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council—even though, according to him, the national council no doubt shortens the proceedings, and even though, according to many theologians, that tribunal is adequate for an affair of this nature. Here now are the objections that abbé St. Pierre himself put forth against his scheme, along with his responses to them.
First objection: The Italian bishops could thus be married, like St. Ambrose, and the cardinals and the pope, like St. Peter.
RESPONSE: Most certainly. Abbé St. Pierre sees no problem in following these examples, nor disadvantage in the pope and cardinals having good wives, virtuous children, and a well-ordered family.
Second objection: The people have a habitual veneration for those who maintain celibacy, which it is appropriate to preserve.
RESPONSE: Among the Dutch and English pastors, those who are virtuous are no less respected by the people for being married.
Third objection: In celibacy, priests have more time to give to the functions of their estate than they would if married.
RESPONSE: The Protestant ministers find plenty of time to have children, to raise them, to be governors of their families, and to watch over their parishes. It would be an insult to our churchmen not to assume as much from them.
Fourth objection: Young parish priests of thirty years would have five or six children—sometimes little payback for their estate, little fortune, and consequently a lot of trouble.
RESPONSE: Whoever is put forward for orders is acknowledged as a wise and able man; he is obliged to have a patrimony; he will have his benefice; his wife’s dowry may be respectable. Experience shows that those parish priests descended from poor parents are not, for all that, more of a burden to the church or to their parish. Moreover, why is it necessary that one portion of churchmen live in opulence while the other languishes in poverty? Wouldn’t it be possible to imagine a better distribution of ecclesiastical revenues?
Fifth objection: The Council of Trent regards celibacy as a state more perfect than marriage.
RESPONSE: There are ambiguities to avoid in the words state, perfect, obligation. Why claim that a priest is more perfect than St. Peter? The
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objection proves too much, and therefore it proves nothing. My thesis, says abbé St. Pierre, is purely political, and consists in three propositions: (1) Celibacy is a matter of pure ecclesiastical discipline, which the church can change; (2) it would be advantageous to Roman Catholic states for this discipline to be changed; (3) while waiting for a national or general council, it is appropriate for the court of Rome to receive a specified sum to expedite exemptions from celibacy—payable by those requesting the exemption.
Such is the system of abbé St. Pierre, which we present because the design of our work demands it, and on which we leave the verdict to those whose place it is to judge these important matters. But we cannot refrain from remarking in passing that it was only in a Dutch edition based on a faulty copy that this philosopher-citizen put forth an objection that presents itself quite naturally, and that is not one of the least important ones: namely, the disadvantage of benefices rendered hereditary, a disadvantage that is only too strongly felt and that would become even more widespread. What then, are all resignations of benefices and all coadjutories to be extinguished, and the conferment of all benefices referred to superiors? Perhaps that would not be worse; a bishop who knows his diocese and its good subjects is certainly as well situated to name someone to a vacant position as a half-dead churchman pestered by a crowd of relations and friends with vested interests—how many simonies and scandalous trials prevented!
To complete this article, it would remain for us to speak of monastic celibacy. But we will content ourselves with observing, along with the celebrated M. Melon,24 (1) that it would be enormously advantageous for society and individuals for the prince to use strictly the power that he has to enforce the law that prohibits the monastic state before the age of twenty-five; or, to use the idea and the expression of M. Melon, that doesn’t permit the alienation of one’s liberty before the age when one can alienate one’s estate. See the rest in the articles MARIAGE, MOINE [Monk], VIRGINITÉ, VOEUX [Vows], &c. (2) We will add with a modern author, whom one cannot either read too much or praise too highly,25 that celibacy can become
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harmful in proportion as the corps of the celibate is too extensive, and thus the corps of the laity is not extensive enough; (3) that human laws, made to speak to the mind, must give precepts but not counsel; and that religion, made to speak to the heart, must give much counsel but few precepts. That when, for example, religion offers rules not for the proper but for the best, not for what is good but for what is perfect, it is fitting that these rules be counsel and not laws. For perfection does not concern the universality of men or of things. That what’s more, if they are laws, then countless others will be needed to enforce the first ones; that experience has confirmed these principles; that when celibacy, which used to be only counsel in Christianity, became an explicit law within it for a certain order of citizens, new ones were needed every day to reduce men to the observation of the latter; and consequently, that the legislator wore himself out and wore out society making men perform by precept what those who love perfection would have performed themselves as counsel. (4) That by the nature of the human understanding, in religious affairs we like everything that presupposes an effort, just as in moral matters we have a speculative liking for everything that bears the imprint of severity; and so celibacy was bound to be, as has in fact happened, more agreeable to those peoples for whom it seemed least suitable, and for whom it could have the most deplorable effects; to be retained in Europe’s southern countries, where by the nature of the climate it was more difficult to practice; to be proscribed in the countries of the north, where the passions are less lively; to be accepted where there are few inhabitants and rejected in areas where there are many.
These observations are so fine and so true that they cannot be repeated in too many places. I have drawn them from the excellent work of Président de M …; What preceded is either from M. Fleury, or from Fr. Alexandre, or from Fr. Thomassin. Add to that what the Memoirs of the academy of Inscriptions & the political works of abbé de St. Pierre and M. Melon have furnished me, and a scant few sentences are left to me in this article, and even those are drawn from a work that one can find praised in the Journal de Trevoux, Feb. 1746.26 Despite these authorities, I would not be surprised
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if it were to find critics and opponents. But it might also happen that, just as at the Council of Trent, it was (it is said) the young ecclesiastics who most doggedly rejected the proposal for priestly marriage, it may be those among the celibate who most need women, and who have least read the authors I have just cited, who will criticize their principles most openly.
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For other entries on early manufacturing, see INDUSTRY, INNOVATION, INVENTION, and MASTERSHIPS, below.
*MASTERPIECE (Arts, Crafts), one of the most difficult works in a profession, executed by candidates wishing to join a guild or corporation, after completing a period as an apprentice and journeyman, according to the rules of the guild. Each corporation has its own masterpiece, which is carried out in the presence of doyens, syndics, senior members, and other officers and dignitaries of the corporation.