IdemAugustusJulianoP. P. Sacrisnostrislegibusexistimavimusoportereethancaddi, quæexvirtute, nonautemextemporibus, reiigiosasabbatias, seupraefecturastribuit: itavidelicet, utinpiismonasteriis, autasceleriis, nonomnimodomortuoabbate, velabbalissa, is, velea, qui, velquæ, temporeantiquiorest, autsecundussecundavedeincepseligatur.
The same Augustus to Julian, Praetorian Prefect. We have judged that to our sacred laws this also ought to be added, which confers religious abbacies, or governorships, on the ground of virtue and not of seniority of time: namely in this way, that in pious monasteries or communities of ascetics, upon the death of an abbot or abbess, by no means is he or she who is older in time, or the second after, to be chosen next in order.
For we are in accord with nature, since not all are alike good, nor are all equally inclined to evil, but let him be called to the governorship whom the best life, and honorable character, and constancy in pious exercise, and the common consent of the remaining monks, or the greatest part of them, shall have deemed fit for this, and shall have chosen with the holy Gospels set before them; so that if indeed the first after the deceased be useful and worthy to preside over the monks, let him be preferred to the others; but if he who is after him be likewise fit, let upon him be cast the lot of the future superior;
but if none of these seem worthy, let him who out of all shall be fit, of whatever rank he be, be at once preordained abbot, who shall be, namely, both of honorable life and of honorable conversation, and who can preserve the things entrusted to him; since it is fitting that every governance, and every prefecture over men, come about not from seniority, nor from lots, nor from chance circumstances, but from election and from that which is more excellent; and that good testimony among all, and approval, give order to the ordination. §4.
And let these things be made manifest to the bishop beloved of God, so that when he shall have examined him who is elected, and approved that this is rightly done, he may, in agreement with the electors, cast his vote and promote him to the order of abbot of this kind. But it behooves both the patriarch for the time being, and the bishops beloved of God who are in those places, to approve this very election, having themselves also the judgment of God, and fearing the future condemnation, if they shall have made the promotion not through election, but looking to some human passion or affection: since they shall incur, both in this life and in that to come, a penalty sent by God, namely because their negligence supplies to very many souls the occasions of sins. §2.
All these things holding good also in the case of the most reverend women or virgins who preside over pious monasteries. §5. With all the rest of the sacred order presiding over the sacred ministry according to their ranks, and in no matter innovated upon by this present law of ours. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of December, at Constantinople, in the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes, 530.