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Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae, A.D. 419: “Epigonius, Bishop of the Royal Region of Bulla, says: ‘The rule of continence and chastity had been discussed in a previous council. Let it [now] be taught with more emphasis what are the three ranks that, by virtue of their consecration, are under the same obligation of chastity, i.e., the bishop, the priest, and the deacon, and let them be instructed to keep their purity.’”

“Bishop Genethlius says: ‘As was previously said, it is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e., those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavor to keep.’”

“The bishops declared unanimously: ‘It pleases us all that bishop, priest, and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from [conjugal intercourse] with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity.’” (The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy by Christian Cochini, pages 4-5)

In saying that “in certain provinces it is permitted to the readers and singers to marry”, Canon 14 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) suggests that, in other provinces, not only bishops, priests, deacons and subdeacons, but even those in the lower or minor orders of readers and singers were at that time not permitted to marry.

In Gaul in the middle of the 5th century, a synod of sixteen bishops held a council at Orange in 441 under the presidency of St. Hilary of Arles, that made an explicit public declaration of the commitment to continence, emphasizing the duty of celibacy for those belonging to the clerical state, especially deacons and widows, forbidding married men to be ordained as deacons, and digamists, that is, those who contract a second marriage after the death of their spouse, to be advanced beyond the sub-diaconate. (cf. First Council of Orange (441), c. 8, 21. CC 148,84). This was to prevent excuses of ignorance of the obligation which previously had been implicit in the reception of orders. The wife (who in the Gallic Church was termed a presbytera, diaconissa, subdiaconissa or even episcopia according to the status of her husband) was to live as a ‘sister’ in a brother-sister relationship. (cf. Girona (517), c. 6. H.T. Bruns, Canones Apostolorum et Conciliorum saeculorum IV-VII, Berlin, 1839,11, 19. Clermont (535), c. 13. CC 148 A, 108. Tours (567), c. 13. Ibid., 180-1). Her rights were protected as ordination could not go ahead without her agreement. Her promise to live in continence was also an impediment to future marriage.

Continent cohabitation expressed trust in the nobility of human love to combine marital affection with the values of the consecrated clerical state. St. Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) and St. Jerome (ca. 417) indicate a warm spirituality for those embracing this new life. (cf. Ep. 44. CSEL 29,372-7. De Septem Ordinibus Ecclesiae. PL 30,1 59c-d.) However, because of the real possibilities of incontinence, total physical separation would be recommended (Arles IV A.D. 524) or even sometimes required (Toledo III A.D. 589). A return to conjugal relations, after all, was considered to be as serious a sin as adultery (cf. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, I, 34), the cleric being punished by reduction to the lay state.

In Gaul in the early sixth century, councils held under the reforming and energetic St. Caesarius of Arles (c. 468-542) reaffirmed legislation for the restoration of priestly celibacy, a discipline which had suffered as a result of the Visigoth invasions during the previous century. The Council of Agde held in 506, in Gaul, in the South of France under the presidency of St. Caesarius of Arles, had 47 genuine canons that dealt with such subjects as clerical celibacy, the canonical age for ordination, the relations of a bishop and his diocesan synod, church property, public peace, and the religious obligations of the faithful. The same council also forbade subdeacons to marry, and such synods as those of Orléans in 538 and Tours in 567 prohibited even those already married from continuing to live with their wives.

In 541 The Fourth Synod of Orleans ordered that “the bishop must treat his wife as his sister” and added that “the people must not respect but scorn the priest who cohabits with his wife, for in the place of being a doctor of penitence he is a doctor of libertinage.” Again, we see that the priest’s job in the eyes of the Church is to practice penitence, and to thus draw down a shower of grace for himself as well as for his flock, and that all priests who perform the marital act “in the place of being a doctor of penitence he is a doctor of libertinage.” Meeting in 583, The Synod of Lyon’s first canon decreed that married priests could not live together with their spouses. In 589 The Synod of Toledo issued canon 5, that also was a declaration that married clerics may not live with their wives.

Indeed, so fervent were the early church to hinder Her clerics from performing the marital act, that in 530 the Emperor Justinian declared null and void all marriages contracted by clerics in Holy Orders, and the children of such marriages to be spurious by ordering that the children of priests, deacons and subdeacons who, “in disregard of the sacred canons [of clerical continency], have children by women with whom, according to sacerdotal regulation, they may not cohabit”, or according to another translation: “they are not permitted to have relations” be considered illegitimate on the same level as those “procreated in incest and in nefarious nuptials” (Code of Justinian, 1.3.44). As for bishops, he forbade “any one to be ordained bishop who has children or grandchildren” (Code of Justinian, 1.3.41).

The Breviatio Ferrandi was a digest of Church legislation in Africa assembled about 550 which reaffirms earlier norms of priestly celibacy. In summary the main points were as follows:

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  bishops, priests and deacons were to abstain from relations with their wives;
  

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  any priest who got married was to be deposed; if he commits the sin of fornication he is to do penance;
  

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  in order to safeguard the reputation of ministers of the Church and to help them observe chastity, clerics were not to live with women other than close family relations.
  

It is worth noting that this was a period of merciless persecution for the Church in North Africa when the Vandals invaded and eliminated the leaders of many of these Christian communities (cf. Cochini, Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, pp. 324-26).

The Third Council of Toledo (589) was convoked to remedy abuses that had penetrated the clergy arising from the Arian heresy. Bishops, priests and deacons, returning to the Catholic faith after abandoning Arianism, no longer considered continence an obligation of the priestly state. So called matrimonial “rights” had reasserted themselves and, therefore, although Arianism had been officially defeated at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the negative effects of this heresy, as far as priestly chastity was concerned, were still being felt two centuries later. Canon 5 of Toledo III renewed the traditional discipline, indicating the sanctions which attended its infraction.