Note 960 — Chapter VII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH ACCEPTS THE LAY CONTRACT AND CEREMONIAL

Sohm, Eheschliessung, 153 ff., insists that the priestly benediction, unless here and there by local custom, was connected with the nuptials (Trauung) and not with the betrothal, which he regards as the essential element in marriage. But Dieckhoff, Die kirch. Trauung, 20 ff., 30 ff., 47 ff., 65 ff., claims that from the earliest period among the Christians it was customary for the priest to bless the betrothal; and that at least from the fourth century the same is true of the nuptials. In his Zur Trauungsfrage, 17, note, Sohm seems to accept Dieckhoff's view, while denying anything but religious meaning to the benediction in either case.

Siricius, Epist. ad Himer., § 4, mentions a "benediction of the priest at betrothal, of so solemn a nature as to make it sacrilege in the betrothed woman to marry another man;" but this epistle may be spurious: Meyrick, in Dict. Christ. Antiq., II, 1106. Cf. Scheurl, Entwicklung, 24, 25; Sehling, Unterscheidung, 25, notes, 110; Loening, op. cit., II, 573; and, for the eastern church, Zhishman, Das Eherecht der orient. Kirche, 126, 135, 156, 672, 289 ff., passim.