h church opinion and its tendency at
that time. Sacerdotalism triumphed in the fifth century. "Throughout the
struggle the papacy had a most efficient ally in the people." Preachers
exhorted the people to holiness, and the people required this of the
clergy, and enforced it by riots and mob violence. Cases are cited which
"bring before us the popular tendencies and modes of thought, and show
us how powerful an instrument the passions of the people became, when
skilfully aroused and directed by those in authority."[481] The
fundamental notion which underlies all asceticism was here at work,
viz., that virtue has stages, that a man can be more than good, or worse
than bad. The council of Constantinople, in 680, made new rules against
the marriage of the clergy, because the old ones were neglected and
forgotten. The motive stated was the welfare of the people, who regarded
such marriages as scandalous. The excess in temper and doctrine was a
mark of the period. The learned would have held the doctrine as a
metaphysical truth only, but the masses turned it into a practical rule.
The share of the masses in the establishment of the rule is a very
important fact. Lea thinks that they were manipulated by the
ecclesiastics.[482] In the religious revival of the eleventh century the
marriage of the clergy was "popularly regarded as a heresy and a
scandal." There was no defense of it.[483] It was an undisputed fact
that celibacy was not scriptural or primitive.[484] At that time "all
orders, from bishops down, without shame or concealment, were publicly
married and lived with their wives as laymen, leaving their children
fully provided for in their wills.... This laxity prevailed throughout
the whole of Latin Christendom, sacerdotal marriage being everywhere so
common that it was no longer punished as unlawful and scarcely even
reprehended."[485] "Not a thought of the worldly advantages consequent
on the reform appears to have crossed the mind of Damiani. To him it was
simply a matter of conscience that the ministers of Christ should be
adorned with the austere purity through which alone lay the path to
salvation. Accordingly, the arguments which he employs in his endless
disputations carefully avoid the practical reasons which were the
principal motive for enforcing celibacy. His main reliance was on the
assumption that, as Christ was born of a virgin, so he should be served
and the eucharist be handled only by virgins."[486] This t