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ER 309
Canon 70 of the Council of Carthage (North Africa, AD 401), preserved in the 5th-century Carthage Register, orders higher clergy to abstain from their wives.
Canon 70
 
Qui clerici ab uxoribus debeant abstinere.
 
Praeterea, cum de quorumdam clericorum, quamuis erga uxores proprias, incontinentia referretur, placuit episcopos et presbyteros et diaconos secundum priora statuta etiam ab uxoribus continere.
Quod nisi fecerint, ab ecclesiastico remoueantur officio.
Ceteros autem clericos ad hoc non cogi, sed secundum uniuscuiusque ecclesiae consuetudinem obseruari debere.
 
(ed. Munier 1974: 201)
Canon 70
 
Clerics should abstain from their wives.
 
What is more, since it has been referred that some clerics are incontinent towards their own wives, it pleased us that bishops, presbyters and deacons should, in accordance with precedent decisions, refrain from their wives. If they do not do this, they should be removed from their ecclesiastical office.
We do not constrain other clerics to it, but it should be observed according to the custom of each Church.
 
(trans. S. Adamiak)

Discussion:

The canon wants to impose sexual abstinence on married bishops, presbyters, and deacons. This proves that such a norm was not being accepted easily, and hence the threat of demotion from the ecclesiastical office. No rationale for continence is presented in this place. The content of the canon is repeated in Canon 25 of the Apiarian Canons [259].

Place of event:

Region
  • Latin North Africa
  • Italy south of Rome and Sicily
City
  • Carthage
  • Capua

About the source:

Title: Carthage Register, Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta
Origin: Carthage (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The text of the canon was transmitted in the Carthage Register (Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta). This collection was compiled by an anonymous author in the 5th century and included by Dionysius Exiguus in his "Codex canonum Ecclesiae Universae" in the early 6th century. It is sometimes known as "Codex canonum Ecclesiae Africanae" (Clavis Patrum Latinorum erroneously attributes this name to the "Codices in causa Apiarii" alone).  In the text of the collection, the fiction is maintained, as if they were all read at the session of the Council of Carthage, 30 May 418. The canons from this collection were accepted later by the Council of Trullo (AD 692).
Edition:
C. Munier ed., Concilia Africae a. 345-a. 525, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 149, Turnhoult 1974, 173-247.  

Categories:

Family life - Marriage
    Family life - Permanent relationship continued after ordination
      Sexual life - Sexual abstinence
        Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος
          Described by a title - Clericus
            Relation with - Wife
              Sexual life - Marital
                Further ecclesiastical career - Lay status
                  Administration of justice - Ecclesiastical
                    Administration of justice - Demotion
                      Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER309, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=309
                      Record by: Stanisław Adamiak
                      last edited: 2019-06-27 11:37:56
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