The same Augustus to John, Praetorian Prefect. We decree that no one be ordained to the episcopate unless he be both useful and excellent in other respects, and unless he neither cohabit with a woman nor be the father of children, but in place of a wife, let him cleave to the most holy Church and be continent; and in place of children, let him have all the Christian and orthodox people: knowing that thus from the beginning we have ordained those things which concern the succession of the bishops beloved of God, and that our law has proceeded with such a consideration; and that those who do, or have done, anything contrary to these things, are unworthy of all episcopate;
for those who, after this our constitution, shall make any men bishops contrary to its force, or shall have dared to be made such, shall neither be reckoned among the bishops nor remain in sacred orders, but, being expelled from these, shall give place to others for ordination, to those who are in the first place most diligent, and moreover in all things pleasing to God. Given on the fourth day before the Kalends of September, at Constantinople, after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes, 531.