You mean there isn’t a continuity from Paul’s recommendation to stay celibate if one could?
“You mean there isn’t a continuity from Paul’s recommendation to stay celibate if one could?”
It was never more than a recommendation for those who could. It also always balanced it with the allowance for marriage for those who couldn’t. (And the Catholic priesthood contains amny man who tried and couldn’t, and yet weren’t afforded the appropriate escape from sin.) Go read 1 Corinthians 7 - there is no way it supports an absolute requirement for celibacy (nor was it exclusively talking about church leaders.)
7:1b-2 - It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
7:8-9 - But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
The qualifications for church leadership always list “a husband of one wife” as one of the requirements. (1 Timothy 3:2,12, Titus 1:6
If you look at the historical interpretation, post 2 is correct.