The ideas of Jerome, Ambrose, and all the early Fathers, respecting marriage, are still held by many ecclesiastics. One of them, in defending the celibacy of existing religious orders, says: "Celibacy is enjoined on these religious orders as a means to greater sanctification, greater usefulness, greater absorption in things spiritual, and to facilitate readier withdrawal from things earthly." He gives two reasons for the celibacy of the priesthood, which are all the more interesting because they substantially represent the opinions held by the Christian monks in all ages: First, "That the service of the priest to God may be undivided and unrestrained." In support of this, he quotes I. Cor., 7: 32, 33, which reads: "But I would have you free from cares. He that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife." And secondly, "Celibacy," according to Trent, "is more blessed than marriage." He also quotes the words of Christ that there are "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." He then adds: "It is desirable that those called to the ministry of the altar espouse a life of continence because holier and more angelic."
It is generally admitted that the vow of celibacy was not demanded of the clergy in primitive Christian times. It was only after many years of bitter debate and in response to the growing influence of the monastic ideal, that celibacy finally came to be looked upon as the highest form of Christian virtue, and was enforced upon the clergy. As in the case of the vow of poverty, there certainly can be no reasonable objection to the individual adoption of celibacy, if one is either disinclined to marriage or feels that he can do better work unmarried. But neither Scripture nor reason justifies the imposition of celibacy upon any man, nor the view that a life of continence is holier than marriage. It may be reverently said that God would be making an unreasonable demand upon mankind, if the holiness He requires conflicted with the proper satisfaction of those impulses He himself has deeply implanted in human nature.
3. The Vow of Obedience. The monks were required to render absolute obedience to the will of their superiors, as the representatives of God. Dom Guigo, in his rules for the Carthusian Order, declares: "Moreover, if the Prior commands one of his religious to take more food, or to sleep for a longer time, in fact, whatever command may be given us by our Superior, we are not allowed to disobey, lest we should disobey God also, who commands us by the mouth of our Superior. All our practices of mortification and devotion would be fruitless and of no value, without this one virtue of obedience, which alone can make them acceptable to God."
Thus a strict and uncomplaining obedience, not to the laws of God as interpreted by the individual conscience, but to the judgment and will of a brother man, was demanded of the monks.
"Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to do and die."
They were often severely beaten or imprisoned and sometimes mutilated for acts of disobedience. While the monks, especially the Friars and Jesuits, carried this principle of obedience to great extremes, yet in the barbarous ages its enforcement was sadly needed. Law and order were words which the untamed Goth could not comprehend. He had to be taught habits of obedience, a respect for the rights of others, and a proper appreciation of his duty to society for the common good. But while, at the beginning, the monastic vow of obedience helped to inculcate these desirable lessons, and vastly modified the ferocity of unchecked individualism, it tended, in the course of time, to generate a servile humility fatal to the largest and freest personal development. In the interests of passive obedience, it suppressed freedom of thought and action. Obedience became mechanical and unreasoning. The consequence was that the passion for individual liberty was unduly restrained, and the extravagant claims of political and ecclesiastical tyrants were greatly strengthened.
Such was the monastic ideal and such were some of the means employed to realize it. The ascetic spirit manifests itself in a great variety of ways, but all these visible and changing externals have one common source. "To cherish the religious principle," says William E. Channing," some have warred against their social affections, and have led solitary lives; some against their senses, and have abjured all pleasure in asceticism; some against reason, and have superstitiously feared to think; some against imagination, and have foolishly dreaded to read poetry or books of fiction; some against the political and patriotic principles, and have shrunk from public affairs,--all apprehending that if they were to give free range to their natural emotions their religious life would be chilled or extinguished."