Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, III, xxxvii) numbers among the ascetics the most illustrious pontiffs of the first ages, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, and others.
This clothing laid upon him the obligation of poverty and chastity more as a natural consequence of a donation or consecration to God than as arising from formal vows, which did not exist at that time (cf.
[7] The community life, established under Schenoudi, the great disciple of St. Pachomius, added an explicit promise of fidelity to certain precepts.
Then the constitutions of the Minims and clerks regular expressly mention the three essential vows of the religious life, as well as those superadded on account of the special ends of their orders.
Finally the regulations (Normæ) of 1901, published in explanation of the present practice of the Holy See, do not permit in new congregations any but the three essential vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
De veto et voti redemptione (iii, 15) in 6°, Boniface VIII declared authoritatively that the vow of chastity, consecrated by the reception of major orders, or by religious profession in an approved institute, created a diriment impediment to marriage.
Some communities of tertiaries not belonging to an approved order were the first to introduce profession accompanied by simple vows, which is now the ordinary practice in the more recent congregations.