Marriage after priestly ordination is now forbidden by the Greek church, and since the Council of Trullo bishops must be celibate or continent.
Second Query—What evidence is there that bishops in early times, if already married, were obliged to put away their wives? It is said that St. Gregory Nazianzen's father had children after he was raised to the episcopate. Can this be proved, and are there other instances?
From the silence of early Church writers as to any difference between the clergy and laity on this point, I am much inclined to believe that the Roman requirement of celibacy was then confined to the bishopric of Rome itself, and the immediately adjoining country.
St. Paul, in 1 Cor. ix.5., says:
"Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as the other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?"
implying that he had power to marry even then; and our Saviour speaks of continence as a gift given only to certain persons. (St. Matthew, chap. xix. ver. 11, 12.)
A. B. C.
Edinburgh, July 10. 1851.
24. The Sign ¶.
—What is the meaning, and whence the origin of the sectional sign ¶, so much used in the Bible, and also at the head of the rubrical instructions in the Book of Common Prayer?