Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book I/Chapter 23
Chapter XXIII.—Canons appointed by the Council; Paphnutius, a certain Confessor, restrains the Council from forming a Canon enjoining Celibacy to all who were about to be honored with the Priesthood.
Zealous of reforming the life of those who were engaged about the churches, the Synod enacted laws which were called canons.[1]
While they were deliberating about this, some thought that a law ought to be passed enacting that bishops and presbyters, deacons and subdeacons, should hold no intercourse with the wife they had espoused before they entered the priesthood; but Paphnutius,[2]
the confessor, stood up and testified against this proposition; he said
that marriage was honorable and chaste, and that cohabitation with
their own wives was chastity, and advised the Synod not to frame such a
law, for it would be difficult to bear, and might serve as an occasion
of incontinence to them and their wives; and he reminded them, that
according to the ancient tradition of the church, those who were
unmarried when they took part in the communion of sacred orders, were
required to remain so, but that those who were married, were not to put
away their wives. Such was the advice of Paphnutius, although he was
himself unmarried, and in accordance with it, the Synod concurred in
his counsel, enacted no law about it, but left the matter to the
decision of individual judgment, and not to compulsion. The Synod,
however, enacted other laws regulating the government of the Church;
and these laws may easily be found, as they are in the possession of
many individuals.