A History of the Holy Eastern Church Volume 2, V. 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ...who might dwell in the same house, to mothers, aunts, or sisters, some of the Fathers were desirous of ordaining that any Clerk married before his ordination must after it observe continence. S. Paphnutius opposed this, and as he himself was unmarried, and of notoriously pure life, his opinion had great weight. "The Church had advanced," he said, "that none s-Paphnucould marry after the reception of Holy Orders: let that suffice; to press the matter further would rather tend to immorality than 1 The names are preserved by S. Apol. i. 789. (Ed. Paris. 1627.) Athanasius, Ad Imperator Constant. to chastity. S. Paul had declared that marriage was honourable in all; and the liberty received from our fathers should be left to our posterity." This opinion prevailed. The synodal letter of the Nicene Council, recapitulating its proceedings, was addressed to the Churches of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, in the first place, and in them to all Catholic Churches. The principal Bishops were ordered to make known the decrees of the Council to the Prelates in their various countries; so that while the news of the triumph of the Faith was propagated by Osius to Spain, France, and Britain, it was at the same time announced by means of John, Bishop of Persia, to the Faithful as far as Malabar and the borders of China. The Council was terminated on the twenty-fifth of August; on which day Constantine gave a banquet to the Bishops, in honour of its conclusion, and of the commencement of the twentieth year of his reign, having deferred the latter ceremony for a month, that the two might coincide. Eusebius of Csesarea pronounced a panegyric on Constantine: and the feast which followed was one that might become such guests on such an...