Agapete

AGAPETE. - From the Greek ἀγαπηταί, "beloved." A popular term that in ancient times designated those virgins or widows consecrated to God who lived together with a man likewise bound by a vow of chastity, in order to be helped by him in the management of economic affairs, and above all to assist one another in the practice of the ascetic ideal, in a kind of spiritual marriage. In time (second half of the 3rd century) they also received the disparaging nickname of συνεισάκτοι, or ἀπέτακτοι, in Latin subintroductae, which some would restrict to those who cohabited with an ecclesiastic. From the 5th century onward, however, this term designated only those women, related or not, whom ecclesiastics kept in their homes for the management of their own domestic affairs. The followers of this practice appealed to St. Paul: I Cor. 9:5: Numquid non habemus potestatem mulierem sororem circumducendi sicut et ceteri apostoli et fratres Domini et Cephas? Those who condemned it relied instead on I Tim. 5:11-13: Adolescentiores viduas devita; cum enim luxuriatae fuerint in Christo, nubere volunt... otiosae... verbosae et curiosae loquentes quae non oportet. But both were wrong. The question was discussed in depth by Chrysostom in two pastoral works (PG 47, 495-532), published at Constantinople shortly after his election: Adversus eos qui apud se habent virgines subintroductas and Quod regulares feminae viris cohabitare non debeant.

The direct testimonies to this practice (collected especially by Achelis) are rare and of uncertain import. For the most part we know of it only through the condemnations issued by Fathers and councils against it. From these it appears in any case that the practice, without ever having been general, was nevertheless very widespread, perhaps favored by the Gnostic sects, in which it was commonly practiced. See letter 4 of St. Cyprian, the decree of the Synod of Antioch of 268 against Paul of Samosata and his clerics (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 30, 12), the epistle of Pseudo-Clement Ad virgines; St. Jerome, Epist. 22 ad Eustochium (PL 22, 402), and the Councils of Elvira (can. 27), of Ancyra of 314 (can. 19), of Nicaea (can. 3). Once the law of celibacy for priests was established, various councils prescribed that they should not keep persons of the other sex with them, at most permitting them only close relatives. Thus, after the councils already cited, that of Geronda of 517 (can. 7), the fifth of Orléans of 549 (can. 3), that of Tours of 567 (can. 11), the first of Mâcon of 583 (can. 1), the fourth of Toledo of 633 (can. 42), of Bordeaux of 663-75 (can. 3), which is the only one from the Merovingian era that speaks expressly of subintroductae, etc. See also the legislative provisions of Gregory the Great (Epist., XIII, 39) to the bishop of Spoleto, Novella 123, chap. 29, of Justinian, and v. CELIBATE.

In the Celtic countries, during the 5th century and the first half of the 6th, the custom prevailed that monks and nuns lived in separate buildings, but placed within the same monastic enclosure (later called double monasteries). In Armorican Britain these conhospitae also helped the priests in the celebration of Mass and especially in giving Communion with the chalice, a thing that horrified the Gallic bishops of that time, who saw in it a revival of the sect of the Pepondians (v.).

Antonio Ferrua