ADULTERY is used by 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 the 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.