[781] Decrevimus ut ii qui a subdiaconatu et supra uxores duxerint, aut concubinas habuerint, officio atque beneficio ecclesiastico careant.—Concil. Claromont. ann. 1130 can. 4. This is repeated verbatim in the council of Rheims in 1131, canon 4.
Concerning the latter a contemporary observes: “Placuit etiam domino apostolico et toti concilio, ne quis audiat missam presbyteri habentis concubinam vel uxorem. Assensu etiam omnium firmatum est ut clerici omnes a subdiacono et supra continentes sint, et qui non fuerint continentes, deponantur.”—Udalr. Babenb. Cod. Lib. II. c. 1.
[782] Ut autem lex continentiæ et Deo placens munditia in ecclesiasticis personis et sacris ordinibus dilatetur, statuimus quatenus episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi, subdiaconi, regulares canonici et monachi atque conversi professi, qui sanctum transgredientes propositum uxores sibi copulare praesumpserint, separentur. Hujusmodi namque copulationem, quam contra ecclesiasticam regulam constat esse contractam, matrimonium non esse censemus. Qui etiam ab invicem separati, pro tantis excessibus condignam pœnitentiam agant.—Concil. Lateran. II. ann. 1139 c. 7.
[783] Sed nimis abundans per universum orbem nequitia terrigenarum corda contra ecclesiastica scita obduravit.—Orderic. Vital. P. III. Lib. xiii. c. 20.
[784] Concil. Remens. ann. 1148 can. 3, 8. “Sanctorum patrum et prædecessoris nostri Papæ Innocentii vestigia inhærentes, statuimus quatenus episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi, etc.”
[785] Et ad hæc nihil ad præsens certius breviusque respondendum occurrit, nisi quod ita sancti antistites sapuerunt: rectene? ipsi viderint.—Lib. de Præcept. et Dispensat, cap. XVII.—Abelard contrasts the contradictory canons of the church in these matters in his Sic et Non cap. CXXII. It was possibly among other motives the skilful unveiling of ecclesiastical inconsistencies in this curious work that led the authorities of the church to procure the compilation of Gratian’s “Decretum.”
[786] Bernardi Epist. LXXVI.
[787] Ejusd. de Considerat. Lib. III. cap. v.
[788] Si vero diaconus a ministerio cessare voluerit, et contracto matrimonio licite potest uti. Nam etsi in ordinatione sua castitatis votum obtulerit, tamen tanta est vis in sacramento conjugii, quod nec ex violatione voti potest dissolvi ipsum conjugium.—Comment. in Can. i. Dist. XXVII.
The introduction of the doctrine of Innocent and Eugenius into the church has given rise to some controversy. In the Encyclical of Aug. 22, 1851, and in the Syllabus of Dec. 1864, Pius IX. has condemned the error of attributing it to Boniface VIII. Some zealously orthodox writers have endeavored to prove that the church consistently maintained this doctrine from the beginning, but the contrary is admitted by the greater number of Catholic authorities. Cf. Zaccaria, Storia Polemica, p. 346-7 and Bernal Diaz, Practice Criminalis Canonica cap. 74.