document — Palmieri, On Christian Marriage
From the Council of Carthage, A.D. 390
¶995.
Canon II. It is fitting that the most holy bishops and priests of God, and also Levites, or those who serve the divine sacraments (by whom subdeacons are comprehended, if they minister to the altar; cf. Canon XXXIII of Elvira and Decree III of Leo to Rusticus below), be continent in all things ... so that what the Apostles taught and antiquity itself observed, we too may keep.
¶996.
Behold the law of celibacy asserted as ancient and from Apostolic origin.