An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church

by Henry Charles Lea

[949] Poggii Florent. Descript. Hieron. Prag. (Von der Hardt, T. III. p. 69).

[950] Statut. Synod. ann. 1405; 1406 No. 1; 1407 No. 3 (Höfler Concil. Pragens. pp. 50, 54, 69).

[951] Pluquet, Diet. des Hérésies, s. v. Huss.—Synod. Olomucens. ann. 1413 can. 1. “asserentes etiam ... quod bona clericorum male viventium possunt rapere et eos spoliare sine pœna excommunicationis ... Ex eadem radice et hæretica pravitate dicunt alii, quod sacerdos in mortali existens peccato non possit conficere corpus Christi” (Hartzheim V. 39, 40).

[952] Conciliab. Pragens. ann. 1420 can. xii., xiii.—At this time the Hussites had full sway in Bohemia; the council was held by Conrad, Archbishop of Prague, who had adopted their faith, and its canons were intended for the internal regulation of their own church (Hartzheim V. 198). In the long conferences, extending from 1431 to 1438, which resulted in their reunion with the Catholic church, there is no allusion to the subject of celibacy. The four points on which they insisted were, 1st, the communion in both elements; 2d, the reformation of morals by abrogating ecclesiastical immunity; 3d, free preaching of the Scripture; and 4th, the secularization of church property (Ibid. 760-73). How little, in fact, they differed in doctrinal points from Rome is seen in the confession of faith agreed upon at Prague in 1432 (Johan, de Ragus. de Reduct. Bohem. ap. Monument. Concil. General. Sæc. xv. pp. 182 sq.).

This did not, however, save them from the customary accusations of immorality. Thus, a contemporary describes the indulgence of indiscriminate intercourse as one of the rules of the sect (Joann. Fistenportii Chron. ann. 1419.—Hahn. Collect. Monument. T. I. p. 403), and, in 1431, Conrad, Archbishop of Mainz, in convoking a council to take action against them, says of the sect “exterminavit clerum et omnem cœlibatum commercio nephando stupravit.”—Gudeni Cod. Diplom. IV. 185.

[953] Epist. Procopii Art. VIII. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 25).

[954] Petit. Cæsaris No. 12 (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. V. 348).

[955] Conciliab. Pragens. ann. 1420 can. viii.

[956] Camerarii Hist. Narrat. de Fratrum Orthodox. Ecclesiis in Bohemia, etc. pp. 100, 109-10, 114, 121, 128.

[957] Consensus in Fide inter Ecclesias Evangelicas, etc. Haidelbergæ, 1605.