Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
STUDIES - Pablo Gefaell: Clerical Celibacy
86 PABLO GEFAELL But these objections can be overthrown by interpreting every text under the supposition of perfect continence. For instance, can. 3 of Nicea I (aD. 325) prohibits the cleric to have women in his house, except his mother, sister, aunt or other person who is «above suspicion».28 Therefore, as we have said, this conciliar precept is susceptible to interpretation in two senses: a) to consider the legitimate wife among those women “above suspicion” and, consequently, as permitted to cohabit with her husband clergyman; or b) to consider that in this canon only the mother and the sister of the clergyman are expressly named, not the wife, implying that the wife does not cohabit with her husband to guarantee his continence.29 This double interpretation was used also in the case of Apostolic Canon six, which clearly stated: “let no bishop, priest or deacon send his wife away under the pretext of piety”.30 In fact, even if Trullo can. 13 used this authority to allow the use of matrimony, some time earlier Pope S. Leo the Great had interpreted it in another way, when he wrote to an occidental ecclesiastic that, receiving this apostolic canon, he must ask the married clerics “to live with their own wives as though they had them not, so that conjugal love be preserved and nuptial activity cease”.31 Canons 13 and 30 of Trullo intend to incorporate the ancient discipline established by the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae (compiled in the council of Carthage, aD. 419). But it seems that Trullo did this incorporation through a unilateral interpretation and changing the sense of Carthage’s normative. Can. 13 of Trullo limited the continence of clergymen only to the periods of service at the altar. Actually, the council of Carthage had a norm requiring total continence for those people who serve at the altar (“sacerdotes... vel qui sacramentis divinis inserviunt, continentes esse in omnibus”, can. 3 of Carthage), but the Quinisext council interpreted the precept in the sense of temporal continence during the sacred service («eos qui divine altari assistent in sanctorum tractandorum tempore esse in omnibus continentes»: Trullo can. 13).32 In this way they were allowing marital relations in the remaining time. 28 “The Great Council has severely forbidden any bishop, priest or deacon, or any member of the clergy from having a subintroducted woman [syneisaktos] except she be the mother, sister, aunt or a person who is above suspicion” in P-P. Joannou, Discipline générale antique, vol. 1/1: Les canons des conciles oecuméniques (PCCICOR, Fonti, fase. IX), Grottaferrata 1962, 25-26 (translation is mine). 29 In fact, can. 27 of the council of Elvira (a. 304) constitutes a foregoing normative almost literally identical than that established in can. 3 of Nicea I, but Elvira’s can. 33 added also a total prohibition of marital relations; cf. H. T. Bruns, Canones apostolorum et Conciliorum saeculorum IV-Vil, vol. 2, Berolini 1839, 6. 30 JOANNOU, Discipline générale antique, vol. 1/2: ..., 10 [translation is mine]. This pseudoapostolic collection belongs to the late IVth century Syrian environment, but had a universal acceptation. 31 PL 54, 1204 [translation is mine].
