Note 1039 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW

Meyrick, in Dict. Christ. Ant., II, 1198. The early theological conception of marriage is much lower than that of the mature Roman law: "Nuptiae sunt conjunctio maris et feminae et consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani juris communicatio": Modestinus, in Digest, xxiii, tit. 2, l. 1: Corpus juris civilis, I, 295. Cf. Freisen, Geschichte des can. Eherechts, 22. As if to emphasize the paradoxical nature of the prevailing dogma, the Council of Trent anathematizes those who say "that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments;" as well as those who say "that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony."—Waterworth, Canons and Decrees, 194, 195. The Reformation Fathers constantly reproach their Roman antagonists with this anomaly and with having debased the state of marriage which is right for all according to the law of God and nature: see the Parker Society collection of the Works of Fathers and Early Writers of the Reformed English Church, General Index, at "Marriage," 515-17. Cf. the curious book of Madan, Thelyphthora, or a Treatise on Female Ruin (2d ed., London, 1781), who endeavors to show that sacerdotal celibacy, the theory of impediments, and the invention of the sacrament of matrimony have lowered the ideal of marriage which is an institution divinely ordained for all men. He brings together in convenient form for reference a mass of extracts from the teachings of the Fathers, the papal and conciliar decrees, the utterances of the schoolmen, and other sources.