Chapter XXX. Celibacy Of The Clergy. 383 when he says: "Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister, as well as the rest of the Apostles?"533 The Protestant text mis-translates this passage by substituting the word wife for woman. It is evident that St. Paul does not speak here of his wife, since he had none; but he alludes to those pious women who voluntarily waited on the Apostles, and ministered to them in their missionary journeys. It is also objected that the Apostle seems to require that a Bishop be "the husband of one wife."534 The context certainly cannot mean that a Bishop must be a married man, for the reason already given, that St. Paul himself was never married. The [406] sense of the text, as all tradition testifies, is that no candidate should be elected to the office of Bishop who had been married more than once. It was not possible in those days always to select single men for the Episcopal office. Hence the Church was often compelled to choose married persons, but always with this restriction, that they had never contracted nuptials a second time. They were obliged, moreover, if not widowers, to live separated from their wives. Others adduce against clerical celibacy these words of St. Paul: "In the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, ... forbidding to marry."535 This passage, however, alludes to the Ebionites, Gnostics and Manicheans, who positively taught that marriage is sinful. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, holds that matrimony is not only a lawful state, for those who are called to embrace it, but that it is also a Sacrament, and that the highest degree of holiness is attainable in conjugal life. Some go so far as to declare continency impracticable. Our dissenting brethren in the ministry are so uxoriously inclined that, perhaps, for this reason they dispute the possibility, as well I. Cor. ix. 5. I. Tim. iii. 2.