Did you bother to do what I suggested and go back and read both the post I responded to and my response? {which prompted your post}If you did then why is it you think the time frame is relevant?
Stating a fact is not a gratuitous slam, nor was it a random act. I was making a specific point which you apparently missed.
I believe the Idea of celibacy came from Paul, who said it was better for a man not to touch woman. also because it was said Jesus never married. Just as some believe it is better to remain a virgin. In our century this seems not to be the case.
In the later years of the Church it was a matter of passing on wealth to one’s heirs.
Monavis
True–sorta–for a brief period in the Middle Ages.
In the ninth through eleventh centuries, local civil authorities who had been involved in the selections of local bishops began handing out dioceses and parishes to people as political favors and the priests and bishops to whom these churches had been “given” began to treat them as personal property and pass the down as inheritances. Since the churches had never been the properties of the local lords, to begin with, Pope Gregory VII brought that practice to a screeching halt around 1073. That phenomenon was pretty much a Germanic/Frankish thing (although it occurred elsewhere) that lasted fewer than 300 years, but it made a very strong impression on the hierarchy of subsequent generations.
The priests of Cybele (and her son Attis) did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
Don’t know of any others, until we get up to 18th-Century Russian Skoptzy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsi) and, of course, the Heaven’s Gate cult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven’s_Gate_(cult)).
Of course, there was Origen, a Christian who castrated himself by way of keeping his vow of chastity. But the general consensus in the Church was that this was cheating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen
Actually the Bible does not say Jesus never married; it just fails to mention any wife of his.
But let’s not be getting into that . . .
[QUOTE=Nic2004]
I think Judas should be the Patron Saint of Snitches
[QUOTE]
Or perhaps it might be better to say, of whistleblowers.
The Mithradites did it too.
Cite? I thought I knew a lot about the cult of Mithras (only men allowed to join; use of a sacrificial bull in initiation, at the initiate’s expense, limited it to the rich; etc.), but I never heard of that.
I think I’ll be using that as a blurb to explain the appeal of the SDMB for years.
Did Paul say that? Honest question.
Paul did say that the head of a church should be a married man with children, because how can you run a church if ya can’t even run a household?
I thought the celibacy stuff came later than Paul.
1 Corinthians 7:
Also Jesus himself, Matthew 9:
Brainglutton
I’ve seen a range of translations of those passages. For the first these go from “than to be inflamed with passion.” to “than to burn.”. Considering the context and other statments on sex and marriage, I find the second more likely. That he is saying ‘All sex is lesser and fallen. You should be celibate if you can. If you cannot be celibate, remember that sex outside of marriage is a sin while sex with your spouse is allowed to those too weak to be celibate.’
The translation of Matthew 9 doesn’t agree with any I have ever seen before. I’ve always seen is “and others have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Let he who can receive this, receive it.”
Proper translation of the disputed line in Matthew 19:12:
…kai | eisin | eunouchoi | hoitinos | eunouchisan | heautous | dia | ten | basileian| ton | ouranon…
“…and | there are | eunuchs | who | have castrated [made eunuchs] | themselves | for | the | kingdom | [of] the | heaven…”
After a little parsing for coherence:
“…and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs [lit. “castrated themselves”] for the kingdom of heaven.”
Both passages I quoted are New International Version, from here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?Version=31&search=Matthew
But Origen read that a bit too literally.