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The Council of Arles (314) also required clerics to observe perfect continence, citing ritual purity as the reason. Canon 29 reads, “Furthermore, with a care for what is worthy, pure and honest, we exhort our brothers [in the episcopate] to act in such a way that priests and deacons have no [sexual] relations with their spouses, given that they are engaged each day in the ministry. Whoever acts contrariwise to this decision will be deposed from the honor of the clerical state.” (Corpus Christianorum, 148.25)

The Synod of Neocaesarea (314-325) confirmed this ancient teaching of the Church that priests were obligated to remain free from the stain of marital sexual intercourse. “If a priest marry, he shall be removed from the ranks of the clergy; if he commit fornication or adultery, he shall be excommunicated, and shall submit to penance.” (Canon 1)

The wording of these canons does not immediately suggest that an innovation is being introduced, and it would be an error in historical procedure to maintain beforehand that such was the case. The seriousness of the implications for the life of the clergy, the absence of justification for the strictness of the discipline and the canonical penalty attached, would suggest, on the contrary, that the Church authorities were concerned with the maintenance and not the introduction of this rule. The important papal decretals of the fourth century, which show the rule for the Universal Church — Directa (385) and Cum in unum (385-86) of Pope St. Siricius; Dominus inter of Pope St. Innocent I, and the Synod of Carthage (390) — were in fact emphatic that clerical continence belonged to immemorial, even apostolic, tradition (as we shall also see further down).

Pope St. Siricius, Cum in unum, A.D. 385: “The question is not one of ordering new precepts, but we wish through this letter to have people observe those that either through apathy or laziness on the part of some have been neglected. They are, however, matters that have been established by apostolic constitution, and, by a constitution of the Fathers.” (Cum in unum (Ad episcopos Africae); PL 13, 11 56a. P. Coustant, Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum, Paris, 1721, p. 562)

The writings of the Church Fathers are often explicit in considering the apostles as models of the priesthood. Yet those who might have been married were thought not to have lived other than in continence. (Cf. St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata. III, 6; Tertullian, De Monogamia, 8, 4; St. Jerome, Apologeticum ad Pammachium, Ep. 49(48), 2, 21; Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratlo evangelica, 111, 4, 37; St. Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 111, 176.)

In 325 A.D., The First Council of Nicaea, which was the first of the infallible and Ecumenical Councils in Church history, decreed in Canon 3 that a cleric is absolutely forbidden to keep a woman to live with him: “This great synod absolutely forbids a bishop, presbyter, deacon or any of the clergy to keep a woman who has been brought in to live with him, with the exception of course of his mother or sister or aunt, or of any person who is above suspicion.”

Another perhaps more accurate translation of Canon 3 reads:

“The great Synod has stringently forbidden any bishop, presbyter, deacon, or any one of the clergy whatever, to have a subintroducta dwelling with him, except only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or such persons only as are beyond all suspicion.”

The term "subintroducta" refers to an unmarried woman living in association with a man in a merely spiritual marriage, a practice that we see indicated already in the 1st century biblical teaching of St. Paul, where he teaches that “the time is short; it remaineth, that they also who have wives, be as if they had none”; in the 4th century such a woman was also referred to as an "agapeta". The pre-Nicaean acceptance of that arrangement for clerics was a clear indication that the clergy were expected to live in continence even with their wives. For instance, a leading participant in the Council of Nicaea, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260-340), wrote: “It is fitting, according to Scripture, ‘that a bishop be the husband of an only wife.’ But this being understood, it behoves consecrated men [those in the priesthood], and those who are at the service of God’s cult, to abstain thereafter from conjugal intercourse with their wives.” (Demonstratio Evangelica, Book 1, Chapter 9)

Commentators on this passage confirms that it really is a law concerning clerical celibacy. The Ancient Epitome of Canon III explains that Nicea teaches that “No one shall have a woman in his house except his mother, and sister, and persons altogether beyond suspicion.” Fuchs in his Bibliothek der kirchenver sammlungen confesses that this canon shews that the practice of clerical celibacy had already spread widely. And finally, Hefele explains that “It is very certain that the canon of Nicea forbids such spiritual unions, [of certain women living in the same house as a priest] but the context shows moreover that the Fathers had not these particular cases in view alone; and the expression συνείσακτος should be understood of every woman who is introduced (συνείσακτος) into the house of a clergyman for the purpose of living there. If by the word συνείσακτος was only intended the wife in this spiritual marriage, the Council would not have said, any συνείσακτος, except his mother, etc.; for neither his mother nor his sister could have formed this spiritual union with the cleric. The injunction, then, does not merely forbid the συνείσακτος in the specific sense, but orders that “no woman must live in the house of a cleric, unless she be his mother,” etc. This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I., Distinc. XXXII., C. xvj.

Similarly, The Council of Carthage (in 390) confirmed the same teaching concerning clerical chastity and decreed that higher clerics observe perfect continence because they act as mediators between God and man. They stressed particularly in Canon 3 the antiquity and apostolic origin of this law: “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.” Subsequent councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (401 and 419) repeated these requirements.

At that time most, though not all, of the clergy were married men. They are directed by the African Synod to give up all conjugal intercourse, because of the fact that this would prevent them from properly carrying out their mediatory function. The import of the canon is that those who by consecration have now become sacred persons must in the future manifest by their lives this new reality by adopting the more perfect and blessed life of perfect chastity. The specific reasons for the continence they are asked to observe, is in order that they may be effective mediators between God and man, and because of the commitment to service at the altar.

The ancient summary of Canon 3 above emphatically declared: “Let a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon be chaste and continent.” As can be seen, The Council of Carthage declared obligatory continence to be “...what the apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed...”, thus showing us that the practice of clerical chastity is an ancient and apostolic teaching. In this context of historical study, the important study by author Christian Cochini should be noted: “The Apostolic origins of priestly celibacy” (original French version: Origines apostoliques du célibat sacerdotale, Lethielleux/Paris 1981).

St. Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage and patron to St. Augustine, was head of The Council of Carthage in A.D. 419 in union with “217 Blessed Fathers who assembled at Carthage”. They reaffirmed the previous Canon 3 in their own Canon 3, stating that: “When at the past council [of 390] the matter on continency and chastity was considered, those three grades, which by a sort of bond are joined to chastity by their consecration, to wit bishops, presbyters, and deacons, so it seemed that it was becoming that the sacred rulers and priests of God as well as the Levites, or those who served at the divine sacraments, should be continent altogether, by which they would be able with singleness of heart to ask what they sought from the Lord: so that what the apostles taught and antiquity kept, that we might also keep.” Canon 4 of the same Council also spoke of the different orders that should abstain from their wives: “It seems good that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon, or whoever perform the sacraments, should be keepers of modesty and should abstain from their wives. By all the bishops it was said: It is right that all who serve the altar should keep pudicity from all women.”

The ancient summary of Canon 3 of The Council of Carthage in 419 declared: “Let a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon be chaste and continent. This canon is taken from Canon ii., of Carthage 387 or 390.” More specifically, the canon was probably referring to Canon 3 from the council held in Carthage in 390.

As we have seen, the law that was promulgated during the synod of 390 would remain valid and be officially inserted in the great legislative record of the African Church, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae, compiled and promulgated in the Council of Carthage in 419 (in the time of St. Augustine). We also see in this law the biblical fact that we have already discussed, that is, that the prayer and spiritual intercession of a pure and chaste priest or ecclesiastic is better and more effective to help save souls than a priest or ecclesiastic who performs the marital act and is distracted by worldly cares, the keeping of a house, and wife, and children, etc. Thus, “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...”