t. Augustine
testifies, that Apostle was chosen a virgin and such he always remained.

Not only did our Lord thus manifest while on earth a marked predilection
for virgins, but He exhibits the same preference for them in heaven; for
the hundred and forty-four thousand who are chosen to sing the New
Canticle and who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth are all virgins,
as St. John testifies. (Apoc. xiv.)

The Apostle of the Gentiles assures us that he led a single life, and he
commends that state to others: "I say to the unmarried, and to the widows
it is good for them if they so continue, even as I."(517)

There is no evidence from Scripture that any of the Apostles were married
except St. Peter. St. Jerome says that if any were married they certainly
separated from their wives after they were called to the Apostolate. Even
St. Peter, after his vocation, did not continue with his wife, as may be
inferred from his own words: "Behold, we have left all things, and
followed Thee."(518) Among "all things" must be reckoned the fellowship of
his wife, for he could hardly say with truth that he had left all things
if he had not left his wife. Our Savior immediately after enumerates the
wife among those cherished objects, the renunciation of which, for His
sake, will have its reward.(519)

St. Paul declares that "a Bishop must be sober, just, holy,
continent."(520) And writing to Timothy, whom he had consecrated Bishop,
he says: "Be thou an example to the faithful ... in charity, in faith, in
_chastity_."(521) In another place, he enumerates chastity among the
virtues that should adorn the Christian minister: "In all things let us
exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, ... in
chastity."(522)

Although celibacy is not expressly enforced by our Savior, it is, however,
commended so strongly by Himself and His Apostles, both by word and
example, that the Church felt it her duty to lay it down as a law.

The discipline of the Church has been exerted from the beginning in
prohibiting Priests to marry _after_ their ordination. St. Jerome observes
that "Bishops, Priests and Deacons are chosen from virgins or widowers,
or, at least, they remain perpetually chaste after being elevated to the
priesthood."(523) To Jovinian he writes: "You certainly admit that he
cannot remain a Bishop who begets children in the episcopacy; for, if
convicted, he will not be esteemed as a husband, but condemned as an
adulterer."(5