_Marriage of Bishops_ (Vol. iv., pp. 57. 125.).--In reference to the
inquiry of your correspondent A. B. C., for any instances of bishops and
priests who, during the first three centuries, were married after
ordination, I may suggest that the Council of Nice in 325 declared it to
be then "_an ancient tradition_ of the Church that they who were
unmarried when promoted to holy orders should not afterwards
marry."--Socrates, _Hist. Eccl._, lib. i. cap. ii.; Sozomen, _Hist.
Eccl._, lib. i. c. xxiii.
May not the proper translation in the text which he quotes, 1 Cor. ix.
5., be "woman," instead of "wife;" and might not the passage be more
accurately rendered by the expression "sister-woman?" Clemens
Alexandrinus says (_Stromat._, lib. iii. edit. Poterii, Venet. 1757,
tom. i. p. 526.): "Not as wives but as sisters did the women go round
with the apostles:" and see also Matt. xxvii. 55., Mark xv. 41., and
Luke viii. 3.