Question IV: By what law, and from what time, religious chastity began to be sealed by enclosure

Caramuel discusses this question in part, in sua Theologia moral., epist. 34, art. 8. But the difficulty is not about those promising perpetual enclosure under the fourth vow; for whatever we said above about the law by which vows obliges militates for them: truly, it also seems that the same law can be adduced for those vowing Chastity anew, where enclosure is observed by custom; for since means and end are prescribed by the same law, and by natural and divine precept one is bound to stand by one's vow, and since enclosure is the most efficacious means of conserving Chastity, it follows that enclosure obliges by an equal law.

That enclosure is a most efficacious means for professing the vow of unspotted Chastity the Seraphic Doctor demonstrates excellently, de professu Relig., lib. 1, cap. 39, et lib. 2, cap. 54. For the alienation and separation of women from men; and the companionship of the chaste, by whose example one is led by the hand to purity, is a most present remedy against the allurements of luxuriating flesh: But this is furnished by enclosure, in which no occasion either of touching or of seeing meets one, by which modes chastity is especially assailed; for as the S. Doctor notes excellently, lib. 2 cited: A coal, which seems extinguished, covered with a little ash, if touched, burns; but if left solitary, at last it is extinguished; truly if joined to another, both are kindled.

Besides, natural reason has always so persuaded all peoples that the wanderings of girls be curbed, that they may dwell more securely within than without; nor did the very Ethnici, or Heretics, who assailed the other rights of nature, praise the exits and excursions even of secular virgins; nor have the sectaries of our own time, who heaped the crimes of all centuries into the impiety of their heresies, inveighed against enclosure, insofar as it is a seal of Chastity; although against it, insofar as it casts aside every hope of future marriage so that the vow may be kept, they ejaculate not a few insults.

I assert, however, with the scandal of one's neighbor set aside, and the danger of falling, that enclosure is in precept only by Ecclesiastical law; it is evident from the Councils and Fathers to be cited below.

It is proved, because besides the solemnity of the vow, which pertains to the Church, the obligation before God is equal in the simple and in the solemn vow: But to the simple vow enclosure is not required. Therefore. It is confirmed, because although enclosure is a means conducive to this, we are not held to employ every means.

It is proved secondly from the various and frequent dispensations of this enclosure, by which nuns are indulged so as to remain for whole months and years in the houses of their parents for congruous causes only; indeed, some even, devoted for their whole lifetime to works of piety, serve in Zenodochia and other places.

As to the time at which enclosure was joined to the life of Monks, although it is most ancient, as is evident from the Rules of D. Basilii, D. Augustini, S. Benedicti, and the ancient Fathers; as we saw, d. 1, q. 2, nevertheless it does not seem to be a precept of any law other than legal justice, by which a subject is bound to stand by the mandates of his Superior; for thus all the Rules are interpreted by long custom. There are nevertheless held certain decrees of Councils which speak more strictly of this matter, as of the Council of Chalcedon, cap. 4, where it commands Monks, to remain in the places to which they have dedicated themselves to God, to which words it adds below: But those passing beyond these, we decree to be outside communion, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed. To these consonant is the Decree of Alexand. II, cited in Suarez, tom. 4, tract. 8, lib. 1, cap. 6, in which it reads thus: According to the tenor of the excellent Council of Chalcedon, we command Monks, though Religious, to remain within the cloister according to the norm of S. Benedicti; we prohibit them to wander through villages, castles, cities.

Although these things are so, nevertheless no one has said that a Religious is held by common law, from which his Prelate cannot dispense, to perpetual enclosure: This is evident if we inspect somewhat more diligently the end and motives of those decrees: For since from the beginning Monks were ordained to a merely contemplative life to be spent perpetually in their cells, and were subject to no Ecclesiastical ministries, since for the most part they were not Priests, some began gradually to withdraw themselves from that discipline, and to lead the active life more freely in villages and districts for the sake of gain, rather to the ruin than to the edification of the people, because they were usurping Ecclesiastical ministries, being destined to them by no authority either of character or of mission: Whence Pope Eugenius, cap. placuit, 2, 16, quaest. 2, thus rescribed: It pleased our common Council that no one of the Monks should presume, with most nefarious daring, to go out of the Monastery for earthly gain, where the ministries then illicit for Monks are touched upon in the depraved end, namely earthly gain, and the nefarious motive or means, namely arrogating to themselves the Ecclesiastical ministry: But if the exit from the cloisters had been simply prohibited, it would have been intimated simply, also without specification of end or means.

It is confirmed efficaciously from the same chapter, where it is added, that the Brothers are not to bury anyone except him who has lived with them in the same convent, even if it should chance that another brother, who arrived there, die there; which supposes that the brothers had the faculty of receiving arrivals, as also of peregrinating. But if I were even to concede that enclosure, or the observance of the cloister, is of common law, and therefore indispensable by one's own superior; who would not admit the prescription of so many centuries against such a law, since even common law, by a similar custom duly introduced, lies proscribed: Let these things be said in passing of this matter, which many assail with taunts, but few with arguments.

As to the time at which the enclosure of Nuns began, the same must be stated as of the solemn vow of Chastity, insofar as it dissolves a preceding ratified marriage, or a subsequent one even consummated, as was said in the two preceding questions; for this laudable custom seems to have the very Apostles as its institutors; for in the Council of Carthaginense I, in the year 340 according to Baronius, or 330 according to others, it was declared, cap. 3: Those who wish to marry, and choose the better part of continence, ought to avoid these things, and not only not dwell together, but not even have access to themselves, but here by the particle ought (debent) it is declared what before seems to have been statutes; before this council, however, no other exists which speaks so expressly of this matter; see what was said of the origin of this vow, disput. 2, quaest. 3.

There follows the Council of Carthaginense III, in which it is enacted that the Bishop take care of those virgins who have vowed Chastity, and contain them in a Monastery, lest, wandering abroad, they be a scandal to the Church.

The same thereafter many Pontiffs renewed, as Leo III in the Council of Foroiuliense, or Adrianus III, as some will. Likewise Bonifacius in cap. periculo, de statu regular. enjoins a strict enclosure upon the Chastity of Nuns with these words: Wishing to provide for the perilous and detestable state of certain Nuns, we sanction by the present constitution, to prevail perpetually and irrefragably, that all and singular Nuns, present and future, of whatever Religion or Order they be, existing in whatever parts of the world, must remain under perpetual enclosure in their Monasteries, etc.; by which last words he indicates that only those are held by this precept who have emitted their vows in Monasteries where enclosure is kept.

But whatever the Councils and ancient Pontiffs left statutes about this, it was strictly renewed again in the Council of Trident., sess. 25, cap. 5, de regular., and more strictly in a certain Diplomate of Pius V, given the Calend. of June, in the year 1566, which begins: Circa Pastoralis officii, where he enjoins that they be held to observe rigid enclosure, although by force of the emitted promise they were not obliged to such observance, with these words: Although by force of the emitted, etc., he shows this enclosure to be for them Ecclesiastical, and able to be separated from the vow; as it is truly separated in male Religious.

And this precept is now observed with such rigor that neither is it licit for Nuns to go out without grave cause with the license of their superiors, nor is it permitted by law for others to suffer to enter them; whence there exists in Chrysostom. Henriquez, num. 35, pag. 321, a decree granted to the Mendicants 17 Calend. Septemb. 1567, where the Bishops are gravely reprehended, who are accustomed frequently to grant this license, or unduly seize it for themselves, since it pertains to other superiors; and these last words were said on account of the Monasteries of S. Clarae, which are subject to Regulars; the tenor of the Decree itself is thus described in Caramuel, loco cit.: The Bishops, or their Vicars, dare to give at their pleasure a license to whomsoever to enter whatever Monasteries of Nuns, even of S. Clarae, although they be subject to the care of Regulars; somewhat below the words of inhibition thus follow: Since it is dishonest for anyone to send a sickle into another's harvest, and since no one should presume to enter the Monasteries of Nuns except by the license of the Bishop or Superior, and in necessary cases, in sess. 25, can. 5 (supply: of Tridentini), it is prohibited, we will that this hold only in those Monasteries which are subject to the very Ordinaries by full law, in which in necessary cases they themselves can give the license, and not in other Monasteries, etc.

And indeed, although these things have been thus statutes in the service and custody of Chastity, S. Bonavent. shows that other advantages accrue to Nuns from the cloister, in libello Apolog., quaest. 18. For better and more easily are the spouses of Christ governed in one society, and are excited to the exercises of virtue by mutual examples; and the longer they are removed from the fruition of the age, the more ardently are they kindled in pious desires.