If a man living with a wife, not being content with his marriage, falls into fornication, we judge such a man to be a fornicator, and we prolong the period of his penance;
because it is said, "The adulteress, being defiled, shall be defiled, and shall not return to her husband," and, "He who keeps an adulteress is foolish and ungodly;"
Those who have wives obtained by abduction — if they took them from others who had already been betrothed to them — must not be received before the women are taken away from them and placed at the disposal of those originally betrothed to them, whether the latter wish to take them or to withdraw.
But if someone takes a woman who was unattached, she must be taken away and restored to her own people, the matter being left to the decision of her relatives — whether parents or brothers or whoever else has charge of the girl; and if they choose to give her to him, the union shall stand, but if they refuse, no force is to be used.
However, he who has as his wife a woman obtained through seduction, whether secret or more violent, must necessarily undergo the penalty for fornication.
In the first year they must be cast out from the prayers and weep at the door of the church; in the second, they are admitted to hearing; in the third, to repentance; in the fourth, to standing together with the people while abstaining from the offering; then they are to be permitted the communion of the good gift.
Concerning those who marry two sisters, or women married to two brothers, a short letter of ours has been issued, a copy of which we have sent to your reverence.
As for the widow enrolled in the number of widows — that is, the one supported by the Church — the Apostle decreed that if she marries, she is to be passed over and disregarded.
The widow, however, who has reached sixty years, if she chooses again to live with a man, shall not be deemed worthy of the communion of the good gift, until she ceases from the passion of impurity.
But if they are determined by every means to remain in cohabitation, let them acknowledge the penance for fornication, but let them be permitted to remain, lest something worse occur.
But how shall he who does not have this, because of the transgression committed through ignorance, impart it to another? Therefore let him bless neither publicly nor privately, nor distribute the Body of Christ to others, nor perform any other ministry, but, content with the seat of honor, let him weep before the Lord that the offense committed through ignorance may be forgiven him.
Therefore one who has been ensnared beforehand by an oath into doing harm to another should show repentance for the rashness of the oath, but should not, under the pretext of piety, confirm his own wickedness.
If someone should swear to gouge out his brother's eyes, would it be good for him to carry such a thing into action? If someone should swear to commit murder? If someone should swear, in general, to transgress some commandment by an oath? For, "I have sworn, and I have determined" — not to sin, but "to keep the ordinances of your righteousness."
For you will not take vengeance twice for the same thing. A woman who gives birth by the roadside and neglects the infant shall be liable to the charge of murder.
Our fathers did not command that women who have committed adultery and confess it out of piety, or who are in some way convicted, should be publicly exposed, lest we furnish an occasion of death to those who have been convicted; but they ordained that they should stand without communion until the time of their repentance be fulfilled.
But in the case of the man who has been deserted, one must consider the cause of the desertion; and if it appears that she departed without reasonable cause, he is worthy of pardon, but she of penance.
Soldiers' wives who remarry while their husbands are missing are subject to the same rule as those who did not await their husbands' return because of their absence abroad; except that the matter here allows for some pardon, because the presumption inclines more toward death.
After another man's wife has been taken away from him, the man who married her shall be charged with adultery for the first union, but for the second he shall be blameless.
A woman who, in her widowhood, has authority over herself to live with a husband is blameless, provided there is no one to dissolve the union — as the Apostle has said:
"But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord." Marriages contracted without those who hold authority are fornications.
Therefore, neither while a father nor a master is living are those who unite in marriage without consent free from blame, since it is only when those in authority give their consent to the union that it then acquires the stability of marriage.
A deaconess who has committed fornication with a Greek is admissible to communion, but shall be admitted to the offering in the seventh year, provided of course that she is living in chastity.
But a woman who, in ignorance, married a man who had for a time been deserted by his wife, and who was afterward set aside because his former wife returned to him, has indeed committed fornication, but in ignorance.
The Encratites, the Sack-wearers, and the Apotactites are subject to the same rule as the Novatians, because concerning the latter a canon was pronounced, even though a different one, while concerning the former nothing has been said.
But if among you rebaptism has been forbidden, just as also among the Romans a certain accommodation is required on account of their baptism, let our own rule prevail: since their heresy, like that of the Marcionites, is an offshoot — they abhorring marriage and turning away from wine, and saying that the creation of God is defiled — we do not receive them into the Church unless they are baptized with our baptism.
For let them not say, "We were baptized into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit," seeing that they suppose God to be the author of evils, rivaling Marcion and the rest of the heresies.
Therefore, if this is agreeable, several bishops must assemble together, and thus set forth the canon, so that the one who acts may be free from danger, and the one who gives the ruling may have credibility in his answer concerning such matters.
Because whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, causes her to commit adultery — by calling her an adulteress, he has thereby excluded her from union with another.
For how can the husband be liable as the cause of adultery, while the wife — who has been called an adulteress by the Lord because of her union with another man — is without blame? But let violations that occur under compulsion be without blame.
Such things, however, we regard as blemishes of the Church, but we do not subject them to public condemnation, since they are preferable to unrestrained fornication.
To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium. Illness upon illness has succeeded one after another for us, and preoccupations — both with ecclesiastical affairs and with those who trouble the churches — have held me fast throughout the whole winter and up to the time of this letter.
For may the Lord grant your body health sufficient for the service of his commandments — but I mean that the care of the churches casts upon you too the same distraction.
But since our most beloved son Meletius, while escorting the new recruits, reminded us that it would be possible to greet you through him, we gladly seized the occasion for a letter, and hastened to entrust it to the bearer of the letters — a man sufficient even to serve in place of a letter, both because of the truthfulness of his character and because he is ignorant of nothing concerning our affairs.
Therefore, be so good as to greet on our behalf those who are with your Holiness, and all the clergy, and the people shepherded by you, and our most God-beloved brothers and fellow ministers.
Remember the feast of the most blessed martyr Eupsychius, and do not wait for a second reminder, nor trouble yourself to arrive merely within the appointed time, but come beforehand and gladden us — if indeed we are still upon the earth.
To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium. For many reasons I long to meet with you, both that I may make use of you as a counselor concerning the matters at hand, and altogether that, having seen you after so long a time, I may have some comfort for our separation.
But since the same thing has held both of us back — both the illness that has befallen you, and my own older sickness which has not yet left me — let us both, if you are willing, grant pardon to each other, so that we may of ourselves release one another from the charge.
To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium. At other times too, to meet with your Reverence is of great worth to me, but now especially so, since the matter that brings us together is of such a kind.
But since the remnants of my illness are such as not to permit me even the slightest movement — indeed, when I traveled by carriage as far as the martyria, I very nearly relapsed into the same sickness — I must needs obtain pardon from you.
But if the business in hand is urgent, then transact, with the cooperation of God, the matters at hand, and count me among yourselves as though present and sharing in whatever is rightly done.
For either the weakness of my body has hindered me (which you surely are not ignorant of, how great it has been with me from my earliest years even to this old age, having grown up with me and disciplined me according to the just judgment of God, who orders all things in wisdom), or the cares of the Churches, or the struggles against those who rise up against the word of truth.
For I, having heard from God — who for this very purpose accepted his sojourn in the flesh, that he might order our life by examples of what is to be done, and by his own voice announce to us the Gospel of the kingdom — that:
"By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" — and that, as a parting gift to his own disciples, when he was about to complete the dispensation in the flesh, the Lord left them his own peace, saying:
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" — I cannot persuade myself that, without love for one another, and without being at peace with all so far as it depends on me, I can be worthily called a servant of Jesus Christ.
For you are not ignorant that, being set forth publicly before all, like rocks jutting out into the sea, we receive the fury of the heretical waves, and, breaking upon us, they do not flood those behind us.
But when I say "we," I do not attribute this to human power, but to the grace of God, who shows forth his own power in the weakness of men, just as the prophet says, speaking in the person of the Lord:
Since, then, our situation is of such a kind, it would have followed that from your love some of your genuine members should be sent continually to visit us in our distress, and letters of love should come to us — allow me to say — more frequently, on the one hand confirming our zeal, and on the other, correcting us if in anything we err.
But since in the time before this, either through failing to perceive what was fitting you neglected what was due to us, most honored brothers, or, having been forestalled by certain persons with slanders against us, you did not consider us worthy of a loving visitation — behold, now we ourselves take the initiative in writing, and we confess that we are ready to strip off before you the charges brought against us, only if those who insult us are willing to stand as our opponents face to face in the presence of your Reverence.
For if we are convicted, we ourselves shall come to acknowledge our sin, and you, after the proofs, withdrawing yourselves from communion with us as sinners, will obtain pardon before the Lord; and those who convicted us will have their reward, as having made public our hidden wickedness.
But if you condemn us before any proof, we ourselves shall suffer no wrong, except the loss of that possession most precious to us of all — our love toward you; but you yourselves will suffer this very thing, in no longer having us, and you will seem to be at war with the Gospel, which says:
...does he do? Yet he who heaps reproaches upon us without bringing forward proof of what is alleged will be shown, by his improper use of words, to have fastened an evil name upon himself.
For how else is it fitting to name the slanderer, than by giving him the very appellation which, from the deed itself, he contrives for himself? Let not, then, him who reviles us be a slanderer, but rather an accuser.
Or rather, let him not even accept the name of accuser, but let him be a brother, admonishing in love and bringing forward his reproof for the sake of correction.
"So that, what need have we of communion with others?" For the Lord separated the islands from the mainland by the sea, but bound the islanders to the mainlanders by love.
But we hear even of them, that although they occupy a land sufficient for all their needs, yet, because of the uncertainty of what is to come, they embrace mutual alliance with one another and pursue association with others as having some advantage.
And whether you yourselves wish to come to us and personally investigate our maladies, to see whether they are really such as you hear, or whether our sins are reported to you as more grievous through additions born of falsehood — let this too be done.
Or if you wish to designate some place among yourselves, where, going there, we might both discharge to you the debt of visitation that is owed, and give you whatever proof of ourselves is possible, so as both to heal what has gone before and to leave no further room for slanders — let this too be done.
For assuredly, even though we bear about a weak flesh, yet as long as we breathe, we are obliged to leave nothing lacking of what pertains to the building up of the Churches of Christ.
We keep this sorrow to ourselves, being ashamed to announce to those in communion with us from afar your estrangement from us, lest we grieve them too and cause joy to those who hate us.
I have written these things now alone, but I wrote with the concurring judgment of all the brothers in Cappadocia, who also urged me not to make use of a chance bearer of this letter, but a man who — since we feared to cast our discourse into excessive length — would be able, by the understanding he has from the grace of God, to supply through the letter whatever we have left out.
We mean our most beloved and most devout brother Peter, our fellow-presbyter, whom do you also receive in love and send back to us in peace, that he may become to us a messenger of good tidings.
To the People of Neocaesarea. For a long time we have kept silence toward one another, most honored and deeply beloved brothers, as though we had risen up against each other in anger.
And yet, who is so heavy in resentment and so hard to reconcile toward one who has grieved him, as to extend the anger arising from hatred over almost an entire generation of mankind? Yet this is what may be seen happening in our own case, though there exists no just occasion for our estrangement — at least none that we ourselves are aware of — but on the contrary, from the beginning many great grounds existed for the utmost friendship and union between us.
One ground, the greatest and first, being that the commandment of the Lord expressly says, "By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you love one another"; and again, the Apostle clearly sets forth to us the excellence of love, both where he declares that love is the fulfillment of the law, and where he places the excellence of love above all the great gifts together, in the passage where he says:
"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing" — not that any of the things enumerated could ever be accomplished apart from love, but because the saint, as he himself said, wished by this manner of hyperbole to bear additional witness to the surpassing excellence of the commandment over all things.
I mean Gregory the Great, and all those who, one after another, succeeding him in the throne of your episcopate, have walked in the same footsteps, like stars rising one after another, so as to leave behind, for those who wish to see, recognizable signs of a heavenly way of life.
And if bodily ties, too, are not to be despised, but contribute greatly toward unbroken connection and communion of life, these just claims also existed for us in relation to you.
For what reason then, O most venerable of cities (for through you I address the whole city), has no kindly letter come from you, no gracious word, but your ears stand open to those who attempt slander? So that I must groan all the more, the more I see what they are eagerly striving for being accomplished, since the work of slander plainly has its instigator:
who, being already notorious for many wrongdoings, is characterized above all by this particular wickedness, so that the sin itself has become, as it were, his very name.
Who has ever wanted in wicked accusations, contending alone? Who has ever been convicted of lying when the one falsely accused was not present? What word is not plausible to hearers, when the reviler insists firmly that it is indeed so, while the one reviled is neither present nor hears the slanders? Does not the very custom of ordinary life teach you this, that one who is to become a fair and impartial hearer ought not to be entirely carried away by the first speaker, but should also wait for the defense of the accused, so that in this way, from the comparison of both sets of words, the truth may be shown forth? "Judge righteous judgment" is one of the commandments most necessary for salvation.
And I say these things not having forgotten the apostolic words, that he, shunning human tribunals, kept his whole life in reserve for the scrutiny of the tribunal that cannot be deceived, in the passage where he says:
Nevertheless, since false slanders have gone before and taken hold of your ears, and both our life has been slandered and our faith concerning God has been slandered, knowing that the one who slanders inflicts harm upon three persons at once:
As for the harm done to me myself, I would even have kept silent about it, be well assured — not because I despise your good opinion of me (for how could I, seeing that it is precisely in order not to lose this that I am now writing this letter and contending?) — but because I see that, of the three parties harmed, I am the one who suffers the least loss.
For I am being deprived of you, while you are being robbed of the truth; and he who is responsible for this separates me from you, but alienates himself from the Lord, because it is not possible to be made a familiar of God by means of forbidden things.
For what greater evil could anyone suffer than to be deprived of the most precious of all things, the truth? What, then, do I say, brothers? Not that I am without sin, nor that my life is not full of countless shortcomings.
For I know myself, and I do not cease shedding tears for my sins, if by any means I might be able to propitiate my God and escape the punishment that has been threatened.
But if he would not say this, and all the more so will not say it the purer he is (for it is characteristic of the perfect not to exalt themselves, since otherwise they would surely become liable to the arrogance of the Pharisee, who by justifying himself condemned the tax collector), let him seek the Physician together with me, and let him not judge before the time, until the Lord comes, who will reveal the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts.
"Reprove, rebuke, exhort"? But if our lawlessness is incurable, why does he not stand up against us face to face, and by publicly exposing our transgressions, free the Churches from the harm we cause? Do not, then, tolerate the slander spoken against us under the breath.