History of celibacy

[kmj217]

Greetings and blessings to all at CAF. While at work today a co-worker brought up the topic of celibacy in the priesthood. I quickly realized my knowledge on the subject was very slim and decided to do some quick online research and came across a man on Yahoo that had this to say quoting an article he provides:

There is a good article concerning the history of marriage/celibacy in the Catholic church.

bit.ly/gZqFHC

“In 1139, the Second Lateran Council officially imposed mandatory celibacy on all priests. Every priest’s marriage was declared invalid and every married priest had to separate from their wives — leaving them to whatever fate God had in store for them, even if it meant leaving them destitute.”

“The final blow against priests’ ability to marry came through a technicality at the Council of Trent (1545-1563)…”

Imposed celibacy not scriptural

Imposed celibacy by the Catholic church is not scriptural, but the motive behind this arbitrary rule is greed and power. Priest and bishops had political power based on their designated territory, so when they died that designated territory or land would go to their offspring, however, if they didn’t have heirs it would go back to the church.

The church wanted to retain their political power and they did this by imposing celibacy.

I thought this was interesting:

The final “push” toward celibacy came while celibacy occurred when conflict over land were increasing."

Greed and power were the motivating factor behind this imposed rule.

1 Timothy 4:1-3 (NIV)

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.”

Wondering what the excellent people of CAF had to say on this?

 

[Fan_of_Francis]

You will get a lot of opinions to your question. To see why and how or rather the truth not opinions See:

See: Celibacy of the Clergy

oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Celibacy_of_the_Clergy

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[dmar198]

The history of celibacy goes back to the Apostles. They said they left their wives, children, and homes for the sake of Jesus – Matthew 19:27-29.

Jesus recommended celibacy for the kingdom of God – Matthew 19:11-12 – and He was closely followed by St. Paul – 1 Corinthians 7:32-33, 38.

St. Paul also speaks of women religious communities in which widows were enrolled and young women could not join, lest they would be tempted to marry – 1 Timothy 5:9-12. These women were precursors to our modern nuns, and St. Paul specifically says that if they marry, they will incur condemnation – again, 1 Tim. 5:9-12.

Some people argue that in New Testament times all or most Christian ministers were married, because St. Paul says, “Appoint elders in every town as I directed you—if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife.” Titus 1:5-6. One problem with that interpretation is that Paul says the equivalent phrase “the wife of one husband” for widows in 1 Timothy 5:9, and obviously, these widow were not married women, their husbands were dead. “Wife of one husband” and “Husband of one wife” are two ways of mandating that a priest or nun not be remarried – and that is a celibacy mandate.

(Some scholars insist this was a mandate of monogamy and they say it implies that early Christians accepted polygamy, because you wouldn’t be told to only choose priests from the monogamists if there were no polygamists to choose from. But this interpretation fails for the same reason noted in the first paragraph: widows were called wives of one husband. They weren’t wives of anybody. Therefore it means one who has not remarried, rather than one who has one husband now.)

Early Christian testimony on the subject is well-documented by the Catholic Encyclopedia:

• “Tertullian comments with admiration upon the number of those in sacred orders who have embraced continence (De exhortatione castitatis, cap. xiii)”
• “Origen seems to contrast the spiritual offspring of the priests of the New Law with the natural offspring begotten in wedlock by the priests of the Old (In Levit. Hons. yi, § 6).”
• “Eusebius declares that it is befitting that priests and those occupied in the ministry should observe continence (Demonst. Evangel., I, c. ix)”
• “St. Cyril of Jerusalem urges that the minister of the altar who serves God properly holds himself aloof from women (Cat. xii, 25).”
• “St. Jerome further seems to speak of a custom generally observed when he declares that clerics, ‘even though they may have wives, cease to be husbands’.”
• “Holy Church”, [St. Epiphanius] says, “respects the dignity of the priesthood to such a point that she does not admit to the diaconate, the priesthood, or the episcopate, no nor even to the sub-diaconate, anyone still living in marriage and begetting children. She accepts only him who if married gives up his wife or has lost her by death, especially in those places where the ecclesiastical canons are strictly attended to” (Hser., lix, 4).
• “The earliest enactment on the subject is that of the Spanish Council of Elvira (between 295 and 302) in canon xxxiii. It imposes celibacy upon the three higher orders of the clergy, bishops, priests, and deacons. If they continue to live with their wives and beget children after their ordination they are to be deposed.”
• “The Fathers of Nicaea were content with the prohibition expressed in the third canon which forbade mulieres subintroductas. No bishop, priest, or deacon was to have any woman living in the house with him, unless it were his mother, sister, or aunt, or at any rate persons against whom no suspicion could lodge.”
• “At a Roman council held by Pope Siricius in 386 an edict was passed forbidding priests and deacons to have conjugal intercourse with their wives (Jaffe-Lowenfeld, Regesta, I, 41), and the pope took steps to have the decree enforced in Spain and in other parts of Christendom (Migne, P.L., LVI, 558 and 728).”
  See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the subject for more detail. This clearly wasn’t something invented in the middle ages. It goes back to the Apostles and was preserved by the Church Fathers. It was not always practiced everywhere, but it was the recommended way to do things, and very quickly gained canonical status in Ecclesiastical Law. God bless!