Note 52 — II. THE ANTE-NICENE CHURCH.

Origenis Comment. in Matt. XV. 1-3.—Just. Martyr. Apolog. II.—Epiphan. Hæres. LVII.—Can. Apostol. XXII. XXIII. XXIV.—Concil. Nicæn. c. i.—Concil. Arelatens. II. ann. 452 c. vii., etc.—Sexti Philos. Sent. IX.—At the close of the twelfth century the canons were relaxed by Clement III. in favor of a priest of Ravenna whose ascetic ardor had led him to follow the example of Origen, and who was permitted to retain all the functions of the priesthood except the ministry of the altar (Can. iv. Extra, I. XX.). In the sixteenth century, Ambrosio Morales, a Dominican, took the same effectual means to extinguish his passions and was in consequence expelled from the Order, as required by the canons. He betook himself to literature and died in 1590 at the age of sixty, while professor of eloquence in the University of Alcalà (De Thou, Lib. XCIX.). The practice has perpetuated itself to the nineteenth century in a Russian sect, which Catherine II. and her successors endeavored in vain to repress. In 1818 Alexander II. ordered the enthusiasts banished to Siberia, but the ardor with which they courted martyrdom rendered their zeal dangerously contagious and they were left in obscurity, in the hope of their dying out (Pluquet, Dict. des Hérésies, s. v. Mutilés de Russie). This proved equally ineffectual, for a recent traveller describes them under the name of Skopsis as a large tribe inhabiting the Caucasus, where they flourish in spite of the most energetic measures of repression on the part of the government—imprisonment, banishment to Siberia, conscription, and even the death penalty being powerless to overcome their fanaticism (Brugsch, Reise der Preussischen Gesandschaft nach Persien, 1860-1, ap. London Reader, Jan. 3, 1863). Buffon (Hist. Nat. de l’Homme, ap. Helsen, Abus du Célibat des Prêtres, p. 52) states that he was acquainted with a priest who had adopted this mode as the only one to preserve his virtue.