[928]. Exemption from munera personalia however was early claimed. “Presbyteros, diaconos, etc. ... etiam personalium munerum expertes esse volumus.” L. 6. C. de Episc. et Cleric. i. 3. Hence the king had an interest in forbidding the ordination of a free man without his consent. See the formulary in Marculfus, i. 10. See also the fourth and eighth canons of the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511. and Eichhorn, i. 484, 485. §§ 94, 96. From those we see that through ordination the king might lose his rights over the freeman and the master over his serf. Of the last case there cannot be the slightest doubt in England, and I should imagine little of the first.
[929]. The great argument of the clergy in later times,—in the twelfth century particularly, when all over Europe the attempt was made to exempt them from secular jurisdiction,—“that no one ought to be punished twice for the same offence,” had apparently not yet been thought of. The penances of the church, by which the sinner was to be reconciled to God, were still held quite distinct from the sufferings by which he expiated his violation of the law. Theodore alleviates, but does not remit, the penance of those whose guilt has bent their heads to human slavery. Theod. Poen. xvi. § 3. See this argument stated in the quarrel between Henry II. and Becket: “In contrarium sentiebat archiepiscopus, ut quos exauctorent episcopi a manu laicali postmodum non punirentur, quia bis in idipsum puniri viderentur.” Rog. Wendov. an. 1164. vol. ii. 304. But this was a two-edged argument, as its upholders soon found, when the laity on the same grounds claimed exemption from secular punishment for offences committed upon the persons of the clergy; justly urging, upon the premises, that they were excommunicated for their acts, and ought not to be subject to a second infliction. Accordingly in 1176, we find Richard archbishop of Canterbury attempting to explain away what Becket had so vigorously advanced: “Nec dicatur quod aliquis bis puniatur propter hoc in idipsum, nec enim iteratum est, quod ab uno incipitur et ab altero consummatur,” etc. See his letter to the bishops in An. Trivet. 1176. p. 82 seq. We shall readily admit that the laity ought not to have been let loose upon the clergy; but upon the same grounds we shall claim the subjection of the clergy to the secular tribunals for all secular offences.
[930]. Concil. Autisiodor. an. 578. can. 43. Concil. Matiscon. an. 581. can. 7. “Quodsi quicunque index ... clericum absque causa criminali, id est homicidio, furto aut maleficio, hoc [scil. iniuriam] facere fortasse praesumpserit, quamdiu episcopo loci illius visum fuerit, ab aecclesiae liminibus arceatur.”
[931]. “If a priest kill another man, let all that he had acquired at home be given up, and let the bishop deprive him of his orders: then let him be given up from the minster, unless the lord will compound for the wergeld.” Ælf. § 21.
[932]. Leg. Æðelr. ix. § 26. Thorpe, i. 346.
[933]. Leg. Cnut, ii. § 41. Thorpe, i. 400.
[934]. Eád. Guð. § 3. Thorpe, i. 168. Yet immediately afterwards Eádweard says: “If a man in orders fordo himself with capital crime, let him be seized and held to the bishop’s doom.” Ibid. § 4.
[935]. See Leg. Wihtr. § 18, 19. Æðelr. ix. § 19-24, 27. Cnut, i. § 5; ii. § 41.
[936]. Whether it will ever be possible to surmount the difficulties which environ this subject, may be doubted; but it cannot escape any one who has enjoyed the intimacy of the more enlightened Roman Catholics, whether cleric or laic, that a strong feeling exists in favour of a change. In Bohemia and other Slavonic countries, yet in communion with Rome, the celibacy of the clergy has ever been a stumbling-block and stone of offence, and has done more than anything else to keep alive old Hussite traditions. A few years ago so much danger was felt to lurk in the question, that the Vienna censorship thought fit to suppress portions of Palaczy’s History, which favoured the national views. Nor has Germany, at almost any period, lacked thinkers who have vigorously protested against a practice which they assert to have no foundation in Holy Writ, and look upon as disastrous to the State.
[937]. Some sects believed the δημιουργός to have been the devil himself; and as the Saviour is declared to have made the world, identified Jesus with Satan! Others entirely denied his human nature, on the ground that the incarnation was a materialising of spirit. The ascetic practices of the Eastern church had a similar origin.