Agapetae

Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, finally wrote a letter in 249 A.D. attempting to "blow the whistle" on the cohabitation of the agapetae with men of the cloth.

In the late fourth century C.E. Jerome, in a letter to Eustochium, one of his closest friends among the noble women of Rome, asked how the "plague" of the agapetae came to exist within the Church. He calls these agapetae "unwedded wives," "novel concubines, and harlots."

These agapetae, as the above quote shows, were widely criticized; for, in an attitude which most of you reading this can doubtless relate to, there was much suspicion that such close relationships were little more than fronts for sexual promiscuity.

The men adopted agapetae (from the word agape), spiritual sisters or wives with whom they slept but did not have intercourse.