; but this gave offence and was forbidden. From that time the marriage of bishops gradually disappears, while marriage among the lower clergy continues to be the rule. This Trullan council, which was the sixth ecumenical^ (a. d. 692), closes the legislation of the Eastern church on the subject of clerical marriage. Here — ^to antici]3ate somewhat — the continuance of a first marriage contracted before ordina- tion was prohibited in the case of bishops on pain of deposi- tion, but, in accordance with the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons, allowed in the case of presbyters and deacons (contrary to the Roman practice), with the Old Testament restriction, ham, Christ. Antiq. b. iv. ch. 5 ; J. A. Theiner and A. Theiner, Die Einfiihrung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit der christl. Geistlichen u. ihre Folgen (Altenburg, 1828), vol. i. p. 263 sqq., and Gieseler, vol. i. div. 2, § 9*7, notes at the close. The marriage of Gregory of Nyssa with Theosebia is deputed by some Koman Catholic writers, but seems well supported by Greg. Naz. Ep. 95, and Greg Nyss. De virg. 3. ' Hist. Eccl. V. cap. 22 : Twv ev avaroAfj iroLVTun' yva>u.ri (i. e. from principle or voluntarily — according to the reading of the Florentine codex) a-mxoi-i-ivttiv, Kal twp iKKTiiontiiv, et Kai ^ovAoivTO, oh fxrif afdyKj] vofxov roi/TO iroiovvrwi'. TluWol yap avrSiy iv T(f KCiipai TTjs eViffKOTTjj »fai 7ra?5as eK tt/s voij.l/j.Tji yafj.fTris TTenoirjicaa'tv. '^ More precisely, the second Trullan council, held in the Trullan hall of the im- perial palace in Constantinople ; also called Concilium Quuiisextum, (xvyoSos inv dfKTTi, being considered a supplement to the fifth and sixth general councils. Comp. respecting it Hefele, iii. 298 sqq. § 50. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 247 that thej abstain from sexual intercourse during the season of official service, because he who administers holy things must be jjure.^ The same relation is thus condemned in the one case as immoral, in the other approved and encouraged as moral ; the bishop is deposed if he retains his lawful wife and does not, immediatelj after being ordained, send her to a distant cloister ; while the presbyter or deacon is threatened with de- position and even excommunication for doing the opposite and putting his wife away. The "Western church, starting from the perverted and al- most Manichsean ascetic principle, that the married state is incompatible with clerical dignity and holiness, instituted a vigorous effort at the end of the fourth century, to make celibacy, which had hitherto been left to the option of individ- uals, the universal law of the priesthood ; thus placing itself in direct "contradiction to the Levltical law, to which in other respects it made so much account of conforming. The law, however, though repeatedly enacted, could not for a long time be consistently enforced. The canon, already mentioned, of the Spanish council of Elvira in 305, was only provincial. The iirst prohibition of clerical marriage, which laid claim to uni- versal ecclesiastical authority,