MARRIAGE OF ECCLESIASTICS.
(Vol. iv., pp. 57. 125. 193. 196.)
In the early ages, your correspondent H. WALTER assumes that the primitive Christians knew "that their Scriptures said of marriage that it was honourable in all" (Vol. iv., p. 193.). H. WALTER is under more than one mistake with regard to the text of St. Paul (Heb. xiii. 4.) on which he grounds his assertion. This whole chapter being full of admonitions, the apostle, all through it, speaks mostly in the imperative mood. He begins with, "Let brotherly love continue;" "Be not forgetful," &c.; "Remember them that are in bonds," &c. Then he says: Τίμιος ὁ γάμος ἐν πᾶσι, καὶ ἡ κοίτη ἀμίαντος, that is: "Let (the laws of) marriage be revered in all things, and the marriage bed be undefiled;" and as a warning to those who might not heed such an admonition, he adds, "whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." H. WALTER mistakes the adjective feminine ἐν πᾶσι as meaning "all men," whereas it signifies here, "in all things;" according to which sense St. Paul uses the same form of speech in 2 Corinthians xi. 6. True it is, the authorised version translates thus: "Marriage is honourable in all;" but the is is an insertion of the translators, and therefore printed in Italics. Parkhurst, however, in his Lexicon, at the word Γάμος, says: "Wolfius has justly remarked, the imperatives preceding and following show that we should rather understand ἔστω than ἐστί. See also Hammond and Macknight; and observe that the Alexandrian and two other MSS., for δὲ in the following sentence read γάρ, and the Vulgate translates by enim, "for."
I cannot but think that the makers of the authorized version advisedly inserted is instead of let, to forward their own new doctrines, as this their rendering would seem to countenance the marriage of priests. Curiously enough, when they had no interest in putting in the indicative instead of the imperative mood, those same translators have of themselves inserted, in the verse following, the latter, thus: "Let your conversation be without covetousness," &c. Moreover, in translating ἐν πᾶσι, in another passage of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 6., they render it, "in all things;" in which same sense it is to be understood in the above place, Heb. xi. 4.
CEPHAS.
In lately reading that very curious book, Whiston's Autobiography, I met with some remarks on this subject, which I made a note of, and which are at the service of A. B. C. Whiston quotes the well-known Dr. Wall as follows:—
"The Greek Church still observe the rule of allowing their clergy to marry but once, and before the Council of Nice made a further rule that none after his orders should marry; and I believe it is hard to find in church history an instance of any one who married after he was in priest's orders for a thousand (in reality for above a thousand four hundred) years before Martin Luther."
The interpolation marked by a parenthesis is Whiston's, who proceeds:—
"The Church of England allows their very bishops to be twice—nay thrice—nay even four times married without any impediment to their episcopal functions, whereas the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople would not admit the Emperor Leo, a layman, into the church, because he had married a fourth wife."
Whiston, though a "fanciful man," as Burnet calls him, was well read in Christian antiquity, and his opinion is therefore of some weight. Wall's authority no one would willingly undervalue.
I cannot call to mind any English bishop who was four times married; yet Whiston would hardly have asserted the fact if he had not had some example in view. I should be obliged to any one who would inform me on the subject.[1]