First century Some of the earliest Christian leaders were married men. The mention in Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38, and Matthew 8:14–15 of
Peter's mother-in-law indicates that he had at some time been married (Matthew 8:14–15: "when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.") According to Clement of Alexandria, "Peter and Philip begat children", and Peter's wife suffered martyrdom. On the other hand, in Luke 18:28–30, Jesus responds to Peter's statement that he and the other disciples had left all and followed him by saying "there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive back an overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to come". In 1 Corinthians 7:8,
Paul the Apostle indicates that he was unmarried: either single or a widower. In 1 Corinthians 9:5, he contrasts his situation with that of the other apostles, including Peter, who were accompanied by believing wives. Paul, says Laurent Cleenewerck, a priest of the
Orthodox Church in America and professor of theology at
Euclid University, clearly favored celibacy, which he understood as "a gift". Cleenewerck supports this statement by quoting 1 Corinthians 7:5–8: In the same chapter Paul, who wrote that a pastor is to be "the husband of one wife", forbids abstinence of marital relations except "for a set time" and states that celibacy is a gift. A used in favour of sacerdotal celibacy is 1 Corinthians 7:32–33 ("The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife") and a used against sacerdotal celibacy is the statement in 1 Timothy 3:2–4 that a bishop should be "the husband of one wife" and "one who ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection". One interpretation of "the husband of one wife" is that the man to be ordained could not have been married more than once and that perfect continence, total abstinence, was expected from him starting on the day of his ordination. Usually these also conclude that, because of the exclusion of sexual relations, the members of the clergy were not entitled to marry after ordination. Another interpretation of "the husband of one wife" was a prohibition of polygamy, which was not uncommon in the Old Testament (King David and King Solomon, for example, were polygamists). On the other hand, George T. Dennis SJ of Catholic University of America says: "There is simply no clear evidence of a general tradition or practice, much less of an obligation, of priestly celibacy-continence before the beginning of the fourth century." Peter Fink SJ agrees, saying that underlying premises used in the book,
Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, "would not stand up so comfortably to historical scrutiny". Dennis says this book provides no evidence that celibacy had apostolic origins. However, the 19th-century Protestant historian
Philip Schaff evidences that by the early 4th century, priestly celibacy-continence was not a novelty, stating that all marriages contracted by clerics in Holy Orders were declared null and void in 530 by Emperor
Justinian I, who also declared the children of such marriages illegitimate. Catholic author Greg Dues states that:
Second to third centuries Tertullian (), writing of the apostles, indicated that he was obliged to believe that apart from Peter, who was certainly married, the apostles were continent. In his , Tertullian mentioned continence as one of the customs in
Mithraism that he claimed were imitated from Christianity, but does not associate it specifically with the clergy. In
De exhortatione castitatis, Tertullian did regard with honour those in ecclesiastical orders who remained continent. The , written in Greek in the first half of the 3rd century, mentions the requirements of chastity on the part of both the bishop and his wife, and of the children being already brought up, when it quotes 1 Timothy 3:2–4 as requiring that, before someone is ordained a bishop, enquiry be made "whether he be chaste, and whether his wife also be a believer and chaste; and whether he has brought up his children in the fear of God". There is record of a number of 3rd-century married bishops in good standing, even in the
West. They included: Passivus,
bishop of Fermo;
Cassius, bishop of Narni; Aetherius,
bishop of Vienne;
Aquilinus,
bishop of Évreux;
Faron,
bishop of Meaux;
Magnus, bishop of Avignon. Filibaud,
bishop of Aire-sur-l'Adour, was the father of
Philibert de Jumièges, and Sigilaicus,
bishop of Tours, was the father of
Cyran of Brenne. No statement is made about whether they had children after becoming bishops or only before. "A famous letter of Synesius of Cyrene ( ) is evidence both for the respecting of personal decision in the matter and for contemporary appreciation of celibacy. For priests and deacons clerical marriage continued to be in vogue". The consequence of the requirement from higher clerics who lived in marriages to abstain permanently from sexual intercourse with their wives was prohibition for those who were single of entering a marriage after ordination.
The Apostolic Canons of the
Apostolic Constitutions decreed that only lower clerics might still marry after their ordination. Bishops, priests, and deacons were not allowed.
Fourth century The
Council of Elvira (306) is often seen as the first to issue a written regulation requiring clergy to abstain from sexual intercourse. Its canon 33 decreed: "Bishops, presbyters, deacons, and others with a position in the ministry are to abstain completely from sexual intercourse with their wives and from the procreation of children. If anyone disobeys, he shall be removed from the clerical office." It is disputed whether this canon mandated permanent continence or only, as is the practice in the
Eastern Orthodox Church even for the laity, periodical continence before partaking of the Eucharist. and
Maurice Meigne even interpreted it as meaning: "It was decided to forbid keeping back from one's wife and not producing children". In 387 or 390, or according to others in 400, a
Council of Carthage decreed that bishops, priests and deacons abstain from conjugal relations: "It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep... It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity." The
Directa Decretal of
Pope Siricius (385) states: "We have indeed discovered that many priests and deacons of Christ brought children into the world, either through union with their wives or through shameful intercourse. And they used as an excuse the fact that in the Old Testament—as we can read—priests and ministers were permitted to beget children." Two other Papal decrees of the time, and , demanded an end to the "scandal" of priests failing to uphold perpetual sexual abstinence, and rejected the claim that St. Paul had permitted priests to remain married by declaring that Paul only meant to disbar polygamists. Both decrees described continence as an ancient obligation from scripture and the tradition of the Church fathers.
Hilary of Poitiers (315–368), a Doctor of the Church, was a married bishop and had a daughter named
Apra, who was baptized together with her father, when he and his wife became Christians. Among Popes of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, the father of
Pope Damasus I (366–384) was a bishop.
Pope Felix III (483–492), whose father was almost certainly a priest, was the great-great-grandfather of
Pope Gregory I the Great (590–604).
Pope Hormisdas (514–523) was the father of
Pope Silverius (536–537). According to Sozomen's history: The
Council of Nicaea, AD 325, decides in Canon 3: The term refers to an unmarried woman living in association with a man in a merely spiritual marriage, a practice that seems to have existed already in the time of
Hermas; in the 4th century such a woman was also referred to as an
agapeta. Stefan Heid has argued that the pre-Nicaean acceptance of that arrangement for clerics was an indication that the clergy were expected to live in continence even with their wives. A leading participant in the Council,
Eusebius of Caesarea, wrote: "It is fitting that those in the priesthood and occupied in the service of God, should abstain after ordination from the intercourse of marriage."
Epiphanius of Salamis (died 403) accused the heretics whom he called "Purists" of "mixing up everyone's duty": Similar evidence of the existence in the 4th-century East, as in the West, of a rule or at least an ideal of clerical continence for bishops that was considered to be canonical is found in Epiphanius's Panarion, 48, 9 and , 21.
Synesius (died ), who refused to be bound by the obligation, knew that, if made a bishop, he was expected to live in continence with his wife. One of the accusations against Antoninus, Bishop of Ephesus, in his trial before
John Chrysostom was that "after separating from his married wife, he had taken her again". In his note on this phrase, the translator Herbert Moore says: "According to the 'Apostolic Canons', only the lower orders of clergy were allowed to marry after their appointment to office; the
Council in Trullo ordered that a bishop's wife should retire to a convent, or become a deaconess; that
of Neo-Caesarea, that if a priest marries after ordination he must be degraded. For Antoninus to resume relations with his wife was equivalent to marriage after ordination. It was proposed at the Council of Nicaea that married clergy should be compelled to separate from their wives, but the proposal was rejected; though it was generally held that the relations of bishops with their wives should be those of brother and sister." The 4th-century
Church Fathers Ambrose and
Jerome argued that the passage in 1 Timothy 3:2–4 did not conflict with the discipline they knew, whereby a married man who became a bishop was to abstain from sexual relations and not marry again: "He speaks of having children, not of begetting them, or marrying again"; "He does not say: Let a bishop be chosen who marries one wife and begets children; but who marries one wife, and has his children in subjection and well disciplined. You surely admit that he is no bishop who during his episcopate begets children. The reverse is the case—if he be discovered, he will not be bound by the ordinary obligations of a husband, but will be condemned as an adulterer." According to
Epiphanius of Salamis, also of the 4th century, Nicholas, one of the
Seven Deacons of Acts 6:1–6, noticed others being admired for their celibacy. To avoid seeming immoderately devoted to his beautiful wife and therefore inferior in his ministry, he renounced conjugal intercourse forever. While he was able to remain continent for a while, eventually his burning desire overpowered him. However, he did not want to be regarded as inconsistent or seen as taking his oath lightly. Instead of returning to his wife, he engaged in promiscuous sex and what Epiphanius termed "sex practices against nature". In this way, he started
Nicolaism, an
antinomian heresy which believed that as long as they abstained from marriage, it was not a sin to exercise their sexual desires as they pleased. Revelation 2:6 and 15 expresses hatred for the "works of the Nicolaitans". Jerome, referred in
Against Jovinianus to marriage prohibition for priests when he argued that Peter and the other apostles had been married, but had married before they were called and subsequently gave up their marital relations. The Paphnutius legend in the first half of the 5th century called the marriage prohibition an ancient ecclesiastical tradition. In
Against Vigilantius, Jerome testified that the Churches of the East, Egypt and of the Apostolic See "accept for the ministry only men who are virgins, or those who practice continency, or, if married, abandon their conjugal rights"
Fifth to seventh centuries In saying that "in certain provinces it is permitted to the readers and singers to marry", the
Council of Chalcedon (451) suggests that, in other provinces, not only bishops, priests, deacons and subdeacons, but even those in the lower orders of readers and singers were at that time not permitted to marry. According to
Gregory of Tours,
Namatius a 5th-century bishop of Clermont was married and his wife was involved in the construction of St Stephen's church in Clermont. Needless to say, the rule or ideal of clerical continence was not always observed either in the West or in the East, and it was because of violations that it was from time to time affirmed. Emperor
Justinian I (died 565) ordered that "sacred canons permit neither the pious presbyter, nor the devoted deacons or subdeacons to contract marriage after their ordination". If they, "in disregard of the sacred canons, have children by women with whom, according to sacerdotal regulation, they may not cohabit" their children would be considered illegitimate on the same level as those "procreated in incest and in nefarious nuptials", while the clergy would be "deprived of their priesthood, their sacred ministry and the dignity itself which they hold." As for bishops, he forbade "any one to be ordained bishop who has children or grandchildren". Canon 13 of the
Quinisext Council (
Constantinople, 692) shows that by that time there was a direct contradiction between the ideas of East and West about the legitimacy of conjugal relations on the part of clergy lower than the rank of bishop who had married before being ordained: The canon mistakenly claims that the canon of the late-4th-century Council of Carthage quoted above excluded conjugal intercourse by clergy lower than bishops only in connection with their liturgical service or in times of fasting. The Council of Carthage excluded such intercourse perpetually and made no distinction between bishops, priests and deacons. There have been no changes since then in the discipline of the
Eastern Orthodox Church, which for bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons excludes marriage after ordination, but allows, except for periods before celebrating the
Divine Liturgy, conjugal relations by priests and deacons married before ordination, and requires celibacy and perpetual continence only of bishops. The last married Pope was
Adrian II (r. 867–872), who was married to
Stephania, with whom he had a daughter. He was married before his ordination, and was elected Pope only in old age.
11th and 12th centuries In 888, two local councils, that of Metz and that of Mainz, prohibited cohabitation even with wives living in continence. This tendency was taken up by the 11th-century
Gregorian Reform, which aimed at eliminating what it called "Nicolaitism", that is
clerical marriage, which in spite of being theoretically excluded was in fact practised, and concubinage. The
First Lateran Council (1123), a
General Council, adopted the following canons: The phrase "contract marriage" in the first part of canon 21 excludes
clerical marriages, and the marriages that the second part says must be dissolved may possibly be such marriages, contracted after ordination, not before. Canon 3 makes reference to a rule made at the First Council of Nicaea (see above), which is understood as not forbidding a cleric to live in the same house with a wife whom he married before being ordained. Sixteen years later, the
Second Lateran Council (1139), in which some five hundred bishops took part, enacted the following canons: This Council thus declared clerical marriages not only illicit though valid, as before, but invalid ("we do not regard as matrimony"). The marriages in question are, again, those contracted by men who already are "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, canons regular, monks and professed clerics". And later legislation, found especially in the
Quinque Compilationes Antiquae and the
Decretals of Gregory IX, continued to deal with questions concerning married men who were ordained legally. In 1322, Pope John XXII insisted that no one bound in marriage—even if unconsummated—could be ordained unless there was full knowledge of the requirements of church law. If the free consent of the wife had not been obtained, the husband, even if already ordained, was to be reunited with his wife, exercise of his ministry being barred. Accordingly, the assumption that a wife might not want to give up her marital rights may have been one of the factors contributing to the eventual universal practice in the
Latin Church of ordaining only unmarried men. However, although the decrees of the Second Council of the Lateran might still be interpreted in the older sense of prohibiting marriage only after ordination, they came to be understood as absolute prohibitions, and, while the fact of being married was formally made a canonical impediment to ordination in the Latin Church only with the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the prohibition of marriage for all clerics in major orders began to be taken simply for granted.
16th century While the 11th-century
Gregorian Reform's campaign against
clerical marriage and concubinage met strong opposition, by the time of the
Second Council of the Lateran it had won widespread support from lay and ecclesiastical leaders. New opposition appeared in connection with the
Protestant Reformation, not only on the part of the Reformers, but also among churchmen and others who remained in union with the see of Rome. Figures such as
Panormitanus,
Erasmus,
Thomas Cajetan, and the Holy Roman Emperors
Charles V,
Ferdinand I and
Maximilian II argued against it. In practice, the discipline of clerical continence meant by then that only unmarried men were ordained. Thus, in the discussions that took place, no distinction was made between clerical continence and clerical celibacy. The Reformers made abolition of clerical continence and celibacy a key element in their reform. They denounced it as opposed to the New Testament recommendation that a cleric should be "the husband of one wife" (see on 1 Timothy 3:2–4 above), the declared right of the apostles to take around with them a believing Christian as a wife (1 Corinthians 9:5) and the admonition, "Marriage should be honoured by all" (Hebrews 13:4). They blamed it for widespread sexual misconduct among the clergy. Against the long-standing tradition of the Church in the East as well as in the West, which excluded marriage after ordination,
Zwingli married in 1522,
Luther in 1525, and
Calvin in 1539. And against what had also become, though seemingly at a later date, a tradition in both East and West, the married
Thomas Cranmer was made
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. The
Council of Trent considered the matter and at its twenty-fourth session decreed that marriage after ordination was invalid: "If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage; and, that all who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have made a vow thereof, may contract marriage; let him be anathema: seeing that God refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does He suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able". It also decreed, concerning the relative dignity of marriage and celibacy: "If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema." ==Rules for Christian clergy==