The Fathers, it is true, out of a mistaken Notion of an extraordinary Merit attending Celibacy in this Life, and an extraordinary Reward reserved for it in the other, began very early to recommend it to Persons of all Ranks and Stations, but more especially to the Clergy, as the principal Excellence and Perfection of a Christian. By their Exhortations, and the Praises they were constantly bestowing on Virginity, Celibacy, and Continence, many among the Clergy, and even some of the Laity, were wrought up to such a Pitch of Enthusiasm, as to mutilate themselves, thinking they could by no other means be sufficiently qualified for the unnatural, but meritorious, State of Celibacy. And, what is very surprising, this Practice became so common in the End of the Third, and the Beginning of the Fourth, Century, that the Fathers of _Nice_ were obliged to restrain it by a particular Canon. They enacted one accordingly, excluding for ever from the Priesthood, such _as should make themselves Eunuchs, the Preservation of their Life or Health not requiring such a Mutilation_. By the same Canon they deposed and degraded all, who should thus maim themselves after their Ordination[1249]. But tho’ the Fathers warmly recommended Celibacy to the unmarried Clergy, and Continence to the Married, neither was looked upon as an Obligation, till late in the Fourth Century, and not even then in all Places; for _Epiphanius_, who lived till the Beginning of the Fifth, writes, that though _Men still begetting Children_ were excluded by the Ecclesiastical Canons from every Dignity and Degree in the Church, yet they were in some Places admitted as Subdeacons, Deacons, and Presbyters, because those Canons were not yet universally observed[1250]; so that, according to _Epiphanius_, it was not by the Apostles [Sidenote: _never injoined by the Apostles_:] (as the Divines of the Church of _Rome_ pretend), but by the Ecclesiastical Canons, that this Obligation was laid on the Clergy; and, in his Time, those Canons were not yet universally complied with, nor indeed many Ages after: nay, in the _Greek_ Church, the Clergy are to this Day allowed to cohabit with the Wives they married before their Ordination; and, in this Kingdom, Celibacy was not universally established till after the Conquest, as I shall have Occasion to shew in the Sequel of the present History. [Sidenote: _deemed by Pagans the highest Degree of Sanctity_.]