K\rjpov KUTaA^yovrai ra^iv), Kol tva IJ.T], irapo<pb4vTes, fieyiXa. epydcruuTai KaKa. Quite parallel is the testimony of Gre- gory Nazianzen iu his Carmen, ets kavrhv kolI irtpl iiria-Koiroiv, or De se ipso et de episcopis, ver. 330 sqq. (Opera, ed. Bened. Par. tom'. ii. p. '796), and elsewhere. ' Sozomenus, Hist. Eccl. vii. c. 8. Sozomen sees in this election a special inter- position of God. - Sozomenus, vii. c. 10. Otherwise he, as well as Socrates, H. E. v. c. 8, and Theodoret, H. E. v. c. 8, speaks very favorably of the character of Xectarius. ' The seventh ecumenical councU, at Nice, '787, in its third canon, on the basi»! of a wrong interpretation of the fourth canon of the first council of Nice, expressly prohibited the people and the secular power from any share in the election of bishops. Also the eighth general council prescribes that the bishop should be chosen only by the college of bishops. VOL. II. — IG I 24:2 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. temporal prince exerted an important influence, in spite of the frequent pi-otest of the church. Even the election of pope, after the downfall of the West Koman empire, came largely under control of the secular au- thorities of Rome ; first, of the Ostrogothic kings ; then, of the exarchs of Ravenna in the name of the Byzantine emperor ; and, after Charlemagne, of the emperor of Germany ; till, in 1059, through the influence of Hildebi-and (afterward Gregory VII.), it was lodged exclusively with the college of cardinals, which was filled by the pope himself. Yet the papal absolut- ism of the middle age, like the modern Napoleonic military despotism in the state, found it well, under favorable prospects, to enlist the democratic principle for the advancement of its own interests. . _ § 50. Marriage and Celibacy of the Clergy. The progress and influence of monasticism, the general ex- altation of the ascetic life above the social, and of celibacy above the married state, together with the increasing sharpness of the distinction between clergy and laity, all tended power- fully toward the celibacy of the clergy. What the apostle Paul, expressly discriminating a divine command from a hu- man counsel, left to each one's choice, and advised, in view of the oppressed condition of the Christians in the apostolic age, as a safer and less anxious state only for those who felt called to it by a special gift of grace, now, though the stress of circumstances was past, was made, at least in the Latin church, an inexorable law. What had been a voluntary, and therefore an honorable exception, now became' the rule, and the former rule became the exception. Connubial intercourse appeared incompatible with the dignity and purity of the priestly oflice and of priestly functions, especially with the service of the altar. The clergy, as the model order, could not remain below the moral ideal of monasticism, extolled by all the fathers of the church, and