ADULTERY is also used, in ecclesiastical writers, for a person's invading or intruding into a bishopric during the former bishop's life. The reason of the appellation is, that a bishop is supposed to contract a kind of spiritual marriage with his church. The translation of a bishop from one see to another was also reputed a species of adultery; on the supposition of its being a kind of second marriage, which, in those days, was esteemed a degree of adultery. This conclusion was founded on that text of St. Paul, Let a bishop be the husband of one wife, by a forced construction of church for wife and of bishop for husband. Du-Cange.