Csesarius, and a daughter. Others are Gregory of Nyssa, who, however, wrote an enthusiastic eulogy of the unmarried life, and lamented his loss of the crown of virginity ; and Synesius (f about 430), who, when elected bishop of Ptolemais in Pentapolis, express- ly stipulated for the continuance of his marriage connection." Socrates, whose Church History reaches down to the year 445, See the account in Socrates, H. E. i. c. 11, where that proposition to prohibit priestly marriage is called an innovation, a vo/nos veapos ; in Sozomen, H. E. i. c. 23 ; and in Gelasius, Hist. Cone. Nic. ii. 32. The statement is thus sufficiently accredited, and agrees entirely with the ancient practice of the Oriental church and the directions of the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons. The third canon of the council of Nic^ ^^^ ^ goes not against it, since it forbids only the immorality of mulieres subintroducUf (eomp. vol. i. § 95). The doubts of several Roman divines (Baronius, Bellarmine, Valesius), who would fain trace the cehbacy of the clergy to an apostolic origin, arise evidently from dogmatic bias, and are sufficiently refuted by Hefele, a Roman Catholic historian, in his Conciliengeschichte, vol. i. p. 41V sqq. ^ Comp. Hefele, 1. c. i. 753 §qq. ' Can. 5 (ed. Ueltzen, p. 239) : 'Ettio-kottos t) Trpeafiurepos f) SiaKOfos ttju eavTov yvvaiKa firj e/c/SoAAeToi irpu(pd(Tft evKa^eias' iav 5s eK^aXfj, a(popi{ea^<ii, firifj.ivocv 5i Ko^aipfiai^a). Comp. Const. Apost. vi. 17. * Declaring : " God, the law, and the consecrated hand of Theophilus (bishop of Alexandria), have given me a wife. I say now beforehand, and I protest, that I will neither ever part from her, nor live with her in secret as if in an unlawful con- nection ; for the one is utterly contrary to religion, the other to the laws ; but I desire to receive many and good children from her" (Epist. 105 ed. Basil., cited in the original Greek in Gieseler). Comp. on the instances of married bishops, Bing- 24:6 THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. sajs of the practice of his time, that in Thessalia matrimonial intercourse after ordination had been forbidden under penalty of deposition from the time of Heliodorus of Trica, who in his youth had been an amatory writer ; but that in the East the clergy and bishops voluntarily abstained from intercourse with their wives, without being required by any law to do so ; for many, he adds, have had children during their episcopate by their lawful wives.^ There were Greek divines, however, like Epiphanius, who agreed with the Roman theory. Justinian I. was utterly opposed to the marriage of priests, declared the children of such connection illegitimate, and forbade the elec- tion of a married man to the episcopal office (a. d. 52S). IS^evertheless, down to the end of the seventh century, many bishops in Africa, Libya, and elsewhere, continued to live in the married state, as is expressly said in the twelfth canon of the Trullan council