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7 - Celibacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2019

Edited and translated by
David L. d'Avray
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

Celibacy is a strong theme in the earliest papal legislation and it is connected with both kinds of hierarchy. The connection with status hierarchy is strongest as celibacy marked off the deacons, priests, and bishops from lower levels of clerical status, but the ‘celibacy line’ is also linked to command hierarchy, as deacons, the first level of hierarchy of which celibacy was required, were key figures in the government of episcopal churches, notably at Rome, where they were more powerful than priests. The clerical celibacy of late Antiquity is a different sort from that of the eleventh-century Gregorian Reform. In the second half of the fourth century the Roman Church began to enforce the rule that clerics should give up sex if they wanted to be promoted to deacon, though they would not separate from their wives (below which there were a series of levels where clerics could be sexually active with their wives). This celibacy rule may have arisen to help the ordinary clergy keep up with monastic asceticism, but its rationale and function was to mark out the separateness of those who came closest to the Eucharist.

Type
Chapter
Information
Papal Jurisprudence c. 400
Sources of the Canon Law Tradition
, pp. 133 - 151
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Celibacy
  • Edited and translated by David L. d'Avray, University College London
  • Book: Papal Jurisprudence c. 400
  • Online publication: 13 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108695190.007
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  • Celibacy
  • Edited and translated by David L. d'Avray, University College London
  • Book: Papal Jurisprudence c. 400
  • Online publication: 13 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108695190.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Celibacy
  • Edited and translated by David L. d'Avray, University College London
  • Book: Papal Jurisprudence c. 400
  • Online publication: 13 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108695190.007
Available formats
×