the clergy to keep “mulieres extraneæ” under the name of “sorores,” and permitting only mothers, daughters, and sisters, he adds that the desire for chastity does not prohibit the residence of wives whose merits have assisted in rendering their husbands worthy of the priesthood.[90] The object of the law is evidently to give practical force and effect to the Nicene canon, and the imperial power under Honorius had sunk to too low an ebb for us to imagine the possibility of his venturing to tamper with and overrule the decrees of the most venerable council.[91] Even in the sixth century the Nicene canon was not yet considered to have the meaning subsequently attributed to it, for otherwise there would have been no necessity of inserting a provision prohibiting the marriage of priests in the account forged at that time of a Roman council said to have been held by Silvester I.[92] If the proof thus adduced be as convincing as it appears to me, the story of Paphnutius is not so important as to deserve the amount of controversy that has been expended upon it, and a brief reference is all that seems necessary. Socrates and Sozomen relate that while the canons of the council were under consideration, some of the fathers desired to introduce one interdicting all intercourse between those in orders and their wives. Whereupon Paphnutius, an Egyptian bishop, protested against the heavy burden to be thus imposed upon the clergy, quoting the well-known declaration of St. Paul to the Hebrews respecting the purity of the marriage-bed. The influence of St. Paphnutius was great, for he was a confessor of peculiar sanctity; the loss of his right eye bore testimony to the severity of the persecutions which he had endured, and his immaculate chastity, preserved from boyhood in a monastery, rendered his motives and his impartiality on the subject unimpeachable. The bishops, who had been on the point of accepting the proposed canon, were convinced, and the project was abandoned.[93]