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Document Details :

Title: Marriage and Priesthood
Subtitle: The Evidence of the Early Church
Author(s): HUNTER, David G.
Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality
Volume: 21    Issue: 1   Date: 2015   
Pages: 4-14
DOI: 10.2143/INT.21.1.3087662

Abstract :
This essay reviews the evidence for married clergy between the first century (Paul) and the mid-fifth century (Leo I). Proceeding chronologically the author examines three 'phases' in the development of regulations regarding marriage and ministry. The first phase, stretching from the late first to the late second century, saw a preponderance of married clergyman and a model of ministry firmly rooted in the Greco-Roman household. The second phase, which spanned the third century, saw the emergence of the language of 'priest' for bishops and presbyters and the concurrent appearance of a requirement of strict monogamy (no remarriage) for clergy. The third phase, from the later fourth to the mid-fifth century, witnessed an extension of the monogamy requirement to the wives of clergyman, as well as the appearance of a requirement of permanent sexual abstinence in the West. Despite the latter requirement, the author argues, the monogamous marriages of the clergy retained their symbolic ('sacramental') value as images of the union of Christ and the Church.

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