must exhibit the same unconditional and un- divided devotion to the church within the bosom of society. which monasticism exhibited without it. While placed by //<>- § 50. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 243 their calling in unavoidable contact with the world, they must vie with tlie monks at least in the virtue of sexual purity, and thereby increase their influence over the people. Moreover, the celibate life secured to the clergy greater independence toward the state and civil society, and thus favored the interests of the hierarchy. But, on the other hand, it estranged them more and more from the sympathies and domestic relations of the people, and tempted them to the illicit indulgence of appetite, which, perhaps, did more injury to the cause of Christian morality and to the true influence of the clergy, than the ad- vantage of forced celibacy could compensate. In the practice of clerical celibacy, however, the Greek and the Latin churches diverged in the fourth century, and are to this day divided. The Greek church stopped halfway, and limited the injunction of celibacy to the higher clergy, who were accordingly chosen generally from the monasteries or from the ranks of widower-presbyters ; while the Latin church extended the law to the lower clergy, and at the same time carried forward the hierarchical principle to absolute papacy. The Greek church diflers from the Latin, not by any higher standard of marriage, but only by a closer adherence to earlier usage and by less consistent application of the ascetic princi- ple. It is in theory as remote from the evangelical Protestant church as the Latin is, and approaches it only in practice. It sets virginity far above marriage, and regards marriage only in its aspect of negative utility. In the single mari'iage of a priest it sees in a measure a necessary evil, at best only a con- ditional good, a wholesome concession to the flesh for the pre- vention of immorality,' and requires of its highest ofiice bearers total abstinence from all matrimonial intercourse. It wavers, therefore, between a partial permission and a partial condem- nation of priestly marriage. In the East, one marriage was always allowed to the clergy, and at first even to bishops, and celibacy was left optional. Yet certain restrictions were early introduced, such as the pro- hibition of marriage after ordination (except in deacons and Bubdeacons), as well as of second marriage after baptism ; the ' 1 Cor. vii. 9. 244 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. apostolic direction, that a bishop sliould be the husband of one ■wife,* being taken as a prohibition of successive polygamy, and at the same time as an allowance of one marriage. Besides second marriage, the marrying of a concubine, a widow, a harlot, a slave, and an actress, was forbidden to the clergy. With these restrictions, the " Apostolic Constitutions " and " Canous " expressly permitted the marriage of priests con- tracted hefore ordination, and the continuance of it after ordi-