De convenientia institutorum Romanae Ecclesiae cum Evangelica libertate

1. Next the Lutherans complain that they are unjustly burdened by a very heavy weight, and try by every means at their disposal to cast it from their shoulders.¹ This is the command of chastity imposed by the supreme pontiffs on those who enter the higher orders,² for they cannot calmly endure that priests and their other senior ministers should be forbidden all sexual relations and marriage.

“For,” he says,³ “what sort of freedom of the Gospel is this, that those who wish to enter holy orders are entangled in the bond of perpetual continence? Does not the Apostle, writing to Timothy,⁴ define that a bishop must be ‘the husband of one wife’? He also writes to Titus⁵ that a man appointed presbyter must be ‘the husband of one wife.’ If, then, a bishop must be the husband of one wife, by what right is he condemned to perpetual continence? Do we anywhere find it written in the law of the Gospel that anyone is forbidden to marry? What slavery, what burden, what oppression is this, by which the Roman pontiffs, heedless of apostolic law, attempt to oppress the ministers of holy things⁶ at their own discretion?”

The Lutherans detest this pontifical law so greatly that, after making a vow of continence at their ordination, their priests return to sexual relations and, casting all shame behind them,⁷ enter new marriages. To cloak their foul practices with some covering, however thinly woven, they loudly proclaim that whatever restrains their lust⁸ has been imposed by pontifical laws impiously and tyrannically.⁹

2. Yet if they did not prefer bodily pleasures to spiritual goods, they would not reject the most pure and unimpaired observances of so many centuries. Light is hateful to diseased eyes, though welcome to healthy ones. Let those who are filthy remain filthy; we accept, approve, and revere what befits and adorns¹⁰ our ministers of holy things. What could be more fitting, seemlier, or holier than for the most pure and holy sacrament of the Eucharist¹¹ to be handled by pure celebrants and by ministers pure in every respect? Just as they put on clean garments when they approach the sacred rites, so they ought to approach with a body clean of lust and a mind free of every disturbance. Augustine,¹² in Questions on the Old and New Testaments, question 127,¹³ says: “Its (God’s) prelate ought to be purer than the rest; for he seems to bear God’s own person, since he is his vicar. What is permitted to others must therefore not be permitted to him,¹⁴ because he must daily act in Christ’s place, either praying for the people, offering, or touching [the sacred things],¹⁵ and intercourse is forbidden not only to him but also to his minister, who ought to be purer, since the things he ministers are holy.” But how¹⁶ can a man be clean from sexual intercourse and set apart from worldly cares and troubles if he is entangled in the business of a wife? Those who dedicate themselves wholly to divine things¹⁷ set aside concern for temporal affairs and contemplate the things of the Lord; likewise, one who gives himself over to the service of a wife¹⁸ must constantly turn his thoughts to her affairs and to domestic concerns. I do not say this as though I wished, like the Manichaeans, to condemn marriage, but to show that no one can give worthy service at once to a wife and to sacred things.¹⁹ For, as the blessed Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7,²⁰ “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please God; but the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife.”

3. Cicero’s saying is also relevant: he said that he would not take back Terentia, whom he had divorced, because he could not devote himself both to his wife and to philosophy.²¹ How many troubles a wife brings with her may be understood from Theophrastus as cited by Gellius,²² and also from Plutarch’s Marital Precepts.²³

When the Roman pontiffs, who were also most holy Fathers intent in mind and thought on divine matters, had recognized this through careful study and experience of human affairs, they enacted laws in many councils concerning the celibacy of priests and other senior ministers.²⁴ I do not see what harm the purity of ministers of holy things and their perpetual celibacy bring to evangelical liberty. Surely what is drawn from evangelical precepts does not conflict with evangelical liberty.²⁵ Indeed, the canons of the Apostles themselves prescribe that those who enter the higher orders should live without a wife; Faber,²⁶ most diligent in all branches of learning, says he found this rule in four Greek and five Latin copies. Perpetual continence for these ministers therefore does not conflict with Christian liberty. No one compels you to take holy orders. If you intend to devote yourself to a wife and to the cares of your household, leave sacred ministry. You cannot be unaware that a perpetual vow of continence is attached to it. Do you wish to exercise your freedom in marriage? Do as you please. No one compels you against your will to celibacy, any more than to sacred²⁷ orders.

4. You may perhaps say: “If the holy prelates thought that a wife could not be joined to sacred orders, why were marriage rights not taken away from eastern ministers of holy things?”²⁸²⁹ But we must consider this: ministers of holy things were not forbidden wives because marriage cannot be joined to orders, but because marriage is unbecoming to those who handle sacred things. Because of the Greeks’ obstinacy, however, they were permitted marriage, as they were permitted certain other practices;³⁰³¹ not because marriage is not unbecoming for their ministers of our sacred rites, but so that something might be conceded to their obstinacy. The Roman pontiffs and the conveners of councils preferred to concede them something somewhat unbecoming rather than estrange their souls from the Christian faith.

5. The Greeks twist the Apostle’s statement that a bishop must be the husband of one wife so completely in their own favor that they consider only those ministers worthy of sacred office who have married just one wife, and that a virgin. If anyone has contracted more than one marriage,³² they consider him disqualified from priestly ministry. Thus they bind priests to perpetual celibacy once their wife has been removed from human affairs, and deprive even a man who entered sacred ministry unmarried of all hope of marriage. The Lutherans, on the other hand, applying those same words of the Apostle to an alleged necessity of marriage, demand that all prelates take a wife if they wish to secure their salvation.³³ They therefore accuse the Roman Church of tyranny for imposing continence on priests against evangelical liberty, even though they themselves, by pressing priests to marry, drive them into a worse servitude. What can be more burdensome and servile for a man than a wife? Juvenal says:³⁴

“The bed where a wife lies is always full of quarrels and alternating disputes; one sleeps least of all in it.”

Our most holy pontiffs, who have always sought to interpret sacred Scripture with a certain fidelity, explain the Apostle’s words in such a way that they impose no necessity of marriage on a bishop or priest,³⁵ but only forbid him to have several wives.³⁶ The Apostle, the blessed one, means that a man who is to be honored with the dignity of bishop³⁷ must not have, or have had, more than one wife. Jerome holds that this is to be understood of marriages after baptism.³⁸³⁹ If someone married two wives after baptism, Jerome considers him to be removed from the episcopate, but not if one marriage was before baptism and the other after it. Ambrose and Augustine, however,⁴⁰ hold that whoever has contracted a second marriage at any time is unworthy of the priesthood.⁴¹

6. The Apostle may have given this definition so that the sign should correspond to the reality. Since bishops have been appointed stewards of sacred things, they bear the likeness and image of Christ, the High Priest.⁴² Since Christian marriage represents the union of Christ with the Church,⁴³ and Christ’s union is with only one bride, namely the Church, it is no wonder⁴⁴ that the Apostle defined that one bishop should be joined in marriage to one bride alone.⁴⁵ This, moreover, must be referred to the Apostle’s own time: when the foundations of the Catholic Church had to be laid,⁴⁶ believers were so few that, if a married man converted to the faith and could instruct others, they would appoint him bishop to increase the Church, even though he was occupied with the care of his wife.⁴⁷ Some say that Dionysius the Areopagite had a wife.⁴⁸⁴⁹ Some also think the same of all the Apostles except Paul and John.⁵⁰ But after the number of believers had grown, and the Church could be provided with bishops, priests, and ministers who lived celibate lives, the holy Fathers judged it more honorable and seemly for those entering the higher orders to live without wives than to be entangled in the troubles of marriage. They judged that in this way the most pure and holy sacrament of the Eucharist could be handled more purely, simply, and holily.

The Apostle’s words therefore offer no support to Lutheran lust: they impose no necessity of marriage on priests, and the very permission of one wife applies only to the Apostles’ own time. Hence the Lutherans cannot accuse the Roman Church of calumny for requiring those who handle sacred things to renounce sexual relations once the number of believers had greatly increased.

7. They may perhaps object to clerics’ lewdness, adultery, concubinage, and other shameful practices of that kind. They will say that, although purity befits our sacred rites, since those bound to perpetual continence are stained by many forms of lust, to the scandal of the people, it would be wiser for them to enjoy wives in lawful marriage than to keep houses full of prostitutes.

But I would not judge that marriage should be permitted to clerics because many clerics lack continence. The Roman Church ought to establish what the dignity of the sacrament requires,⁵¹ and ensure that only those who give grounds for confidence in their perpetual continence present themselves for the administration of this sacrament. If one of them betrays that confidence, he must be compelled by more severe penalties to observe the vow he made upon receiving sacred orders. For the man who had not resolved to observe continence ought not to have offered himself for this manner of chastity.