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 Phoebe was a deacon (d???????) 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.

Another object may not improbably have entered into the motives of those who introduced the rule. The church was daily receiving vast accessions of property from the pious zeal of its wealthy members, the death-bed repentance of despairing sinners, and the munificence of emperors and prefects, while the effort to procure the inalienability of its possessions dates from an early period.109 Its acquisitions, both real and personal, were of course exposed to much greater risk of dilapidation when the ecclesiastics in charge of its widely scattered riches had families for whose provision a natural parental anxiety might be expected to override the sense of duty in discharging the trust confided to them. The simplest mode of averting the danger might therefore seem to be to relieve the churchman of the cares of paternity, and, by cutting asunder all the ties of family and kindred, to bind him completely and forever to the church and to that alone. This motive, as we shall see, was openly acknowledged as a powerful one, in later times, and it no doubt served as an argument of weight in the minds of those who urged and secured the adoption of the canon.

It appears to me not unreasonable to suppose that all these various motives lent additional force to the zeal for the purity of the church, and to the undoubting belief in the necessity of perpetual celibacy, which impelled the popes, about the year 385, to issue the first definite command imposing it as an absolute rule of discipline on the ministers of the altar. The question evidently was one which largely occupied the minds of men, and the conclusion was reached progressively. A Roman synod, to which the date of 384 is assigned, answered a series of interrogatories propounded by the bishops of Gaul, among which was one relating to the chastity of the priesthood. To this the response was rather argumentatory and advisory in its character than imperative; the continence of the higher grades of ecclesiastics was insisted on, but no definite punishment was ordered for its violation110—and no maxim in legislation is better understood than that a law without a penalty expressed is practically a dead letter. Allusion was made to previous efforts to enforce the observance in various churches; surprise was expressed that light should be sought for on such a question—for the Gallic prelates had evidently been in doubt respecting it—and numerous reasons were alleged in a manner to show that the subject was as yet open to argument, and could not be assumed as proved or be decided by authority alone. These reasons may be briefly summed up as consisting of references to the well-known texts referred to in a previous section, together with a vague assertion of the opinion of the Fathers to the same effect. Allusion was made to the inconsistency of exhortations to virginity proceeding from those who themselves were involved in family cares and duties, a reasonable view when we consider how much of ecclesiastical machinery by this time turned on monachism; and the necessity was urged of bishops, priests, and deacons preserving the purity requisite to fit them for the daily sacrifice of the altar and the ministration of the sacraments. This latter point was based upon the assumption of a similar abstinence being imposed by the old law on the Levites during their term of service in the Temple, and the example of the pagan priesthood was indignantly adduced to shame those who could entertain a sacrilegious doubt upon a matter so self-evident.111 The conclusion arrived at was definite, but, as I have already remarked, no means were suggested or commanded for its enforcement.

Not many months later Pope Damasus died, but the cause was safe in the hands of his successor. Scarcely had Siricius ascended the pontifical throne, when, in 385, he addressed an epistle to Himerius, Archbishop of Tarragona, expressing his grief and indignation that the Spanish clergy should pay so little regard to the sanctity of their calling as to maintain relations with their wives. It is evident from the tenor of the decretal that Himerius had been unable to enforce the new discipline, and had appealed to Rome for assistance in breaking down the stubborn resistance which he had encountered, for allusion is made to some of the refractory who had justified themselves by the freedom of marriage allowed to the Levites under the old law, while others had expressed their regret and had declared their sin to be the result of ignorance. Siricius adopted a much firmer tone than his predecessor. He indulged in less elaboration of argument; a few texts, more or less apposite; an expression of wonder that the rule should be called in question; a distinct assertion of its application to the three grades of bishops, priests, and deacons; a sentence of expulsion on all who dared to offer resistance, and a promise of pardon for those who had offended through ignorance, allowing them to retain their positions as long as they observed complete separation from their wives, though even then they were pronounced incapable of all promotion—such was the first definitive canon, prescribing and enforcing sacerdotal celibacy, exhibited by the records of the church.112

The confident manner in which the law is thus laid down as incontrovertible and absolute might almost make us doubt whether it were not older than the preceding pages have shown it to be, if Siricius had not confessed the weakness of the cause by adopting a very different tone within a year. In 386 he addressed the church of Africa, sending it certain canons adopted by a Roman synod. Of these the first eight relate to observances about which there was at that time no question, and they are expressed in the curtest and most decisive phraseology. The ninth canon is conceived in a spirit totally different. It persuades, exhorts, and entreats that the three orders shall preserve their purity; it argues as to the propriety and necessity of the matter, which it supports by various texts, but it does not assume that the observance thus enjoined is even a custom, much less a law, of the church; it urges that the scandal of marriage be removed from the clergy, but it threatens no penalty for refusal.113 Siricius was too imperious and too earnest in all that he undertook for us to imagine that he would have adopted pleading and entreaty if he had felt that he possessed the right to command; nor would he have condescended to beg for the removal of an opprobrium if he were speaking with all the authority of unquestioned tradition to enforce a canon which had become an unalterable part of ecclesiastical discipline.

It is observable that in these decretals no authority is quoted later than the Apostolic texts, which, as we have seen, have but little bearing on the subject. No canons of councils, no epistles of earlier popes, no injunctions of the Fathers are brought forward to strengthen the position assumed, whence the presumption is irresistible that none such existed, and we may rest satisfied that no evidence has been lost that would prove the pre-existence of the rule.