Section 506
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24 COUNCIL OF NICE. mitted to continue in Lycopolis, the city of his residence, but wag deprived of his ecclesiastical powers and authority, being merely permitted to retain the title of bishop. But the reader is referred to the synodical epistle for the particulars in relation to Meletius. and those who had received ordination at his hands. Another part of the business of the council was the framing of several canons, or general laws of discipline, not, it is understood, to establish a new code of regulations, but chiefly to preserve the ancient rules of conduct imposed on the clergy, which had been too much relaxed or neglected. These canons t are twenty in number, t and have been acknowledged as genuine by all anti quity. The bishops were inclined to pass an ecclesiastical law in addition to the others, requiring, according to Socrates, that those who had been admitted to holy orders, the bishops, priests and deacons, and, according to Sozomen, the subdeacons also, should abstain from cohabitation with/ the wives whom they had mar ried while they were laymen.-7 When this topic was proposed for debate, and the opinions of the synod were called for, Paphnutius, rising from his seat in the midst of the bishops, and raising his voice, protested against the imposition of so heavy a yoke on the clergy, remarking, in the words of St. Paul, that marriage was honorable and the nuptial bed undefiled, and that such an excess of rigor might rather be injurious than beneficial to the Church ; that every one was not capable of so entire a continence, and that the repudiated wives might forfeit, perhaps, their conjugal virtue. He added, that he considered the marriage union, sanc tioned by the laws, as pure and chaste ; that it was sufficient, ac cording to ancient usage, that he, who had once been admitted to the clerical order, should no longer be permitted to marry ; but that it was unnecessary to separate him from the wife whom he had espoused when in the condition of a layman. It was thus that the venerable confessor supported his sentiments, although he had not only never been married himself, but had always re F. t Documents, I. t Some of the Eastern Christians mention a much greater number. See J. S. Asseman, Bibloth, Orient. Clement. Vatic, torn. 1 p. 22, 195. and Cave, Hist. Lit. p. 234.