These opinions led by degrees to the obligatory celibacy of the secular and regular clergy. The New Testament gives us no intimation that, during the lifetime of the apostles, monastic vows were taken by men of any age, or by unmarried women, and hardly any of the apostles themselves were celibates.[914] But gradually, as continence came to be regarded as a cardinal virtue, and celibacy as the nearest approach to the Divine perfection, a notion that the married state is not consistent with the functions of the clergy became general. As early as the end of the fourth century, the continence of the higher grades of ecclesiastics was insisted on by a Roman synod, but no definite punishment was ordered for its violation.[915] Gregory VII.—who “looked with abhorrence on the contamination of the holy sacerdotal character, even in its lowest degree, by any sexual connection”—was the first who prescribed with sufficient force the celibacy of the clergy. Yet, in many countries, it was so strenuously resisted, that it could not be carried through till late in the thirteenth century.[916]
As for the origin of this notion of sexual uncleanness, it may perhaps be connected with the instinctive feeling, to be dealt with later on, against intercourse between members of the same family or household. Experience, I think, tends to prove that there exists a close association between these two feelings, which shows itself in many ways. Sexual love is entirely banished from the sphere of domestic life, and it is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that when it appears in other relations, an association of ideas attaches a notion of impurity to the desire and a notion of shame to its gratification. Evidently, also, the religious enforcement of celibacy is intimately allied to the belief that sexual intercourse is the great transmitter of original sin, as well as to the abhorrence of every enjoyment which is considered to degrade the spiritual nature of man.
Speaking of the male and female reproductive cells of plants, Professor Sachs remarks that, wherever we are able to observe an external difference between the two, the male cell behaves actively in the union, the female passively.[917] In this respect there is an analogy between plants and many of the lower animals. In the case of some lowly-organised animals, which are permanently affixed to the same spot, the male element is invariably brought to the female. There are other instances in which the females alone are fixed, and the males must be the seekers. Even when the males and females of a species are both free, it is almost always the males that first approach the females.[918]