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To: Mrs. Don-o
If you're interested in adding to your store of knowledge on this subject, try looking into the true history of celibacy.

I did that and found this little excerpt:

True, we know little of the early period, though St Peter boasted, “we have left our homes and followed you”, when Our Lord commended leaving house or wife (Luke 19:28-9), and St Paul says bishops must be “self-controlled” (Titus 1:8; in Greek “continent” or “abstinent”)

So when we look at Titus 1:8 we see a peculiar phenomenon...Paul uses the word ἐγκρατής which is translated to the English word temperate which we know means 'moderation'...

Titus 1:8-temperate

ἐγκρατής
egkratēs
eng-krat-ace'
From G1722 and G2904; strong in a thing (masterful), that is, (figuratively and reflexively) self controlled (in appetite, etc.): - temperate.

Your source choses the word, self controlled instead of temperate...Even tho the Greek word for self controlled is afto elenchomeni

Your Douay bible goes so far as to insert the word 'continent' which is Iperios in the Greek but it still does not mean celibate...

And the example is given in the definition of 'temperate' which equates temperate with self control and continent as in ones appetite...It doesn't say or mean to quit eating like your article suggests it means to stop having sex with your wife...

Your Church has convinced you and others that there is biblical evidence to support celibate clergy but they are deceptively twisting the meaning of the Greek language to make it so...

To equate continent and self control and temperate with 'abstinent' is a lie...Your history is dishonest...

164 posted on 07/09/2018 1:47:27 PM PDT by Iscool
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To: Iscool
It's weird to imply that the practice of celibacy was based on one Greek word ἐγκρατής --- supposedly misconstrued in the Douai English translation Bible, published 1528 --- when the Byzantine Greek Catholics, with a long history of reading Greek, have, and have always had, both celibate and married clergy. Please "get" that: celibate AND married priests in the Catholic Church: that would be the 21 Eastern churches in communion with the See of Rome.

Even basing developments in the West on the Douai English translation is Time-Machine-Level weird, since the canonical norms for celibacy in the West were made uniform at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139.

A Conciliar decision (call it "A") in 1139 could not have been caused by, or even influenced by, a translation (call it "B") published in 1582.

In short: "A" was not caused by "B", because "A" happened 443 years before "B".

If I am misunderstanding your argument here, please correct me.

If you're NOT arguing that the Douai translation of ἐγκρατής influenced the adoption of a norm of clerical celibacy in the West, why bring it up at all? It's irrelevant. It's an anachronism.

Let me say, also, that attributing nuances of translation to "dishonesty" is historically inane, and attributing celibacy norms to widespread homosexuality is simply misinformed.

I've heard polemicists claim simultaneously that 12th century clerics were simultaneously (1) homosexuals, (2) shacking up with mistresses and kids, and (3) full of hated for the body and rejecting everything to do with sex.

May I point out that this "take" on the history is a bit feeble?

It goes to show that no matter how contradictory, any stick is good enough to hit a Catholic with.

167 posted on 07/09/2018 5:21:51 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("For peace within your gates, speak truth and judge with sound judgment." - Zechariah 8:16)
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To: Iscool

It’s deceitful to translate a word into something not meant either by translation nor context, just to support a pet doctrine.

Roman Catholicism has some weird issue with sex and I don’t get it.

They condemn it in almost all situation, even to the point of lauding sexless marriage, and wink at and cover up priests who commit serious sexual sin.


168 posted on 07/10/2018 2:29:01 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith......)
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