The same emperor to John, most glorious praetorian prefect of the East, twice former consul and patrician. A matter of the following kind has come before us, which we judged ought to receive from us both a fitting interpretation and assistance together. For we have learned that a certain woman, having a son begotten by her in lawful wedlock, wished indeed to withdraw herself from this common manner of life and to dwell in a certain monastery of women, doing many good works for the most reverend women gathered together there.
And since the law of our piety wills that those who dedicate themselves to monasteries, whether men or women, should, before they enter the monastery, dispose of their possessions in whatever manner they wish, and that after they enter the monastery they can no longer do anything concerning their own property, inasmuch as they are no longer owners of those things, because we have thus enacted that men and women of this kind, by the very act of entering the monastery, dedicate both themselves with body and soul and their substance, and that if they should depart, their substance nevertheless remains with the monastery, because they are no longer owners of it:
but hence there is a fear lest perhaps (although our constitution is much later than the time when she entered the aforesaid venerable house) certain persons might forbid her to look after her son; and that, on account of the aforesaid fear, these matters ought to be interpreted and made clear by our law, namely that neither she herself nor her son has suffered any injury concerning his succession arising from the aforementioned constitution.
Therefore we enact that if any man or woman shall have dwelt in a monastery before our aforesaid constitution, or dwells there even now, and especially when there are children, he or she has no necessity now to assign their substance to the monastery, but may transmit to a son or daughter either the whole or even a part of their substance, or may even dispose of their property in whatever manner they please:
inasmuch as this other present constitution of ours interprets that first law (for those who once, before our aforesaid law of long ago, entered the monasteries, no law laid down afterwards is to grieve at all, nor to take from them those things which had previously, as was lawful, been given to them), nor is the impediment of our earlier law to operate at all upon them, because it was not even possible for this to be done, namely that they should first dispose of their property and so enter the monastery. But if at that time, with no such law laid down, she entered the monastery, how could it come about that the order of the law be reversed, and that it be required of those who entered the monastery earlier that they do those things which, formerly unknown, were afterwards newly introduced by our sacred constitution?
But it is fitting that each person await these things according to his own times; and indeed those things which come after the law should be sought to be done thus, as the law wills. But if anything has followed before the law, this should not be disturbed nor scrutinized, but left in its former state. Therefore let this law be set down as a useful interpretation of that former constitution of ours, so that the latter may have effect in subsequent times, from the time it was made; and let it be laid down for those who shall afterwards be converted, men and women, and let it preserve its authority over them, scrutinizing none of those things which were before:
cumlicentiasitprioribusvirisacmulieribusquihabitaverunt, autetiamhactenushabitantinmonasteriis, etmaximefiliisexistentibus, suasresquovoluntdisponeremodo. Tuaigitureminentiaquaeplacue-Jruntnobis, etperhancsacramdeclaratasuntlegem, solemniterperprogrammatasuaomnibusfaceremanifestafestinet. Dat. Id. Octob., imp. d. n. Just. PP. Aug. non. 11, Joannev. c. cons., ind. 2.
since liberty is granted to the earlier men and women who have dwelt, or even now dwell, in monasteries, and especially when there are children, to dispose of their property in whatever manner they will. Let your Eminence therefore hasten to make manifest to all, solemnly through your edicts, the things which have pleased us and have been declared through this sacred law. Given on the Ides of October, in the eleventh year of our lord Justinian, Pius, Perpetual, Augustus, John the most distinguished man being consul, in the second indiction.