From the Decretal Letter of Siricius, to Himerius of Tarragona, A.D. 384

Decree IV. But concerning conjugal violation you asked whether another can receive in marriage a girl betrothed to someone else. We inhibit by all means that this be done, because that blessing which the priest imposes on the woman about to be married is, among the faithful, in the likeness of a certain sacrilege if it is violated by any transgression.

Espousals also were sanctified by priestly blessing, which the faithful judged it impious to violate. Although these things are said concerning espousals, nevertheless mediately they show the persuasion of the faithful concerning the sanctity also of nuptials, of which espousals are the preparation. Therefore we cited these words. Thesis VII, IV, 6.

Decree IV. You protest that certain monks and nuns, having cast off the purpose of sanctity, have been sunk into such great lasciviousness that first secretly ... they mingled themselves in an illicit and sacrilegious contagion, but afterward from illicit embraces they freely procreated children, which both public laws and ecclesiastical rights condemn. Therefore we command that these immodest and detestable persons are to be eliminated from the company of monasteries and the assemblies of churches, so that, shut away in their own workhouses, lamenting so great a crime with continual lamentation, they may be able to boil it away by the purifying fire of penitence, so that indulgence may be able to come to their aid, at least at death, by the grace of communion, with regard only to mercy.

If you consider that even the use of marriage was illicit for penitents in the state of penance, since perpetual penance is prescribed to these monks, it is easily clear that ecclesiastical rights so prohibit unions of this sort that they do not ever permit, according to the mind of Siricius, the use of these sacrilegious nuptials. This could seem to be equivalent to the invalidation of nuptials of this sort, although we confess that this sentence is not expressly handed down here. Cf. the following decree of Innocent I to Victricius concerning this matter, and Canons VI and XVIII of St. Basil above.

Decree VI. Concerning those ... who, after penance has been done (public penance, that is, because of graver crimes), like dogs and swine returning to their former vomit and wallow, have sought again both the girdle of military service and slippery pleasures and new marriages and forbidden concubitus ... because they now have no refuge of doing penance (cf. what we said in the Treatise on Penance, Thesis IX), we have judged that this must be decreed: that within the church they be joined to the faithful only by prayer, etc.

You perceive that public penance done impeded one from afterward licitly contracting marriage. Cf. what we say at response VI of Leo to Rusticus below.

Decree VII. We have learned that very many priests of Christ and Levites, after the long times of their consecration, have procreated offspring both from their own spouses (received before consecration) and also from foul coitus, and have defended their crime by this prescription, that in the Old Testament the faculty of begetting is read to have been attributed to priests and ministers ... The Lord Jesus ... willed the Church, whose bridegroom is beautiful in form, to shine with the splendor of chastity ... All priests and Levites are bound by an indissoluble law that from the day of our ordination we dedicate both our hearts and our bodies to sobriety and modesty ... And because some ... lament that they have fallen through ignorance, we say that mercy is not to be denied to these on this condition: that, without any increase of honor, they persevere, as long as they have lived, in this office in which they have been detected, if nevertheless after these things they have endeavored to show themselves continent. But those who strive by the excuse of an illicit privilege ... let them know that they have been cast down, by the authority of the Apostolic See, from every ecclesiastical honor which they have used unworthily.

Innocent I again inculcates this decree in the letter to Exuperius. Here Siricius affirms an indissoluble law concerning ecclesiastical celibacy; he does not himself recently establish it, but urges one already existing and prescribes its observance in Spain by the apostolic authority of his See. But since the Pontiff does not permit, not even to those sinning from ignorance, the use of the women whom they had received as spouses (marriage, I say, they intended; for they would not have wished to defend fornication by the authority of the Old Testament), it is evident from the opinion of Siricius that marriage is more than illicit for Priests.

Decree VIII. He reproves bigamists advanced to the diaconate and Priesthood.

Decree XI. Whatever cleric (not yet advanced to the diaconate) has married either a widow or certainly a second spouse, let him soon be stripped of every privilege of ecclesiastical dignity, only lay communion being conceded to him.