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Introduction 15 dren or with those whom a priest had baptized.44 An echo, somewhat after Damian's time, of this concern about having sexual relations with penitents is to be found in Bonizo of Sutri's Book of the Christian Life which introduces a canon entitled, "Who are the spiritual sons of priests?"45 The following canon censures the priest who "for reasons of fornication approaches his [female] penitent."46 The two specific abuses, then, which Peter Damian singles out for particular mention are priests who confess to each other after sinning together, and priests who sin with their male penitents. He also wants to bar homosexual offenders from becoming priests.47 Damian's Arguments The canonical section of the Book of Gomorrah deals directly with the problem of homosexuality, the arguments in favour of deposition of offending priests, and in the last chapter requests the Pope to appoint a commission to study the problem and to reply to Damian's questions so that his doubts and the doubts of others might be resolved.48 In support of his claim for the deposition of priests guilty of homosexual behaviour Damian argues both positively and negatively. The negative argument consists in a perceptive attack on the value and authority of the conflicting and inconsistent canons found in the penitentials, what he calls the apocryphal canons (chs. 10-12). He sets these inauthentic sources against the authentic tradition represented by the Council of Ancyra(chs. 13-14), St. Basil (ch. 15; actually Fructuosus), and Pope Siricius (ch. 15). This method of resolving contradictory authorities 44 Seethe Penitential of Monte Cassino, canon 25 inj. Schmitz, Die Bussbucher unddie Bussdisriplin derKirche nach bandscbriftlichen Quellen dargestellt (Mainz, 1883), 406; the Collection in Nine Books in Vatican Library,MS 1349, Book 9.40, 42 (fols. 203rb, 203vb). 45 Book 10.44 in E. Perels (ed.), Bonizo: Liber devita christiana (Berlin, 1930), 331. 46 Ibid., 321. See the discussion in Peter Damian, Opusc. 17 (PL 145, 38485 ). 47 Chapter 4 deals with an objection which Damian may have encountered. His point is that the presence of necessity and the absence of morally qualified priests is not an excuse for morally unqualified priests to meet the necessity. This is one of the doubts he asks the Pope to resolve in chapter 26. 48 Lucchesi, "Per una vita," Vol. 1, 83, suggests that Damian is requesting that the matter be presented for consideration by a synod. 16 Book of Gomorrah anticipates Abelard's Sic et Non and Gratian's Concordance of Discordant Canons by almost a century.49 Damian's positive arguments generally share a common structure which might be called a fortiori arguments by analogy. That is, he introduces a text which actually deals with a subject other than the deposition of homosexual clerics, points out the sanction for that subject, and concludes that it should apply even more to priests who engage in homosexual practices. However, in no instance does he cite an ecclesiastical authority which sanctions deposition of clerics found guilty of homosexual actions. The text from Gregory the Great (ch. 3) establishes that those who are guilty of an offence punishable by death in the Old Law cannot be ordained. It does not, however, establish that those already ordained should be deposed, which the title of the chapter suggests. In the eighth chapter Damian attempts to argue from analogy that if clerics who have sexual relations with virgins are to be deposed then clerics who have sexual relations with their spiritual sons should also be deposed. This is a promising argument but it is only convincing if Damian establishes that deposition is the appropriate penalty for clerical intercourse with virgins. However, he fails to support this claim on any authoritative source, contenting himself with a rhetorical appeal to the common practice. The use of the Council of Ancyra (chs. 13-14) indicates a faithful use of an accepted authority which had been the common legacy of ecclesiastical legislation for centuries. The principal value of this authority is again to provide a basis for an argument from analogy: If the church punished lay homosexual offenders with such severity, how much more ought clerical offenders to be penalized? It is interesting to note, however, that Damian passes over in silence the express provision of the sixteenth canon of Ancyrafor the possibility of extending mercy to penitents whose quality of life warrants it. To be sure, authorities on which Peter Damian could have based a convincing argument...

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