Customer Reviews

Celibacy in the Early Church: The Beginnings of Obligatory Continence for Clerics in East and West

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Contrary to the previous reviwer, in skimming through this book in a library, I was impressed by his scholarship. He may be right, or he may be wrong, but like many recent scholars, he raises some interesting challenges to conventional ideas about the origins of celibacy (which actually only date to the late 1800s). His book deserves a careful read for those who are interested in the subject. A more thourough work, however, is Cochini's book "The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy" (1981) which provided the basis for much of what Feid argues.

This is a superb examination, using original sources in the Greek and Latin, of how the original partial abstinance required of the Jewish priesthood during their period of sacrficial service combined with customs of digamy and continence developed into the modern concept of celibacy. The book shows how the earlier concepts of sexual abstinance were much more comprehensive and demanding than what we previoulsy believed and how counter-cultural they are to our "anything goes" pop culture of today. The scholarship is outstanding and the summaries following each chapter show in a "common law" sort logic how customary practices eventually were codified beginning with the Council os Elvira, 306 A.D., (present day Granada in Spain). I recommend the book very highly.

Stefan Heid shows with accuracy and great care how celibacy and chastity were practiced for all higher ordained clergy (deacons, priest and bishop) from the day of ordination from scripture and the fathers both East and West. This is an amazing study and really gets to the heart of explaining many things that were heretofore clouded by a lack of analysis and scholarship. Beautifully written and highly recommended for those interested in the subject.

I would like to contact Throme regarding his review of this book. Would you be allowed to forward this request on to him

Edgar Davie

211 37th Av No. #c24

Nashville, TN 37209

615 321 5711 Today 4/12/o5

615 383 3476 as of Mon 4/18/o5

If ever there were a work that started out with a premise and then worked toward its solution, this is it. Stefan Heid is so set on "making the case" for clerical celibacy that he puts aside common sense. Lost in his own intellectual mirage, Heid takes gross liberties with the words spoken by St. Paul, the early fathers, and Christ himself.

In 1 Cor. 9:5, Heid changes Paul's words: "Do we not have the right to take about with us a wife," to read "Do we not have the right to take about with us a sister."

When setting forth the early restrictions on becoming a bishop, one of them being you may not have married a second time, Heid makes the quantum leap to infer that that then must mean that the priest was celibate with his first wife from the time of his ordination.

When Paul is writing to the Corinthians in I Cor. 7,8,9 and tells them specifically that he is not asking them to be celibate as he is, but to live the life that has been given them, Heid says Paul is really talking to the Apostles as well, and is really asking them to answer to the higher calling: celibacy. And Heid says: "Here lies the basis for the legitimacy of clerical continence."

If this is academia, give me simplicity, Oh Lord!!!!