the priests of Rhea at Hierapolis, though explained by the myth of Attys, was evidently only a survival of the fierce asceticism which counterbalanced the licentiousness of the older Phenician worship. The rites of the Gaditanian Hercules were conducted by ministers obliged to observe chastity, and the foot of woman was not permitted to pollute the sacred precincts of the temple; while the priestesses of Gea Eurysternus at Ægæ were required to preserve the strictest celibacy.[78] The hierophants of Demeter in Athens, were obliged to maintain unsullied continence. The priestesses of the Delphic Apollo, the Achaian Hera, the Scythian Artemis, and the Thespian Heracles were virgins. In Africa, those of Ceres were separated from their husbands with a rigor of asceticism which forbade even a kiss to their orphaned children; while in Rome the name of Vestal has passed into a proverb, although it is true that while they were only six or seven in number, the distinguished honors and privileges accorded to them were insufficient to induce parents to devote them to the holy service, and there was difficulty in keeping the ranks filled.[79] The earliest recorded attempt by the church to imitate these restrictions, was made in 305 by the Spanish council of Elvira, which declared, in the most positive manner, that all concerned in the ministry of the altar should maintain entire abstinence from their wives under pain of forfeiting their positions. It further endeavored to put an end to the scandals of the Agapetæ, or female companions of the clergy, which the rigor of this canon was so well fitted to increase, by decreeing that no ecclesiastic should permit any woman to dwell with him, except a sister or a daughter, and even these only when bound by a vow of virginity.[80] This was simply the legislation of a local synod, and its canons were not entitled to respect or obedience beyond the limits of the churches directly represented. Its action may not improbably be attributed to the commanding influence of one of its leading members, Osius, Bishop of Cordova, and that action had no result in inducing the church at large to adopt the new rule, for some ten years later were held the more important councils of Ancyra and Neocæsarea, and the absence of any allusion to it in their proceedings seems to fix for us the discipline of the period in this respect, at least in the East. By the canons of Ancyra we learn that marriage in orders was still permitted, as far as the diaconate, provided the postulant at the time of ordination declared his desire to enjoy the privilege and asserted his inability to remain single. This is even less stringent than the rule quoted above from the Apostolic Constitutions, and proves incontestably that there was no thought of imposing any restriction upon the intercourse between the married clergy and their wives. By the council of Neocæsarea it was provided that a priest marrying in orders should be deposed, but a heavier