Schaff on marriage and celibacy

[LadyCalvinist]

I just found this article by Phillip Schaff and needless to say I was very surprised by it. What say you to this?

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xiv.iii.vii.html

 

[Hamalas]

I do appreciate Schaff and reference him myself but while it is all well and good for him to say, "it is not my place to approve or disapprove this law of the Church, my duty is the much simpler one of tracing historically what the law was and what it is in the East and West to-day." The fact remains that as one of the two great architects of the Mercersburg Theology he is far from impartial in these types of debates. Here in this passage he explores the breadth of Ancient and Medieval church history without ever allow the Reformers or Puritans to speak their minds about the subject. Thus, he casts the entire discussion as being one big misunderstanding suggesting that the foolish Protestants simply don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Phil D.]

Diane,

Philip Schaff was the general editor of the ANF, NPNF1, and NPNF2 series, but he actually wrote very few of the articles or excursus that are sprinkled throughout them. The article you linked to was written by an Episcopalian scholar named Henry Robert Percival.

There was also one statement in particular that stood out to me as I read it: "In tracing the history of this subject, the only time during which any real difficulty presents itself is the first three centuries..." Of course from an evangelical perspective this is precisely the period of time that would matter most, and a lot of things likely developed and changed in this area between 50 and 350 AD. By then, as Percival documents, it is pretty clear that clergy were not to marry, or were to forsake their marital privileges in virtually all areas of Christendom.

Eleven centuries later, providentially, came Martin Luther...

 

[Hamalas]

Thanks for sharing your expertise in this matter Phil! I should have known to keep my mouth shut so that those who actually know what they are talking about could step in.

 

[JimmyH]

Not to hijack the thead, but in general, is something like Phillip Schaff's 8 volume "History Of The Christian Church" reliable from a reformed perspective ?

 

[py3ak]

The distinction between married clergy and clerical marriages is interesting. But if I'm not mistaken a considerable part of the weight lies in considering clergy as priests, and protestantism of course denies that.

The author does not inspire confidence when he is found making a very simple mistake:

We begin then with the debatable ground. And first with regard to the Lord, “the great High Priest of our profession,” of course there can be no doubt that he set the example, or—if any think that he was not a pattern for the priests of his Church to follow—at least lived the life, of celibacy. When we come to the question of what was the practice of his first followers in this matter, there would likewise seem to be but little if any reasonable doubt. For while of the Apostles we have it recorded only of Peter that he was a married man, we have it also expressly recorded that in his case, as in that of all the rest who had “forsaken all” to follow him, the Lord himself said, “Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit eternal life.”
There can be no doubt that St. Paul in his epistles allows and even contemplates the probability that those admitted to the ranks of the clergy will have been already married, but distinctly says that they must have been the “husband of one wife,” by which all antiquity and every commentator of gravity recognizes that digamists are cut off from the possibility of ordination, but there is nothing to imply that the marital connexion was to be continued after ordination. For a thorough treatment of this whole subject from the ancient and Patristic point of view, the reader is referred to St. Jerome.

"There is nothing to imply that the marital connexion was to be continued after ordination." First of all, there is nothing to imply that it wasn't, so on those grounds we've made no progress. Secondly, that statement is simply false. 1 Corinthians 9:5 reads: "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?"
Here Paul asserts that he and Barnabas have the right to travel with a wife (though in fact it was not a right they used). And he compares his right in that regard to other apostles, the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas. At the very least that means that they also had a right to travel with a wife; but it seems unnaturally reductionistic not to take it of actual travelling with a wife.

 

[RamistThomist]

Not to hijack the thead, but in general, is something like Phillip Schaff's 8 volume "History Of The Christian Church" reliable from a reformed perspective ?

It's worth getting from CBD. I have it and like it. He is very strong and reliable in showing the superiority of the Reformed view of the Lord's Feast contra Lutheranism. Schaff is very weak on predestination. Still, it is worth getting.