The Canons of the 318 Holy Fathers Assembled in the City of Nice, in Bithynia.
Canon I.
If any one in sickness has been subjected by physicians to a surgical operation, or if he has been castrated by barbarians, let him remain among the clergy; but, if any one in sound health has castrated himself, it behoves that such an one, if [already] enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who wilfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men the Canon admits to the clergy.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome [57] of Canon I.
Eunuchs may be received into the number of the clergy, but those who castrate themselves shall not be received.
Balsamon.
The divine Apostolic Canons xxi., xxii., xxiii., and xxiv., have taught us sufficiently what ought to be done with those who castrate themselves, this canon provides as to what is to be done to these as well as to those who deliver themselves over to others to be emasculated by them, viz., that they are not to be admitted among the clergy nor advanced to the priesthood.
Daniel Butler.
(Smith & Cheetham, Dict. Christ. Ant.)
The feeling that one devoted to the sacred ministry should be unmutilated was strong in the Ancient Church....This canon of Nice, and those in the Apostolic Canons and a later one in the Second Council of Arles (canon vii.) were aimed against that perverted notion of piety, originating in the misinterpretation of our Lord's saying (Matt. xix. 12) by which Origen, among others, was misled, and their observance was so carefully enforced in later times that not more than one or two instances of the practice which they condemn are noticed by the historian. The case was different if a man was born an eunuch or had suffered mutilation at the hands of persecutors; an instance of the former, Dorotheus, presbyter of Antioch, is mentioned by Eusebius (H. E. vii., c. 32); of the latter, Tigris, presbyter of Constantinople, is referred to both by Socrates (H. E. vi. 15) and Sozomen (H. E. vi. 24) as the victim of a barbarian master.
Hefele.
We know, by the first apology of St. Justin (Apol. c. 29) that a century before Origen, a young man had desired to be mutilated by physicians, for the purpose of completely refuting the charge of vice which the heathen brought against the worship of Christians. St. Justin neither praises nor blames this young man: he only relates that he could not obtain the permission of the civil authorities for his project, that he renounced his intention, but nevertheless remained virgo all his life. It is very probable that the Council of Nice was induced by some fresh similar cases to renew the old injunctions; it was perhaps the Arian bishop, Leontius, who was the principal cause of it. [58]
Lambert.
Constantine forbade by a law the practice condemned in this canon. "If anyone shall anywhere in the Roman Empire after this decree make eunuchs, he shall be punished with death. If the owner of the place where the deed was perpetrated was aware of it and hid the fact, his goods shall be confiscated." (Const. M. Opera. Migne Patrol. vol. viii., 396.)
Beveridge.
The Nicene fathers in this canon make no new enactment but only confirm by the authority of an Ecumenical synod the Apostolic Canons, and this is evident from the wording of this canon. For there can be no doubt that they had in mind some earlier canon when they said, "such men the canon admits to the clergy." Not, houtos ho kanon, but ho kanon, as if they had said "the formerly set forth and well-known canon" admits such to the clergy. But no other canon then existed in which this provision occurred except apostolical canon xxi. which therefore we are of opinion is here cited.
[In this conclusion Hefele also agrees.]
This law was frequently enacted by subsequent synods and is inserted in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretum Gratiani. Pars. I. Distinctio LV., C vij.
[57] For the authority of this epitome vide Introduction.
[58] Leontius while still a presbyter lived with a subintroducta at Antioch, whose name was Eustolion, so we learn from St. Athanasius, Theodoret (H. E. ii. 24) and Socrates (H. E. ii. 26); as he could not part from her and wished to prevent her leaving him, he mutilated himself. His bishop deposed him for this act, but the Emperor Constantius (not Constantine, as by a mistake in the English Hefele, I. p. 377) practically forced him into the episcopal throne of Antioch.
Excursus on the Use of the Word "Canon."
(Bright: Notes on the Canons, pp. 2 and 3.)
Kanon, as an ecclesiastical term, has a very interesting history. See Westcott's account of it, On the New Testament Canon, p. 498 ff. The original sense, "a straight rod" or "line," determines all its religious applications, which begin with St. Paul's use of it for a prescribed sphere of apostolic work (2 Cor. x. 13, 15), or a regulative principle of Christian life (Gal. vi. 16). It represents the element of definiteness in Christianity and in the order of the Christian Church. Clement of Rome uses it for the measure of Christian attainment (Ep. Cor. 7). Irenæus calls the baptismal creed "the canon of truth" (i. 9, 4): Polycrates (Euseb. v. 24) and probably Hippolytus (ib. v. 28) calls it "the canon of faith;" the Council of Antioch in a.d. 269, referring to the same standard of orthodox belief, speaks with significant absoluteness of "the canon" (ib. vii. 30). Eusebius himself mentions "the canon of truth" in iv. 23, and "the canon of the preaching" in iii. 32; and so Basil speaks of "the transmitted canon of true religion" (Epist. 204-6). Such language, like Tertullian's "regula fidei," amounted to saying, "We Christians know what we believe: it is not a vague idea' without substance or outline: it can be put into form, and by it we test the spirits whether they be of God.'" Thus it was natural for Socrates to call the Nicene Creed itself a "canon," ii. 27. Clement of Alexandria uses the phrase "canon of truth" for a standard of mystic interpretation, but proceeds to call the harmony between the two Testaments "a canon for the Church," Strom. vi. 15, 124, 125. Eusebius speaks of "the ecclesiastical canon" which recognized no other Gospels than the four (vi. 25). The use of the term and its cognates in reference to the Scriptures is explained by Westcott in a passive sense so that "canonized" books, as Athanasius calls them (Fest. Ep. 39), are books expressly recognized by the Church as portions of Holy Scripture. Again, as to matters of observance, Clement of Alexandria wrote a book against Judaizers, called "The Churches Canon" (Euseb. vi. 13); and Cornelius of Rome, in his letter to Fabius, speaks of the "canon" as to what we call confirmation (Euseb. vi. 43), and Dionysius of the "canon" as to reception of converts from heresy (ib. vii. 7). The Nicene Council in this canon refers to a standing "canon" of discipline (comp. Nic. 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18), but it does not apply the term to its own enactments, which are so described in the second canon of Constantinople (see below), and of which Socrates says "that it passed what are usually called canons'" (i. 13); as Julius of Rome calls a decree of this Council a "canon" (Athan. Apol. c. Ari. 25); so Athanasius applies the term generally to Church laws (Encycl. 2; cp. Apol. c. Ari. 69). The use of kanon for the clerical body (Nic. 16, 17, 19; Chalc. 2) is explained by Westcott with reference to the rule of clerical life, but Bingham traces it to the roll or official list on which the names of clerics were enrolled (i. 5, 10); and this appears to be the more natural derivation, see "the holy canon" in the first canon of the Council of Antioch, and compare Socrates (i. 17), "the Virgins enumerated en to ton ekklesion kanoni," and (ib. v. 19) on the addition of a penitentiary "to the canon of the church;" see also George of Laodicea in Sozomon, iv. 13. Hence any cleric might be called kanonikos , see Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatech. 4; so we read of "canonical singers." Laodicea, canon xv. The same notion of definiteness appears in the ritual use of the word for a series of nine "odes" in the Eastern Church service (Neale, Introd. East. Ch. ii. 832), for the central and unvarying element in the Liturgy, beginning after the Tersanctus (Hammond, Liturgies East and West, p. 377); or for any Church office (Ducange in v.); also in its application to a table for the calculation of Easter (Euseb. vi. 29; vii. 32); to a scheme for exhibiting the common and peculiar parts of the several Gospels (as the "Eusebian canons") and to a prescribed or ordinary payment to a church, a use which grew out of one found in Athanasius' Apol. c. Ari. 60.
In more recent times a tendency has appeared to restrict the term Canon to matters of discipline, but the Council of Treat continued the ancient use of the word, calling its doctrinal and disciplinary determinations alike "Canons."