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A65597
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A treatise of the celibacy of the clergy wherein its rise and progress are historically considered.
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Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing W1570; ESTC R34741
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139,375
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174
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into the Clergy but the Sons of the Clergy This was indeed a great Abuse and worthy of redress which was therefore abolished by the Quinisext Council as coming too near to Jewish Superstition From general Testimonies I pass to particular Instances and Examples of the Marriage of the Eastern Clergy after the Council of Nice In that Council was present Spyridon Bishop of Trymithus in Cyprus celebrated by all the Writers of those times for his Holiness Miracles and Gift of Prophecy Of him Sozomen saith He had Wife and Children and yet was not thereby in the least hindred or rendred less fit and successful in the Administration of holy things This Note plainly intimates that he used the company of his Wife while Bishop Otherwise the Observation would have been trifling since a married Bishop not using his Marriage is in the same condition with an unmarried one Presently after the Council of Nice Gregory was made Bishop of Nazianzum He had married a Wife a little before by whose means he was converted to the Catholick Faith and who lived with him to an extream old Age for they were both present at the Funeral of their Son Caesarius when Gregory had been now Bishop Forty Years He had by her after he was made Bishop Two Sons Gregory Nazianzen and Caesarius and most probably one Daughter for Nazianzen seems to have been older than his Sister but most certainly was many years older than his Brother Caesarius yet that himself was born after his Father was made Bishop he assures us in his Life where he introduceth his Father thus speaking to him You have not yet run through so many years of your Life as I have years of my Pastoral Charge Baronius affirms this to have been spoken hyperbolically that the use of Marriage was then forbidden to Bishops by the Canons and Constitutions of the Universal Church and these Canons most religiously observed both in the East and West that it may be demonstrated from Arguments of Chronology Nazianzen was born before the Council of Nice when his Father was not yet Baptized The first Argument is already confuted by the precedent Testimonies the second ariseth to no more than this that Nazianzen was Thirty Years old when St. Basil parted from Athens that Basil studied at Athens with Julian who by the Testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus was come thither in the year 354. and that consequently Nazianzen was born in the year 324. the year before the Council of Nice This Chronology of Baronius Jac. Capellus saith he hath refuted in his History of the Church I have not that Book now by me and therefore not knowing whether he hath made good his Promise must offer some considerations to the Reader in opposition to Baronius his Argument First then uncertain Arguments of Chronology formed at this distance of time ought not to invalidate the clear Testimony of Nazianzen who best knew when himself was born Secondly Nazianzen saith not he was thirty years old when Julian came to Athens but when Basil parted thence Now Basil not only might but most probably did stay several years at Athens not only after the Arrival but even after the Departure of Julian At least most certainly he departed not before Julian who left Athens in the end of the year 355. For St. Basil tells Julian that they had learned together at Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theology and all the better sorts of Literature and throughly searched the Holy Scriptures This was a Labour of more than a few Months and therefore Basil cannot be supposed to have left Athens before Julian who stayed there but little more than a year Thirdly Nazianzen saith not he was thirty years old when Basil left Athens but almost thirty and that in a Poetick Work where being not able to express the just time of his Age he was forced to make use of a round number which may admit a Latitude of two or three years And it is most certain that his Father was made Bishop presently after the Council as himself assures us So that even Arguments of Chronology make it probable Nazianzen was born after his Fathers Ordination to which his own Testimony being added make it most certain And then his Brother Caesarius was so much younger than himself that in his Funeral Oration upon him he frequently calls him a young Man and often laments his untimely Death although his Father had been then Bishop above Forty Years In the year 362. Basilius Presbyter of Ancyra and Eupsychius of Caesaria in Cappadocia Who had newly married a Wife and was yet as it were a Bridegroom suffered Martyrdom It appears not directly from the words of the Historian whether the later was of the Clergy But the words of Athanasius will put it past all doubt who numbring the Writers of this time which opposed Arianism mentions Eupsychius Bishop of Cappadocia of which Caesaria was the Metropolis if he means the same Eupsychius which is not improbable However if this be uncertain most certain it is that St. Gregory Bishop of Nyssa was married and lived with his Wife Theosebia till her Death This Nicephorus testifieth saying that when he was Bishop he retained the Society of his Wife and whose Authority is far greater than Nicephorus's Nyssen's intimate Friend Nazianzen who writing to Nyssen a consolatory Letter upon the Death of his Wife saith She had always lived with him aâ—…d mutually shared with him all the comforts of Life and calls her truly holy the worthy Wife and Companion of a Bishop I will produce but one example more but that so pregnant and express that it might alone teach us what was the Discipline of the Eastern Church in that Age. About the year 410. Synesius was for the repute of his great Learning chosen Bishop of Ptolemais in Egypt He was then married and had a Wife whom he professed to love passionately It seems the voluntary Abstinence from the use of Marriage which some Bishops of the East had undergone was become an universal Custom among the Bishops of Egypt so that the People expected that a married Man promoted to the Episcopal Dignity should renounce the Pleasures of Marriage And there was a particular Reason why this Custom should generally obtain in Egypt rather than in any other Provinces of the East Egypt was then the great School and Nursery of Monastick Discipline which had probably at that time more Monks residing in it than the whole VVorld besides The Bishops of Egypt were almost all taken out of these Monks and consequently so great a Veneration for Celibacy possessed the Egyptians that those few married Bishops which were among them could by no other means conserve the Reverence and esteem which was due to their Character than by a voluntary renunciation of their Marriage Synesius therefore that he might not deceive the expectation of the People and willing to decline the burden professed
Clergy till the end of the tenth Age and to the far greater part of them till the beginning of the twelfth Age. Elfric indeed a great Zealot of the Monastick Order in which he was brought up disliked and opposed the Marriage of the Clergy yet so that from his words it is manifest the Marriage of the Clergy generally obtained in England and himself rather wished than hoped for an abolition of it In opposing it he joyned the prejudices of Antiquity to the impostures of latter Ages From hence he received the poor pretence of the prohibition of Marriage to the Clergy by the Council of Nice in the third Canon from thence his detestation of second Marriages against which he had conceived such unreasonable prejudice that he forbid Priests to be present at the solemnities of those Marriages or even to bestow a blessing on them Nay the Clergy of the Church of England enjoyed at that time so great a liberty of Marriage that even the Monks enjoyed the same freedom and as the old Manuscript Chronicle of Winchester relateth all the Monasteries of England except Glastenbary and Abendon were nothing else but Colledges of married Priests till King Edgar drove them thence and planted Monks in them This was done by King Edgar about the year 974 at the instigation and by the artifices of Dunstan who held divers Synods for that purpose and had sharp disputes with the married Clergy possessing the Monasteries where his frequent recurring to tricks and impostures related by the Monkish Historians under the name of Miracles manifest that Reason and Justice failed him and that in both he was overpowered by the married Clergy But the favour of the Prince gave to Dunstan the advantage of obtaining his design who as Malmsbury relateth when he gave the Clergy their choice either to quit their Wives or their Monasteries forsook their Places and left them empty to the Monks Alferus indeed Prince of Mercia drove out the Monks again and replaced the married Clergy but they soon lost their recovered possession with the fall of that Prince However this Violence of Edgar and Constitutions of Dunstan touched not the Secular Clergy whether Parochial Priests or Prebendaries of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches They yet enjoyed the use of Marriage with no less perfect freedom than before And therefore among King Edgar's Canons one is that if a Mass-Priest commits Fornication or violate his Marriage he fast 10 years and always bewail his crime if a Deacon 7 years if an inferiour Clergyman 6 years if a Layman 5 years Not only the Secular Clergy but even many Regulars who lived separately out of Monasteries enjoyed then the benefit of Marriage as many Nuns do at this day in the Abyssine Church whence Sir Henry Spelman observeth that their Wives are frequently called Monachae and Moniales Nuns Afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh imposing Celibacy upon the whole Clergy and seconding his imposition with reiteratâ—…d commands to all Bishops to execute his Decrees Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured to introduce Celibacy into the Church of England But perceiving the attempt to be impossible by reason of the constant and unanimous opposition of the Clergy he was contented in the Council of Winchester in the year 1076. to make this Decree only Let no Prebendary have a Wife But of the Priests who live in Towns and Villages those who have Wives shall not be compelled to put them away those who have not shall be forbidden to marry any Thus Lanfranc prepared the way for the more resolute undertakings of his successour Anselm who not contented with a partial Celibacy attempted to debar the whole body of the Clergy from the use of Marriage which they had hitherto enjoyed So common and general was the Marriage of the Clergy in the Church of England at that time that Pope Paschal the Second in an Epistle to Anselm giving him a Dispensation to admit the Sons of the Clergy into Holy Orders assigns this reason of it because there is so great a number of this kind in the Kingdom of England that they make up the greater and better part of the Clergy And indeed many great and illustrious Members of the Clergy the sons of Priests who lived at this time in England may be produced out of History Herebertus Losinga Bishop of Norwich was the son of Robert Losinga a Clergyman afterwards Abbot of Winchester Rithmarch was son and successour of Sulgheim Bishop of St. Davids Thomas Archbishop of York was the son of a Norman Priest as also his brother Samson Bishop of Worcester whose son Thomas succeeded his Uncle in the Archbishoprick of York Henry Archdeacon of Huntington the Historian was the son of Nicolas Priest of Lincoln who for his great Piety and Learning was called The Star of the Clergy Richard Archdeacon of Coventry was the son and successour of Robert Bishop of Chester or of Coventry and Lichfield which See was then placed at Chester upon which Radulphus de Diceto maketh this observation Not therefore either from Sacred Orders or from Parochial Cures or from Bishopricks or from the Popedom it self are the Sons of the Clergy to be debarred if they be of an honest life It cannot be here imagined that all these persons were born before the ordination of their Fathers For first Clergymen were then ordained young and then the contrary can be plainly demonstrated of many of them For Eadmerus relates that Lanfranc going to Rome in the year 1071. impleaded Thomas Archbishop of York and Remigius Bishop of Lincoln before the Pope that neither of them were canonically promoted to their Bishopricks because they were the sons of Priests and consequently made incapable of Holy Orders by the Canons Which incapacity was never extended to the sons of the Clergy born before their ordination Besides the learned Selden observes there was no such express Canon then made nor ever heard of before the Council of Clermont in the year 1095. and therefore the incapacity of the sons of the Clergy to Holy Orders could arise only from their supposed bastardy being the fruits of the use of Marriage after ordination which the Hildebrandine Popes and Councils had defined to be fornication This was the state of the Clergies Marriage in the Church of England till the times of Anselm who being educated in a Monastery and a dependant of the Court of Rome endeavoured to introduce the Papal Laws of Celibacy into England His attempts of this kind I will represent in the words of our Historians Henry de Knyghton saith Anselm forbid Wives to the Clergy at Leicester in the year 1102. which before were not forbidden to them Simon Dunelmensis In the year 1102. Concubines or Wives were forbidden to Priests in the Synod of London Whence many of them shut up the doors of their Churches omitting all Divine Service Henry Huntindon In the year