Tune into this exchange as Art Sippo demolishes the objections to clerical celibacy. His comments are in blue; his opponent's remarks in purple.
Again I was disappointed (but not surprised) by your comments on celibacy. The way you people carry on about it you'd never know that EVERY major Christian thinker prior to your 'reformation" was celibate including Jesus and all of his apostles. Of course you want to make a big deal out of the Bible telling us that St. Peter had a mother-in-law, but you will notice that nowhere does it mention him having a wife or children. Tradition tells us that he was a widower who was caring for his wife's aged mother. I defy you to show me any ancient source -- Biblical or otherwise -- that depicts any of the Apostles as being married or with children. You will find there is nothing to support this premise. St. Paul makes an off hand comment which is often wildly misinterpreted:
1Cor 9:5 - Have we not power to lead about a sister, a woman*, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?
[* In most English translations, the Greek word "gynikas" here is mistranslated as "wife" but there is no justification for it. Greek has no specific word for husband or wife and so uses the words "andros" and "gynikas" instead which mean "man" and "woman" respectively. It is only the context that can specify the marital meaning of the words.]
Is this verse talking about a wife? Not at all. If it were, it would be very peculiar. Every man was entitled to have a wife with him while he worked. It was the standard practice in the ancient world. What St. Paul was talking about was a woman charged with caring for his needs and that of his ministry. We see this during Our Lord's ministry:
Luk 8:1 Soon afterward [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
N. B. - No mention is made of anyone's wife being with them! Scripture must interpret Scripture when possible. Here I think the interpretation is clear. (There was also a doctoral dissertation reprinted in book form by Sheffield Press on this subject just a few years ago which confirms my analysis.)
So all that St. Paul was saying was that he and St. Barnabas did not have a "sugar momma" following them around and paying their bills. They earned their own living by tent making. the issue of marriage is nowhere in sight. If marriage was an issue, why didn't St. Paul mention this matter in 1Cor 7 when he was talking SPECIFICALLY about marriage and the rights and obligations thereof?
Speaking of 1Cor 7, why don't we see what St. Paul actually says:
7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. 9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn...
24 So, brethren, in whatever state each was called, there let him remain with God. 25 Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present distress it is well for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage...
32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33 but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
So St. Paul recommended celibacy to EVERYBODY male and female, minister or layman.
Matt 19:10 The disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." 11 But he said to them, "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."
Matt 19:29 "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
Mark 10:29 Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
Luke 14:26 "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."
So there is simply no biblical justification for rejecting celibacy unless you want to contradict our Lord's own words. ;-)
In my last note of celibacy I forgot to respond to your quotation from St. Paul:
1Ti 3:1 The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. 2 Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, 3 no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; 5 for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God's church?...
[Please note that at that time in the church the terms "Presbyter" and "Bishop" were synonymous. Our modern use of the word "Bishop" would be what St. Paul would have called an Apostle. (See 1Cor 12:28). The modern terminology did not gel until the end of the First Century. Thus St. Paul is NOT talking about a bishop as we understand it but rather about a priest.]
St. Paul goes onto say:
1 Ti 3:12 Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well; 13 for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus...
So St. Paul is giving us the qualifications for God's ministers. Now what exactly does he mean by "the husband of one wife"? Probably the same thing that he means later on in his letter when he talks about the qualification for a member of the order of widows (i.e., what we would call a professed religious sister today):
1Ti 5:9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband; 10 and she must be well attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way. 11 But refuse to enrol younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry, 12 and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge.
Scripture must interpret Scripture! What then is St. Paul saying in all three cases? Why, that no one should be selected for the religious life unless they are unmarried and widowed, so that they could devote themselves fully to the work of the Lord (1Cor 7:32-35). We know this because St. Paul tells us that their children should be submissive but makes no mention of their wives being so. In light of Eph 5:22, this would be a major oversight unless there were no wives who needed to submit. St. Paul didn't want some young whipper snapper who doesn't know how to run a home trying to run a parish. He also was not looking for someone with divided loyalties. The Eastern Churches have always interpreted the recommendation in 1Ti 3 as meaning that a bishop should have only one wife: his Church. They insist that their bishops all be celibate from the start and interpret the "household" as referring to the local congregation. How can a man be a bishop in a diocese if he cannot run a parish? Under any circumstance, 1Ti 3 clearly states that once someone has received holy orders or professed solemn vows they are NOT to marry. If a widow or widower had married after the first spouse died, then St. Paul considered that person to be the "marrying kind" and not someone likely to remain celibate after the death of the second spouse. So this was not a recommendation for marriage concurrent with ministry, but actually a recommendation against it. There have been 3 recent studies on the Apostolic origins of clerical celibacy: Clerical Celibacy by Fr. Roman Cholij, The Apostolic Origin of Priestly Celibacy by Fr. Christian Cochini, and The Case for Clerical Celibacy : Its Historical Development and Theological Foundations by Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler. They all show that the celibacy of the clergy can be traced historically to Apostolic times and the practice of the Apostles themselves.
Yes, "elder" (presbuteros), and "bishop" (episcopos) do seem to be synonymous to a degree. Certainly in Philippians 1:1 (". . . to all the saints which are at Philippi, with the bishops and the deacons") Perhaps it is that the term "elder" is of Jewish origin and the term "episcopos" is Greek .
Read the 1880 Bampton lectures from England. The writer showed that the structure of the early Church ministry was based on the organization of Greek Jewish Diaspora communities. There was a council of elders with one senior elder (usually the oldest) who was given charge of the community purse. He was the "overseer" or "episcopos." There were deacons who were charged with the day to day social work activity such as feeding the poor. They generally worked directly for the overseer. Robert Wilkens in his magisterial book "The Christians as the Romans Saw Them" shows that the early Christian community was similar in structure to the hetaria or "burial societies" in the Roman empire. Men would join this type of group to protect their heirs from being plundered by marauding thieves after a husband's death. These societies were structured similarly to the Jewish Diaspora communities. The hetaria usually took on a religious connotation and would be dedicated to one god or other. They would hold secret rites and celebrations with the head of the hetaria acting in a priestly role. They would even hold public rites on feast days. These groups were a hotbed of anti-Roman sentiment in the provinces of the Middle East and were banned by many Procurators. The early Christian communities looked a lot like them and so it is no wonder that he Romans had a tendency to want to persecute them. Read Wilken's book for an up to date portrait of the Church in this early period.
However, since the early church, being mostly Jewish, followed the organization of the Jewish synagogue at first, it may be that the "episcopos" (bishop) was the Christian version of the "archisunagogos" (genitive case "archisunagogou") or "synagogue president" of Mark 5:35 & 36.
Very likely.
However, that "God gave some apostles," (1 Cor. 12:28) does not make a modern bishop an apostle.
Read the verse IN CONTEXT:
1Cor 12: 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
If you go to the Didache (@70 AD), it identifies the prophets with "bishops" and the teachers with "deacons" while recognizing the Apostles as a separate level of ministry. This is also clearly present in St. Ignatius of Antioch (@107 AD). We see therefore that the 3-fold level of ministry was known to St. Paul and was carried forward in Sacred Tradition through the 1st Century to the present day in the Historic Catholic Church.
The monarchial bishop was at first "first among his equals" and then later became monarchial. It was a development that I would not call an evil development, but it was an early step away from apostolic simplicity.
There is absolutely no evidence for this claim of yours. The monarchial bishop was the successor to the Apostles in his geographical area. When the Church became primarily a collection of fixed churches as opposed to a mobile missionary outreach within the Roman empire, one elder was singled out to be successor to the Apostle who founded their community. It was generally the oldest one who was chosen since he had control of the money and so the term "bishop" became reserved for the local representative of the Apostolic College. This is part of Sacred Tradition right back to the 1st Century. See the Epistle of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians where he CLEARLY says that he Apostles selected their own successors.
Come now, come now, "the husband of one wife" or as some would interpret it "a one woman kind of man," Certainly no kind of celibacy is suggested here, for we read in 1Tm:3:11:
"Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things."
You are unfortunately using the KJV for your reading. I prefer the RSV. Let's look at it in context:
1 Tim 3: 8 Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for gain; 9 they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them also be tested first; then if they prove themselves blameless let them serve as deacons. 11 The women likewise must be serious, no slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well; 13 for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
To me verse 11 sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn't belong there. I think it is an addition to the text put in as an afterthought possibly by St. Paul himself. If you remove verse 11, the narrative flow remains uninterrupted and makes more sense. Please note that the references to a woman or a wife are not repeated in 12 and 13. Nevertheless, I accept verse 11 as Scripture. What does it really refer to? In my opinion this verse was added at a later time in order to cover the qualifications of a "deaconess" who assisted with the baptism of women (which was done in the nude) and ministered to them in conjunction with the deacons to avoid scandal. When verse 11 says that "likewise the women must be..." it cannot be referring to the deacons' wives but to someone who also functioned in the community in a manner "likewise" to the deacon's function. That is a requirement of the Greek usage here. Now, when St. Paul said that a member of the order of widows must be "the wife of only one husband," did he mean that she was not supposed to fool around and be a "one man sort of woman"? Of course not. She was a WIDOW! It meant that she was to remain celibate after her first marriage. Why do you think the phrase meant something different when it was applied to a man? Scripture must interpret Scripture. I stand with St. Paul against you and your false teaching.
Here again, there is not the least hint of lifetime celibacy, because these women are all widows, widows sixty years of age or older. Yes, these widows described here are single women, but certainly not virgins.
What is that supposed to mean? The order of the widows and the virgins is attested to in Christian antiquity. St. Paul himself advises women to remain as virgins (1Cor 7:34). It was from the order of widows that religious orders arose.
In your case, Scripture is not interpreting Scripture. You are simply doing a colossal job of eisegesis, trying to read something into a text that is not there.
You have no authority to say such a thing. Who are you to tell me what Scripture TRULY means? In your system, my interpretation are as good if not superior to yours. It is YOU who are reading into the books not me. I defy you to tell me the name of ONE wife of any of the 12 Apostles from the NT! I will even allow you to quote from a non-canonical source to provide me with just ONE name for such a person. If you cannot, then it proves that I am right and your interpretation is false.
Yes, I know. The Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Uniate Churches in communion with Rome take the position that a priest or "presbyter" may be married. However, he must marry as a deacon, but must be married before his ordination to presbyter (priest) or he may not marry at all. Also should his wife die, before him, he may not remarry. Yes, I know that they have a rule that to become a bishop, a priest must either be unmarried or separate from his wife (as the first bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska did). I don't know how they harmonized this with "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
I will explain. (Read Fr. Cholij's book for all of the historical niceties.) In the early Church married men were sometimes ordained, but when they were ordained they renounced the use of their marriage and they pledged to remain continent for the rest of their lives. As such, they did not separate from their wives but together lived with them like brother and sister. This was the norm before 680 AD when the Quinisext synod in the East changed the Eastern practice to allow the priests use of their marriage. As such, it was a corruption that allowed full use of the marriage while the apostolic custom was to become "eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom."
The Orthodox have also fallen into the snare of teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Big talk from a guy who denies that celibacy is biblical despite all the evidence that I have provided. You have no right to condemn anyone else's opinion since your cult teaches man made doctrines like the cessation of miracles, total depravity, and justification by faith alone none of which have any support in Scripture or Tradition. In your system, we are all entitled to our opinions. You cannot condemn them without being a hypocrite for asserting your own opinions.
Here you are reading too much into Paul's instructions concerning widows. Paul said very plainly in another place:
1Cor:7:39: The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
He was not talking about a minister or even a man but a WOMAN (who cannot be ordained). It is you who is reading into the text here.
Also in Romans 7, where Paul tells us that the believer who is in Christ is not under the condemnation of the Law:
{Sigh!} St. Paul is talking about the JEWISH law of circumcision and how it no longer applies to us who have been reborn in Christ by baptism. (N.B. Again you will notice that he talks about a woman's right to remarry and not that of a man!)
I have enjoyed our discussion. You have been a pretty good sport. Might I inquire as to why you are pursuing this dialog?
It is possible, yet the Christian rejection of the Emperor cult seems to have been the greatest point of friction.
It didn't help. Especially when the groups in questions looked like hetarias and refused to worship the emperor.
Its that special level of ministry that separates the Apostles from all those that came after them.
Be careful here. The term Apostle refers to more than just the original 12. The OTHER apostles included St. Matthias (Selected to assume Judas' BISHOPRIC in Acts 1:25; that is the first documented case of APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION), St. Paul, St. Barnabas, St. Timothy, among others. Also see how many times Acts talked about "the apostles and the elders." Clearly, there was a close connection between them just as there was between the Bishop and his Elders in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. We see that the biblical view of ministry is in direct continuity with he 3-fold nature of ministry in the post-Apostolic Church.
False teaching about what? It certainly was not Paul's teaching that a widow may never remarry.
You are seeing the world through Protestant colored glasses again! The "order of widows" was a permanent state of professed religious life. Widows per se could marry or not as they chose. Members of the "order of widows" could not. That is why young women under the age of 60 were not allowed to join. Read the text carefully!
He did not want young women in that group because they would be able to work and in them idleness only lead to bad habits and getting into mischief.
Rubbish! Stop foisting the Protestant (over) work ethic into the 1st Century AD. It is not biblical. He did not want young women in the group because they might remarry:
1Tim 5: 11 But refuse to enrol younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry, 12 and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge.
Read the text!
You do get a little hot under the collar. Remember that Pope John XXIII was nice enough to call me a "separated brother."
So don't go telling me what is the right or wrong way to interpret a text. You have no authority other than your own opinion and in your system, my opinion on the interpretation of Scripture is at least as good as yours.
Please spare me. That has to be nonsense. Simply that an Eastern Synod discussed priestly marriage does not mean that they invented it.
Protestantism is nonsense. I have given you reference materials by which you can make an adult investigation of the question if you dare! You are also not reading what I said. The Quinisext synod marked the first time that priest were allowed the use of their marriage and this was a corruption of previous practice. Read Cholij. I am sorry if this does not gibe with your prot prejudices, but this is the history of the real Church. It was this erosion of the Traditional Apostolic discipline in the East which led the West to forbid marriage among priests in the 11th Century. It was considered to be too great a temptation to sin.
If you have a REAL interest in history, do yourself a favor and read Alister McGrath's Iustitia Dei on the history of the doctrine of justification. If all you have ever known was Buchanan's book, this will come as a revelation to you. Also, look at the books by Fr. Cholij and Fr. Cochini on the history of celibacy. I think you will learn things you didn't know before. I would also recommend one of my favorite all time books- Luther: the Man and the Image by Herbert David Rix. This books shows that Luther's peculiar theology was the product of severe mental illness (bipolar manic-depressant disorder with periods of psychosis during manic episodes) and not scriptural exegesis.
Do you have any reading suggestions for me?
Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate