“On the preferred place of committed celibacy, there was complete continuity with the doctrine of patristic times so vigorously set forth by writers like Jerome and Chrysostom. In the new European world, where the monasteries had preserved the remains of Roman culture where the clergy had organized the universities, where the reformers or moral life came from the religious orders, the emphasis on celibacy received an institutional impetus it had lacked in the Roman era. Celibacy was now the established norm for the Western secular clergy. Much of the work of social and intellectual leadership was performed by men who, as secular priests, or monks, or brothers, were bound to observe complete sexual continence. Almost all of the theorizing on marriage and sexuality was done by men both personally and institutionally committed to the ideal of lifelong continence.”
C