460 Lizzi Testa
famine; worthy tears have warded off foul melancholy and holy men have
ensured that the weight that afflicted us will not last long”.43
Defining Clerical Authority
The priests who populate the pages of the Variae and lived in Ostrogothic
Italy were holy men, the undisputed heirs to the democratization of Christian
sanctity. Members of a sacral class, holy men obtained superhuman interces-
sions to aid those who supported them with gifts and increased the wealth of
churches. This was by virtue of sacral rites: they touched sacred vessels con-
taining divine substance (the Eucharist, the privileged vehicle of intercession)
thereby making them, as men, sacred. But, as Augustine had taught, the quality
of the officiant and origin of the offering to God were not unknown. In order
to touch those sacred vessels, the clergy had to be different from the common
man: Quibus enim animis a continentibus accipitur, quod etiam laicorum detes-
tatione damnatur?44 They had to be continentes.
That Cassiodorus separated continentes and laici in a binary division of soci-
ety is evidence that in Theoderic’s time the imposition of clerical celibacy was
not complete. The continence of the Catholic clergy continued to rest on the
honoured institution of post-matrimonial celibacy, as Pope Siricius (384–99)
established. By 385, he had created order from among the many, and until then
disparate, matrimonial requirements. Correlating sexual behaviour with an
ecclesiastical career, he determined that among married men only those who
had (or previously had) one wife and married as a virgin could become a priest,
and those who while already part of the clergy married a second time, even
with a widow, would be removed from the order without the opportunity of
returning to the clergy.45
While already in progress, the distinction between continentes and laici
became more pronounced during the 5th century, when the need to create
the sacerdotal ordo and render it recognizable in society became a priority.
At the time it was designated with a specific ritual, characterized by distinc-
tive clothing, the tonsure, and sexual behaviour different from that of ordinary
43 Cass., Va r. 9.2, ed. Fridh, pp. 426–7, lines 7–10: “Ecclesiasticis siquidem ieiuniis famis est
exclusa popularis: decoris lacrimis tristitia foeda discessit et per sanctos viros accelera-
tum est, ne traheret diutius quod gravabat.”
44 Augustine, De Trinitate 4.14.19, eds. Trapé, Sciacca, and Beschin, p. 209.
45 Siricius, Ep. 1, PL 13, coll. 1142–5.