Abstract: In the 5th century BC, the Athenian Assembly frequently issued decrees which threatened to impose heavy fines on those magistrates or commoners who obstructed the enforcement of the laws approved by the Assembly itself. Today we know ten inscriptions reporting as many decrees, in which the fines were fixed at 10.000 drachmai, a stunningly high amount of money. According to the most trustworthy hypotheses concerning the date of these decrees, one of them was approved in (or after) 434 BC, while eight relate undoubtedly to the period of the Peloponnesian War, especially to the ’20s (six cases out of eight). Through a thorough analysis of IG I3 10 – the “Phaselis Decree”, which various scholars have dated differently, ranging from 466 to the beginning of the 4th century BC – this paper argues that, besides other historical proof, the amount of the fine is an important piece of evidence which strongly supports the suggestion for the dating of the decree around 425 BC.

This study examines the discipline of the dispensation from the ecclesiastical celibacy in its historical evolution and analyses the existing laws concerning this canonical regulation. After a presentation of the evolution of the ecclesiastical legislation with regard to this subject, the author highlights the problem of the unity of the canonical system. The ecclesiastical legislator in this area is so active and the number of acts is so great that a question arises concerning the unity and the cohesion of the canonical system in this matter. The principles included in the Letter Per litteras ad universos of 1980 provide for the unity of this canonical discipline only in the substantive sense. In conclusion, the author argues for a re-examination of the present legislation in order to promulgate one uniform law regarding the concession of the dispensation from the ecclesiastical celibacy.

Clerical celibacy within the Roman Catholic Church. Sociological analysis of the law