CELIBACY (Lat. caelibatus, from caelebs, unmarried), the state of being unmarried, a term now commonly used in the sense of complete abstinence from marriage ; it originally included the state of widowhood also, and anyone was strictly a caelebs who had no existing spouse. From the point of view of public utility, the State has sometimes attempted to discourage celibacy. Eccle siastical legislators, on the other hand, have frequently favoured the unmarried state ; and celibacy, partial or complete, has been more or less stringently enforced upon the ministers of different religions; many instances are quoted by H. C. Lea. The best known, of course, are the Roman vestals ; though even the great honours and privileges accorded to these maidens were often insuf ficient to keep the ranks filled. In the East, however, this and other forms of asceticism have always flourished more freely; and the Buddhist monastic system is not only far older than that of Christendom, but also proportionately more extensive. In early Judaism all priests were the sons of priests, and the case of Eliza beth shows that here, as throughout the Jewish people, barrenness was considered a disgrace. But Alexander's conquests brought the Jews into contact with Hindu and Greek mysticism, and this prob ably explains the growth of the ascetic Essenes some two centuries before the Christian era. The adherents of this sect, unlike the Pharisees and Sadducees, were never denounced by Christ, who on the contrary had real sympathy with the voluntary celibacy of an exceptional few (Matt. xix. 12). St. Paul's utterances on this subject amount only to the assertion that a struggling missionary body will find more freedom in its work in the absence of wives and children. At the same time St. Paul claimed emphatically for himself and the other apostles the "power to lead about a wife"; and he names among the qualifications for a bishop, an elder, and a deacon that he should be "the husband of one wife." Indeed it was admitted by the most learned men of the middle ages that celibacy had been no apostolic rule ; and though writers of ability have attempted to maintain the contrary even in modern times their contentions are unhesitatingly rejected by the best Roman Catholic scholars.' Growth of Clerical Celibacy.—The gradual growth of cleri cal celibacy, first as a custom and then as a rule, can be traced 'I. Cor. vii. 25 seq., ix. 5; I. Tim. iii. 2, II, 12; Titus i. 6; E. Vacandard in Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v. "Celibat." through the scanty records of the first few centuries. The most ascetic Christians began to question the legality of second mar riages on the part of either sex; yet twice-married men (digami) were admitted to the priesthood by Pope Calixtus I. (219-222), and even as late as the beginning of the 5th century we find hus bands of widows consecrated to the episcopate. The so-called apostolical constitutions and canons, the latter of which were com piled in the 4th century, give us the first clear and fairly general rules on the subject. Here we find "bishops and priests allowed to retain the wives whom they may have had before ordination, but not to marry in orders ; the lower grades, deacons, subdeacons, etc., allowed to marry after entering the church ; but all were to be hus bands of but one wife, who must be neither a widow, a divorced woman, nor a concubine" (Lea i. 28). Many causes, however, were already at work to carry public feeling beyond this stage. Quite apart from the few enthusiasts who would have given a literal interpretation to the text in Matt. xix. 12, VOWS of virginity be came more and more frequent ; these were at first purely volun tary and temporary ; but public opinion naturally grew less and less tolerant of an unstable purpose. Again, not only was the church doctrine itself more or less consciously influenced by the Mani chaean tenet of the diabolical origin of all matter, including the human body, but churchmen were also naturally tempted to com pete in asceticism with the many heretics who held this tenet. Moreover, in proportion as the clergy became beneficiaries and administrators of rich endowments, a strong feeling grew up among the laity that church revenues should not go to support the priest's family. Lastly the partial attempts at enforcement, by their very failure, suggested more heroic measures. Therefore, side by side with the evidence for breach of the old rules, we find an equally constant series of new and more stringent enactments.
For the next three or four centuries there is little to note but the continual open or secret resistance to these decrees and the parallel frequency and stringency of legislation, which by its very monotony bears witness to its want of success. In many districts the priesthood tended to become a mere hereditary caste, to the disadvantage of Church and State alike. In spite of Dunstan's reforms at the end of the loth century, the Norman Lanfranc found so many wedded priests that he dared not decree their separation ; and when St. Anselm attempted to go further, this seemed a perilous novelty even to so distinguished an ecclesiastic as Henry of Huntingdon, who records that many feared "lest the clergy, in striving after a purity too great for human strength, should fall into horrible impurity, to the extreme dishonour of the Christian name" (lib. vii. ; Migne, P.L. cxcv. col. 944) . Yet this was at a time when the decisive and continued action of the papacy ought to have left no possible doubt as to the law of the church.
Reforms of Hildebrand.—For, under the influence of St. Peter Damiani and Hildebrand, five successive popes between and I073 had attempted a radical reform; and when, in this latter year, Hildebrand himself became pope, he took measures so stringent that he has sometimes been erroneously represented as the actual author of the strict rule of celibacy. His mind, strongly imbued with the theocratic ideal, saw more clearly than any other the enormous increase of influence which would accrue to a strictly celibate body of clergy; and no statesman has ever pur sued with greater energy and resolution a plan once formulated. In order to break down the desperate resistance of the clergy, he did not shrink from the perilous course of subjecting them to the judgment of the laity. Not only were concubinary priests—a term which was now made to include also those who had openly mar ried—forbidden to serve at the altar and threatened with actual deposition, but the laity were warned against attending mass said by "any priest certainly known to keep a concubine or subintro ducta."' But these heroic measures soon caused serious embarrassment. If the laity were to stand aloof from all incontinent priests, while (as the most orthodox churchmen constantly complained) many priests were steadily incontinent, then this could only result in estranging large bodies of the laity from the sacraments. It be came necessary, therefore, to soften a policy which might imply that the virtue of a sacrament was weakened by the vices of its ministers. Therefore, though Peter Lombard (d. 1 i60) had con cluded that no excommunicated priest can effect transubstantia tion, St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) agrees with all the later schoolmen in granting him that power, though to the peril of his own soul.' For, by the last quarter of the 13th century, the struggle had entered upon a new phase. The severest measures had been tried, especially against the priests' unhappy partners. As early as the council of Augsburg (952) these women were con demned to be scourged, while Leo II. and Urban II., at the coun cils of Rome and Amalfi (1051, 1089), adjudged them to actual slavery. Such enactments naturally defeated their own purpose. More was done by the gentler missionary zeal of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the early 13th century; but St. Thomas Aquinas had seen half a century of that reform and had recog nized its limitations; he therefore attenuated as much as possible the decree of Nicholas II. Alvarez Pelayo, a Spanish bishop and papal penitentiary, wrote in 1332: "The clergy sin commonly in these following ways . . . fourthly, in that they live very incon tinently, and would that they had never promised continence, especially in Spain and Southern Italy, in which provinces the sons of the laity are scarcely more numerous than those of the clergy." Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly pleaded before the Council of Constance in 1415 for the reform of "that most scandalous custom, or rather abuse, whereby many (clergy) fear not to keep concubines in public."' Suppression of Open Marriages Among Clergy.—Mean while, open marriages among clergy in holy orders (priests, dea cons, and subdeacons) were gradually stamped out. A series of synods, from the early 12th century onwards, declared such mar riages to be not only unlawful, but null and void in themselves. Yet the custom lingered sporadically in Germany and England until the last few years of the 13th century, though it seems to have died out earlier in France and Italy. There was also a short lived attempt to declare that even a clerk in lower orders should lose his clerical privileges on his marriage; moreover, a bishop's licence was required to enable the cleric to officiate in church, and the episcopal registers show that the diocesans frequently insisted on the celibacy of parish clerks. As the middle ages drew to a close earnest churchmen were compelled to ask themselves whether it would not be better to let the priests marry than to continue a 'The actual originator of this policy was Nicholas II., probably at Hildebrand's suggestion ; but the decree remained practically a dead letter until Gregory's accession.
Lombard, Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 13 ; Aquinas, Summa Theol. pars iii. Q. lxxxiii. art. 7, 9.
Pelagius, De Planctu Ecclesiae, ed. 1517, f. 131a, col. 2 ; cf. f. Io2b, col. 2 ; Hermann von der Hardt, Constantiensis Concilii, etc. vol. i. pars. viii. col. 428.
system under which concubinage was even licensed in some dis tricts.' Proposals to Reintroduce Clerical Marriage.—Serious pro posals were made to reintroduce clerical marriage at the great reforming councils of Constance (141 5) and Basle (1432) ; but the overwhelming majority of orthodox churchmen were unwilling to abandon a rule for which the saints had fought during so many centuries, and to which many of them probably attributed an apostolic origin. This conservative attitude was inevitably strengthened by the attacks first of Lollard and then of Lutheran heretics; and Sir Thomas More was driven to declare that the marriage of priests, being essentially null and void, "defileth the priest more than double or treble whoredom." Yet the frequency of concubinage moved the emperor Charles V. to obtain from Paul III. dispensations for married priests in his dominions ; and his successor Ferdinand, with the equally catholic sovereigns of France, Bavaria, and Poland, pleaded strongly at the Council of Trent (1545) for permissive marriage. The council, after some hesitation, took the contrary course, and erected sacerdotal celi bacy practically, if not formally, into an article of faith. In spite of this, the emperor, Joseph II., re-opened the question in 1783. In France the revolutionary constitution of 1791 abolished all re strictions on marriage, and during The Terror celibacy often ex posed a priest to suspicion; but the better part of the clergy steadily resisted, and it is estimated that only about 2% were married. The Old Catholics adopted the principle of sacerdotal marriage in 1875.