrimony has never at any time
extended below the subdiaconate, the inferior grades of the secular
clergy having always been free to live with their wives, even in the
periods of the most rigid asceticism. The canon, however, makes no
distinction. Its commands are applicable “alicui omnino qui in clero
est.” To suppose, therefore, that it was intended to include wives
in its restriction is to prove too much—the _reductio ad absurdum_
is complete.[88] Equally convincing is the fact that when, towards
the close of the century, the rule of celibacy and separation was
introduced, and Siricius and Innocent I. ransacked the Gospels for
texts of more than doubtful application with which to support the
innovation, they made no reference whatever to the Nicene canon.[89]
Had it been understood at that period as bearing on the subject, it
would have been all-sufficient in itself. The reverence felt for the
Council of Nicæa was too great, and the absolute obedience claimed
for its commands was too willingly rendered, for such an omission to
be possible. That Siricius and Innocent should not have adduced it
is therefore proof incontrovertible that it was as yet construed as
directed solely against the improper companions of the clergy. If
further evidence to the same effect be required, it may be found in
a law of Honorius, promulgated in 420, in which, while forbidding
the clergy to keep “mulieres extraneæ” under the name of “sorores,”
and permitting only mothers, daughters, and sisters, he adds that
the desire for chastity does not prohibit the residence of wives
whose merits have assisted in rendering their husbands worthy of the
priesthood.[90] The object of the law is evidently to give practical
force and effect to the Nicene canon, and the imperial power under
Honorius had sunk to too low an ebb for us to imagine the possibility
of his venturing to tamper with and overrule the decrees of the most
venerable council.[91] Even in the sixth century the Nicene canon was
not yet considered to have the meaning subsequently attributed to
it, for otherwise there would have been no necessity of inserting a
provision prohibiting the marriage of priests in the account forged at
that time of a Roman council said to have been held by Silvester I.[92]
If the proof thus adduced be as convincing as it appears to me, the
story of Paphnutius is not so important as to deserve the amount of
controversy that has been expended upon it, and a brief reference
is all that seems necessary. Socrates and Sozomen relate that while
the canons of the council were under consideration, some of the
fathers desired to introduce one interdicting all intercourse between
those in orders and their wives. Whereupon Paphnutius, an Egyptian
bishop, protested against the heavy burden to be thus imposed upon
the clergy, quoting the well-known declaration of St. Paul to the
Hebrews respecting the purity of the marriage-bed. The influence
of St. Paphnutius was great, for he was a confessor of peculiar
sanctity; the loss of his right eye bore testimony to the severity of
the persecutions which he had endured, and his immaculate chastity,
preserved from boyhood in a monastery, rendered his motives and his
impartiality on the subject unimpeachable. The bishops, who had been
on the point of accepting the proposed canon, were convinced, and the
project was abandoned.[93]
If this account be true, it of course follows that the third canon has
no bearing on the wives of ecclesiastics, and that the enforcement
of celibacy dates from a later period than that of the council.
Accordingly, when the Nicene canon was found necessary to give
authority to the rule, it became requisite to discredit the story
of Paphnutius. The first attempt to do this, which has come under
my observation, occurred during the fierce contentions aroused by
the efforts of Gregory VII. to restore the almost forgotten law of
celibacy. Bernald of Constance has left a record of a discussion held
by him in 1076 with Alboin, a zealous defender of sacerdotal marriage,
in which the authenticity of the story is hotly contested.[94]
Bernald’s logic may be condensed into the declaration that he
considered it much more credible that Sozomen was in error than that so
holy a man as St. Paphnutius could have been guilty of such blasphemy.
No reason whatever was vouchsafed when Gregory VII. caused the story
to be condemned in the Synod of Rome of 1079.[95] In spite of this,
Pius IV., in 1564, admitted its authenticity in his epistle to the
German princes who had requested of him the concession of sacerdotal
marriage.[96] Later writers, from Bellarmine down, have, however,
entered into elaborate arguments to prove its impossibility. They rest
their case principally on the assertion of the existence of celibacy
as a rule anterior to the council, and on its enforcement afterwards;
on the fact that Socrates and Sozomen flourished a little more than a
century after the council, and that they are therefore untrustworthy;
and that the name of St. Paphnutius does not appear in the acts of the
council. To the first of these objections the preceding pages afford,
I think, a sufficient answer; to the second it can only be replied
that we must be content with the best testimony attainable, and that
there is none better than that of the two historians, whose general
truthfulness and candor are acknowledged;[97] and to the third it may
be remarked that of the 318 bishops present, but 222 affixed their
signatures to the acts, while Rufinus and Theodoret both expressly
assert that Paphnutius was present.[98] That the statement was not
discredited until controversialists found it desirable to do so, is
shown by its retention in the full account of the proceedings of the
council by Gelasius of Cyzicus, in the fifth century, and also by
its repetition in the “Historia Tripartita,” a condensation of the
narratives of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, compiled in the sixth
century by Cassiodorus, whose irreproachable orthodoxy would hardly
have permitted him to give it currency if it had then been considered
as blasphemous as the writers of the eleventh century would have us
believe. In fact, the learned and orthodox Christian Wolff, in his
great work on the Councils, rejects as trifling the assertion that the
story of Paphnutius is fictitious. His theory of the whole matter is
that the western church endeavored to subject the eastern to its views
on the celibacy required of the priesthood; that the effort failed, in
consequence of the opposition of Paphnutius, and that the canon adopted
had reference merely to the scandals of the Agapetæ.[99]
Various indications have been collected by controversialists to show
that for some time after the council of Nicæa no interference was
attempted with married priests. Of these, one or two will suffice.
St. Athanasius, whose orthodoxy it would not be prudent for any one to
question, and whose appearance during his diaconate at the council of
Nicæa first attracted general attention to his commanding abilities,
has left us convincing testimony as to the perfect freedom allowed
during his time to all classes of ecclesiastics. An Egyptian monk
named Dracontius had been elected to an episcopate, and hesitated to
accept the dignity lest its duties should prove incompatible with
the fulfilment of his vows. To remove these scruples, Athanasius
addressed him an epistle containing various arguments, among which
was the declaration that in his new sphere of action he would find
no difficulty in carrying out whatever rules he might prescribe
for himself. “Many bishops,” said the Saint, “have not contracted
matrimony, while on the other hand, monks have become fathers. Again,
we see bishops who have children, and monks who take no thought of
having posterity.”[100] The tenor of the whole passage is such as to
show that no laws had yet been enacted to control individual action
in such matters, and while rigid asceticism was largely practised, it
was to be admired as the result of private conviction, and not as mere
enforced submission to an established rule.
Testimony equally unequivocal is afforded by the case of St. Gregory
Theologos, Bishop of Nazianzum. He relates that his father, who was
likewise a St. Gregory Bishop of Nazianzum, was converted about the
period of the Nicene council, and was shortly afterwards admitted
to the priesthood and created bishop. His mother, St. Nonna, prayed
earnestly for male issue, saw her future son St. Gregory in a prophetic
vision, and devoted him, before his birth, to the service of God.
That this occurred after his father’s admission to orders is shown by
the address which he represents the latter as making to him, “I have
passed more years in offering the sacrifice than measure your whole
life,”[101] while the birth of a younger son, Cæsarius, shows that
conjugal relations continued undisturbed. St. Gregory evidently felt
that neither shame nor irregularity attached to his birth during the
sacred ministry of his father.
IV.
LEGISLATION.
Thus far the progress of asceticism had been the result of moral
influence alone. Those who saw in the various forms of abstinence and
mortification the only path to salvation, and those who may have felt
that worldly advantages of power or reputation would compensate them
for the self-inflicted restrictions which they underwent, already
formed a numerous body in the church, but as yet had not acquired the
numerical ascendency requisite to enable them to impose upon their
brethren the rules which they had adopted for their own guidance. The
period was one of transition, and for sixty years after the council of
Nicæa there was doubtless a struggle for supremacy not perhaps the less
severe because at this late date we can but dimly trace its outlines
amid the records of the fierce Arian controversy which constitutes the
ecclesiastical history of the time, and which absorbed the attention of
writers almost to the exclusion of everything else.
The first triumph of the ascetic party was in establishing recognized
restrictions on those who had voluntarily assumed vows of celibacy.
With them, at least, the case was clear. Aspiring to no rank in the
church, they simply dedicated themselves to God, and pledged themselves
to lives of abstinence. Their backsliding caused scandal to the church,
which, if it were held responsible in the eyes of men for their
conduct, must necessarily assume the power to control their mode of
life, while the fact of simply holding them to the performance of vows
solemnly undertaken could not reasonably be regarded as an arbitrary
stretch of authority. These voluntary vows, which speedily led to the
establishment of the vast fabric of monachism will form the subject of
a subsequent section, and need not be further alluded to here.
Another move in the direction of asceticism was the prohibition by the
Council of Laodicea in 352 of women serving as priests or presiding
over the churches.[102] Although in later Judaism the Temple service
was confined to men, the examples of Deborah and Huldah show that in
earlier times women were considered as capable of inspiration and were
sometimes revered as prophets; the Gentiles, among whom the infant
churches were founded, had priestesses almost everywhere actively
employed in the duties of worship and sacrifice; and it would have been
strange if women, to whom the propagation of the Gospel was so greatly
owing, had not been sometimes admitted to the function of conducting
the simple services of the primitive church. We learn from St. Paul
that Phœbe was a deacon (διάκονος) of the church at Cenchrea,[103]
and the canon of Laodicea shows that until the middle of the fourth
century they still occasionally occupied recognized positions in the
active ministry of the church. They could not have been numerous, or
the references to them in the history of the period would have been
more frequent, and the enforcement of their disability for divine
service would have required constant repetition in the canons of the
general and local synods; but unquestionably the growth of Mariolatry
and the adoration of female saints would have sufficed to prevent
the inconsistency of regarding women as absolutely unfitted for any
function in public worship, had it not been for the rising influence of
asceticism, which demanded the separation of the sexes, and insisted
upon an artificial purity in all concerned in the ministry of the
altar. Even as late as the tenth century, so good a celibatarian as
Atto of Vercelli was perfectly willing to assert that in the early
church, when the laborers were few, women were admitted to share in the
ceremonies of divine worship.[104]
Still, as yet, the secular clergy were at liberty to follow the
dictates of their own consciences, and if an attempt was made to erect
the necessity of ascetic abstinence into an article of either faith
or discipline, the church was prompt to stamp it with the seal of
unequivocal reprobation. Eustathius, Bishop of Sebastia, in Cappadocia,
himself the son of the Bishop of Cappadocian Cæsarea, Eulalius,
carried his zeal for purity to so great an excess that his exaggerated
notions of the inferiority of the married state trenched closely upon
Manichæism, although his heretical rejection of canonical fasting
showed that on other points he was bitterly opposed to the tenets of
that obnoxious sect. His horror of matrimony went so far as to lead
him to the dogma that married people were incapable of salvation; he
forbade the offering of prayer in houses occupied by them; and he
declared that the blessings and sacraments of priests living with their
wives were to be rejected, and their persons treated with contempt.[105]
There were not wanting those to whom even these extreme opinions were
acceptable, and Eustathius speedily accumulated around him a host
of devotees whose proselyting zeal threatened a stubborn heresy.
The excesses attributed to their inability to endure the practical
operation of their leader’s doctrines may be true, or may be merely
the accusations which are customarily disseminated when it becomes
necessary to invest schismatics with odium. Be this as it may, the
orthodox clergy felt the importance of promptly repressing opinions
which, although at variance with the creed of the church, were yet
dangerously akin to the extreme views of those who were regarded as
pre-eminently holy. Eulalius, the father of the heresiarch, himself
presided at a local synod held at Cæsarea, and condemned his son.
This did not suffice to repress the heresy, and about the year 362 a
provincial council was assembled at Gangra, where fifteen bishops,
among whom was Eulalius, pronounced their verdict on Eustathius and
his misguided followers, and drew up a series of canons defining the
orthodox belief on the questions involved. That they were received by
the church as authoritative is evident from their being included in
the collections of Dionysius and Isidor. These canons anathematize
all who refuse the sacraments of a married priest, and who hold that
he cannot officiate on account of his marriage; also those who,
priding themselves on their professed virginity, arrogantly despise
their married brethren, and who hold that the duties of wedlock are
incompatible with salvation.[106] The whole affords a singularly
distinct record of the doctrines accepted at this period, showing
that there was no authority admitted for imposing restrictions of any
kind on the married clergy. It probably was an effort on the part of
the conservatives of the church to restrain their more progressive
brethren, and they no doubt gladly availed themselves of the wild
theories of Eustathius to stigmatize the extravagances which were daily
becoming more influential. At the same time, they were careful to
shield themselves behind a qualified concession to the ascetic spirit
of the period, for in an epilogue they apologetically declare their
humble admiration of virginity, and their belief that pious continence
is most acceptable to God.[107]
* * * * *
In little more than twenty years after this emphatic denunciation of
all interference with married priests, we find the first absolute
command addressed to the higher orders of the clergy to preserve
inviolate celibacy. So abrupt a contrast provokes an inquiry into its
possible causes, as no records have reached us exhibiting any special
reasons for the change.
While the admirers of ascetic virginity became louder and more
enthusiastic in their praises of that blessed condition, it is fair
to presume that they were daily more sensible of a lower standard of
morality in the ministers of the altar, and that their susceptibilities
were more deeply shocked by the introduction and growth of abuses.
While the church was kept purified by the fires of persecution, it
offered few attractions for the worldly and ambitious. Its ministry was
too dangerous to be sought except by the pure and zealous Christian,
and there was little danger that pastors would err except from
over-tenderness of conscience or unthinking ardor. When, however,
its temporal position was incalculably improved by its domination
throughout the empire, it became the avenue through which ambition
might attain its ends, while its wealth held out prospects of idle
self-indulgence to the slothful and the sensual. A new class of
men, dangerous alike from their talents or their vices, would thus
naturally find their way into the fold, and corruption, masked under
the semblance of austerest virtue, or displayed with careless cynicism,
would not be long in penetrating into the Holy of Holies. Immorality
must have been flagrant when, in 370, the temporal power felt the
necessity of interfering by a law of the Emperor Valentinian which
denounced severe punishment on ecclesiastics who visited the houses
of widows and virgins.[108] When an increasing laxity of morals thus
threatened to overcome the purity of the church, it is not surprising
that the advocates of asceticism should have triumphed over the more
moderate and conservative party, and that they should improve their
victory by seeking a remedy for existing evils in such laws as should
render the strictest continence imperative on all who entered into holy
orders. They might reasonably argue that if nothing else were gained,
the change would at least render the life of the priest less attractive
to the vicious and the sensual, and that the rigid enforcement of the
new rules would elevate the character of the church by preventing such
wolves from seeking a place among the sheep. If by such legislation
they only added fresh fuel to the flame; if they heightened immorality
by hypocrisy and drove into vagabond licentiousness those who would
perhaps have been content with lawful marriage, they only committed an
error which has ever been too common with earnest men of one idea to
warrant special surprise.