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I think that perhaps the early Christians may have been taken with celibacy because they expected an immediate return of Christ or a quick death as a martyr. For all of history until recently, sex meant children, not having fun, with no children. At least on purpose. Chastity is not the same as celibacy.

How this quickly became an IDEAL, I don’t know. But things do develop, or something. All this is interesting and raises a lot of questions. I have wondered why Christianity took root and spread only among white peoples and hardly anywhere else. Oh I know, you would say that it was forced because they got burned alive if they didn’t. I don’t know. That might have happened, but it doesn’t explain a lot of things.

— Comment by Shari

ME:

As I keep saying, my time and money here is wasted if you don’t see how my points INTERRELATE. Shari knows this, so this is NOT a criticism of SHARI. But her comment reminds me of a pointthat needs making that INTERRELATES to my last post.

In the article below Edwin and I talked about an entirely different subject. He led me into a discussion of the fact that usage, not the dictionary, is the basis of language. Shari’s distinction between chastity and celibacy is another case in point.

When I was coming up, there was a very clear distinction between the two words. Catholic priests were REQUIRED to be “celibate,” not chaste. This was a VERY important distinction for a very practical reason.

Celibacy then referred primarily to not being MARRIED. If a priest engaged in sex, it was a matter between him his confessor. But if a priest got MARRIED, he was kicked out of the priesthood. This is fairly important distinction, especially if you have spent half your life in the priesthood.

But with the rise of AIDs there came a new emphasis on chastity. But the word “chastity” was associated with hard-core Christianity, so it was the LAST word a liberal could use.

So suddenly all the media started using the word “celibacy” when they meant “chastity.” The dictionary includes chastity as a form of celibacy. But, as I say, when I was coming up you referred to Catholic priests as being required to be celibate, not chaste. To repeat, back then you NEVER said a Catholic priest was REQUIRED to be chaste because they AREN’T. A Catholic was SUPPOSED to be chaste, but he was REQUIRED to be celibate, i.e., unmarried.

Now the second meaning of celibate back then is, in media usage, the first meaning of that word.