Читать книгу An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church - Henry Charles Lea - Страница 7

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Thus far the church had grown and strengthened without any recognized 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.