In the 1st century AD, the Agapetae (from the Greek word ἀγαπηταί (agapetai), meaning 'beloved') were virgins who consecrated themselves to God with a vow of chastity and associated with laymen.
[5] In the early Church, virginity was seen as a positive way of life for many Christians, as marriage was seen as promoting evil, quarrels, and the road to sin and suffering.
This did not correct the practice entirely, and one hundred years later St. Jerome arraigned Syrian monks for living in cities with Christian virgins.
The Agapetae are sometimes confounded with the subintroductae, or woman who lived with clerics without marriage,[10] a class against which the third canon of the First Council of Nicaea (325) was directed.
[12] The Agapetae were also a branch of the Gnostics in the late 4th century, who held that sexual relations were only improper if the mind was impure.