Transcriber’s Notes Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents remain but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. Footnote 1219 is missing. The footnote from a different edition has been included for information. More doubtful typographical errors: Page 341 They succeeded in making way with him. way changed to away. Footnote 1620 reads L’Esaminatore, 15 Ott. 1867. This has been changed to 15 Oct. The footnotes are located at the end of the book. Italics are represented thus _italic_. SACERDOTAL CELIBACY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. BY HENRY C. LEA. SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED. Οὐ γαρ θεου ἐστι κινειν ἐπι τα παρα φυσιν. ATHENAGORÆ _pro Christianis Legatio_. BOSTON HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York 11 East Seventeenth Street The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1884 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by HENRY C. LEA, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved. DORNAN, PRINTER. PREFACE. The following work was written several years since, simply as an historical study, and with little expectation of its publication. Recent movements in several portions of the great Christian Church seem to indicate, however, that a record of ascetic celibacy, as developed in the past, may not be without interest to those who are watching the tendencies of the present. So far as I am aware, no work of the kind exists in English literature, and those which have appeared in the Continental languages are almost exclusively of a controversial character. It has been my aim to avoid polemics, and I have therefore sought merely to state facts as I have found them, without regard to their bearing on either side of the questions involved. As those questions have long been the subject of ardent disputation, it has seemed proper to substantiate every statement with a reference to its authority.