Canon VII.
We have decreed that those who have once been enrolled among the clergy, or have been made monks, shall accept neither a military charge nor any secular dignity; and if they shall presume to do so and not repent in such wise as to turn again to that which they had first chosen for the love of God, they shall be anathematized.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon VII.
If any cleric or monk arrogantly affects the military or any other dignity, let him be cursed.
Hefele.
Something similar was ordered by the lxxxiii. (lxxxii.) Apostolic Canon, only that it threatens the cleric who takes military service merely with deposition from his clerical office, while our canon subjects him to excommunication....The Greek commentators, Balsamon and Zonaras, think that our canon selects a more severe punishment, that of excommunication, because it has in view those clerics who have not merely taken military service, etc., but at the same time have laid aside their clerical dress and put on secular clothing.
Bright.
By strateian [which I have translated (or, as Canon Bright thinks, mistranslated) "military charge"], "militiam," is here meant, not military employment as such, but the public service in general. This use of the term is a relic and token of the military basis of the Roman monarchy. The court of the Imperator was called his camp, stratopedon (Cod. Theod., tom. ii., p. 22), as in Constantine's letter's to John Archaph and the Council of Tyre (Athan., Apol. c. Ari., lxx. 86), and in the VII^th canon of Sardica, so Athanasius speaks of the "camp" of Constans (Apol. ad Constant, iv. ), and of that of Constantius at Milan (Hist. Ari., xxxvij.); so Hosius uses the same phrase in his letter to Constantius (ib. xliv.); so the Semi-Arian bishops, when addressing Jovian (Soz., vi. 4); so Chrysostom in the reign of Theodosius I. (Hom. ad Pop. Antioch, vi. 2). Similarly, there were officers of the palace called Castrensians (Tertull., De Cor., 12), as being "milites alius generis--de imperatoria familia" (Gothofred, Cod. Theod., tom. ii., p. 526). So strateusthai is used for holding a place at court, as in Soc., iv. 9; Soz., vi. 9, on Marcian's case, and a very clear passage in Soc., v. 25, where the verb is applied to an imperial secretary. It occurs in combination with strateia in a petition of an Alexandrian deacon named Theodore, which was read in the third session of Chalcedon: he says, "'Estrateusamen for about twenty-two years in the Schola of the magistrians" (under the Magister officionum, or chief magistrate of the palace), "but I disregarded strateias tosouton chronau in order to enter the ministry" (Mansi, vi. 1008). See also Theodoret, Relig. Hist., xij., on the emperor's letter-carriers. In the same sense Honorius, by a law of 408, forbids non-Catholics "intra palatium militare" (Cod Theod., xvi., 5, 42); and the Vandal king Hunneric speaks of "domus nostræ militiæ" (Victor Vitens, iv. 2).
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum, Pars II., Causa xx., Quæst. iii., Can. iij.
Canon VIII.
Let the clergy of the poor-houses, monasteries, and martyries remain under the authority of the bishops in every city according to the tradition of the holy Fathers; and let no one arrogantly cast off the rule of his own bishop; and if any shall contravene this canon in any way whatever, and will not be subject to their own bishop, if they be clergy, let them be subjected to canonical censure, and if they be monks or laymen, let them be excommunicated.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon VIII.
Any clergyman in an almshouse or monastery must submit himself to the authority of the bishop of the city. But he who rebels against this let him pay the penalty.
Van Espen.
From this canon we learn that the synod of Chalcedon willed that all who were in charge of such pious institutions should be subject to the bishop, and in making this decree the synod only followed the tradition of the Fathers and Canons. Although in its first part the canon only mentions "clergymen," yet in the second part monks are named, and, as Balsamon and Zonoras point out, both are included.
Bright.
What a ptocheion was may be seen from what Gibbon calls the "noble and charitable foundation, almost a new city" (iii. 252), established by St. Basil at a little distance from Cæsarea, and called in consequence the Basiliad. Gregory Nazianzen describes it as a large set of buildings with rooms for the sick, especially for lepers, and also for house-less travellers; "a storehouse of piety, where disease was borne philosophically, and sympathy was tested" (Orat., xliii., 63, compare Basil himself, Epist., xciv., on its staff of nurses and physicians and cl., 3). Sozomen calls it "a most celebrated resting-place for the poor," and names Prapidius as having been its warden while acting as "bishop over many villages" (vi. 34, see on Nic., viij.). Another ptochotropheion is mentioned by Basil (Epist., cxliij.) as governed by a chorepiscopus.
St. Chrysostom, on coming to the see of Constantinople, ordered the excess of episcopal expenditure to be transferred to the hospital for the sick (nosokomeion ), and "founded other such hospitals, setting over them two pious presbyters, with physicians and cooks....so that foreigners arriving in the city, on being attacked by disease, might receive aid, both because it was a good work in itself, and for the glory of the Saviour" (Palladius, Dial., p. 19). At Ephesus Bassian founded a ptocheiton with seventy pallets for the sick (Mansi, vii., 277), and there were several such houses in Egypt (ib., vi., 1013; in the next century there was a hospital for the sick at Daphne near Antioch (Evagr., iv., 35). "The tradition of the holy fathers" is here cited as barring any claim on the part of clerics officiating in these institutions, or in monasteries or martyries, to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary. They are to "abide under it," and not to indulge selfwill by "turning restive" against their bishop's authority" (apheniazo is literally to get the bit between the teeth, and is used by Aëtius for "not choosing to obey," Mansi, vii., 72). Those who dare to violate this clearly defined rule (diatuosin, comp. tupos in Nic., xix.), and to refuse subjection to their own bishop, are, if clerics, to incur canonical censure, if monks or laics, to be excommunicated. The allusion to laics points to laymen as founders or benefactors of such institutions.
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum, Pars II., Causa XVIII., Q. II., canon x., § 3.