XXIX. It is especially desirable that attention should be given to the case of persons in power who threaten on oath to do some hurt to those under their authority. The remedy is twofold. In the first place, let them be taught not to take oaths at random: secondly, not to persist in their wicked determinations. Any one who is arrested in the design of fulfilling an oath to injure another ought to shew repentance for the rashness of his oath, and must not confirm his wickedness under the pretext of piety. Herod was none the better for fulfilling his oath, when, of course only to save himself from perjury, he became the prophet's murderer. [2708] Swearing is absolutely forbidden, [2709] and it is only reasonable that the oath which tends to evil should be condemned. The swearer must therefore change his mind, and not persist in confirming his impiety. Consider the absurdity of the thing a little further. Suppose a man to swear that he will put his brother's eyes out: is it well for him to carry his oath into action? Or to commit murder? or to break any other commandment? "I have sworn, and I will perform it," [2710] not to sin, but to "keep thy righteous judgments." It is no less our duty to undo and destroy sin, than it is to confirm the commandment by immutable counsels.
XXX. As to those guilty of abduction we have no ancient rule, but I have expressed my own judgment. The period is three years; [2711] the culprits and their accomplices to be excluded from service. The act committed without violence is not liable to punishment, whenever it has not been preceded by violation or robbery. The widow is independent, and to follow or not is in her own power. We must, therefore, pay no heed to excuses.
XXXI. A woman whose husband has gone away and disappeared, and who marries another, before she has evidence of his death, commits adultery. Clerics who are guilty of the sin unto death [2712] are degraded from their order, but not excluded from the communion of the laity. Thou shalt not punish twice for the same fault. [2713]
XXXIII. Let an indictment for murder be preferred against the woman who gives birth to a child on the road and pays no attention to it.
XXXIV. Women who had committed adultery, and confessed their fault through piety, or were in any way convicted, were not allowed by our fathers to be publicly exposed, that we might not cause their death after conviction. But they ordered that they should be excluded from communion till they had fulfilled their term of penance.
XXXV. In the case of a man deserted by his wife, the cause of the desertion must be taken into account. If she appear to have abandoned him without reason, he is deserving of pardon, but the wife of punishment. Pardon will be given to him that he may communicate with the Church.
XXXVI. Soldiers' wives who have married in their husbands' absence will come under the same principle as wives who, when their husbands have been on a journey, have not waited their return. Their case, however, does admit of some concession on the ground of there being greater reason to suspect death.
XXXVII. The man who marries after abducting another man's wife will incur the charge of adultery for the first case; but for the second will go free.
XXXVIII. Girls who follow against their fathers' will commit fornication; but if their fathers are reconciled to them, the act seems to admit of a remedy. They are not however immediately restored to communion, but are to be punished for three years.
XXXIX. The woman who lives with an adulterer is an adulteress the whole time. [2714]
XL. The woman who yields to a man against her master's will commits fornication; but if afterwards she accepts free marriage, she marries. The former case is fornication; the latter marriage. The covenants of persons who are not independent have no validity.
XLI. The woman in widowhood, who is independent, may dwell with a husband without blame, if there is no one to prevent their cohabitation; for the Apostle says; "but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord." [2715]
XLII. Marriages contracted without the permission of those in authority, are fornication. If neither father nor master be living the contracting parties are free from blame; just as if the authorities assent to the cohabitation, it assumes the fixity of marriage.
XLIII. He who smites his neighbour to death is a murderer, whether he struck first or in self defence.
XLIV. The deaconess who commits fornication with a heathen may be received into repentance and will be admitted to the oblation in the seventh year; of course if she be living in chastity. The heathen who, after he has believed, takes to idolatry, returns to his vomit. We do not, however, give up the body of the deaconess to the use of the flesh, as being consecrated.
XLV. If any one, after taking the name of Christianity, insults Christ, he gets no good from the name.
XLVI. The woman who unwillingly marries a man deserted at the time by his wife, and is afterwards repudiated, because of the return of the former to him, commits fornication, but involuntarily. She will, therefore, not be prohibited from marriage; but it is better if she remain as she is. [2716]
XLVII. Encratitæ, [2717] Saccophori, [2718] and Apotactitæ [2719] are not regarded in the same manner as Novatians, since in their case a canon has been pronounced, although different; while of the former nothing has been said. All these I re-baptize on the same principle. If among you their re-baptism is forbidden, for the sake of some arrangement, nevertheless let my principle prevail. Their heresy is, as it were, an offshoot of the Marcionites, abominating, as they do, marriage, refusing wine, and calling God's creature polluted. We do not therefore receive them into the Church, unless they be baptized into our baptism. Let them not say that they have been baptized into Father, Son and Holy Ghost, inasmuch as they make God the author of evil, after the example of Marcion and the rest of the heresies. Wherefore, if this be determined on, more bishops ought to meet together in one place and publish the canon in these terms, that action may be taken without peril, and authority given to answers to questions of this kind.
XLVIII. The woman who has been abandoned by her husband, ought, in my judgment, to remain as she is. The Lord said, "If any one leave [2720] his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, he causeth her to commit adultery;" [2721] thus, by calling her adulteress, He excludes her from intercourse with another man. For how can the man being guilty, as having caused adultery, and the woman, go without blame, when she is called adulteress by the Lord for having intercourse with another man?
XLIX. Suffering violation should not be a cause of condemnation. So the slave girl, if she has been forced by her own master, is free from blame.
L. There is no law as to trigamy: a third marriage is not contracted by law. We look upon such things as the defilements of the Church. But we do not subject them to public condemnation, as being better than unrestrained fornication. [2722]
[2692] Placed in 375.
[2693] The Ben. Ed. note: "Sæpe vituperantur apud sanctos Patres, qui sacra in privatis ædibus sive domesticis oratoriis celebrant. Hinc Irenæus, lib. iv. cap. 26, oportere ait eos, qui absistunt a principali successione et quocunque loco colligunt, suspectos habere, vel quasi hæreticos et malæ sententiæ, vel quasi scindentes et elatos et sibi placentes; aut rursus ut hypocritas quæstus gratia et vanæ gloriæ hoc operantes. Basilius, in Psalm xxvii. n. 3: Non igitur extra sanctam hanc aulam adorare oporet, sed intra ipsam, etc. Similia habet Eusebius in eundem psalmum, p. 313. Sic etiam Cyrillus Alexandrinus in libro adversus Anthropomorphitas, cap. 12, et in libro decimo De adorat., p. 356. Sed his in locis perspicuum est hæreticorum aut schismaticorum synagogas notari, vel quas vocat Basilius, can. 1. parasunagogas, sive illicitos conventus a presbyteris aut episcopis rebellibus habitos, aut a populis disciplinæ expertibus. At interdum graves causæ suberant, cur sacra in privatis ædibus impermissa non essent. Ipsa persecutio necessitatem hujus rei sæpe afferebat, cum catholici episcoporum hæreticorum communionem fugerent, ut Sebastiæ ecclesiarum aditu prohiberentur. Minime ergo mirum, si presbyteris Antiochenis eam sacerdotii perfunctionem Basilius reliquit, quæ et ad jurisjurandi religionem et ad temporum molestias accommodata videbatur. Synodus Laodicena vetat, can. 58, in domibus fieri oblationem ab episcopis vel presbyteris. Canon 31. Trullanus id clericis non interdicit, modo accedat episcopi consenus. Non inusitata fuisse ejusmodi sacra in domesticis oratoriis confirmat canon Basilii 27, ubi vetatur, ne presbyter illicitis nuptiis implicantus privatim aut publice sacerdotii munere fungatur. Eustathius Sebastenus Ancyræ cum Arianis in domibus communicavit, ut ex pluribus Basilii epistolis discimus, cum apertam ab eis communionem impetrare non posset."
[2694] Videtur infidelis ille vir unus aliquis fuisse ex potentioribus Arianis ejusque furor idcirco in presbyteros Antiochenos incitatus quod hi ecclesiam absente Meletio regerent, ac maximam civium partem in illius fide et communione retinerent.
[2695] hapalos, with four mss., al. haplos.
[2696] 1 Tim. v. 11, 12.
[2697] "Hoc Basilii decretum de professionis ætate citatur in canone quadragesimo synodi in Trullo" (a.d. 691) "et decem et septem anni quos Basilius requirit, ad decem rediguntur."
[2698] Rom. iii. 19.
[2699] "Male Angli in Pandectis et alit interpretes reddunt, quæ in catechumenica vita fiunt. Non enim dicit Basilius ea non puniri quæ in hoc statu peccantur, sed tantum peccata ante baptismum commissa baptismo expiari, nec jam esse judicio ecclesiastico obnoxia. Hinc observat Zonaras non pugnare hunc canonem cum canone quinto Neocæsariensi, in quo poenæ catechumenis peccantibus decernuntur."
[2700] Jer. iii. 1.
[2701] Prov. xviii. 22, LXX.
[2702] "Non solus Basilius hanc consuetudinem secutus. Auctor constitutionum apostolicarum sic loquitur lib. vi. cap. 14: Qui corruptam retinet, naturæ legem violat: quando quidem qui retinet adulteram, stultus est et impius. Abscinde enim eam, inquit, a carnibus tuis. Nam adjutrix non est, sed insidiatrix, quæ mentem ad alium declinarit. Canon 8, Neocæsariensis laicis, quorum uxores adulterii convictæ, aditum ad ministerium ecclesiasticum claudit; clericis depositionis poenam irrogat, si adulteram nolint dimittere. Canon 65 Eliberitanus sic habet: Si cujus clerici uxor fuerit mæchata, et scierit eam maritus suus mæchari, et non eam statim projecerit, nec in fine accipiat communionem. Hermas lib. i, c. 2, adulteram ejici jubet, sed tamen poenitentem recipi. S. Augustinus adulterium legitimam esse dimittendi causam pronuntiat, sed non necessariam, lib. ii. De Adulter. nuptiis, cap. 5, n. 13."
[2703] Probably Letter clx. to Diodorus is referred to.
[2704] Diakonoumenen. So the Ben. Ed. Another possible rendering is "received into the order of deaconesses."
[2705] 1 Tim. v. 11, 12.
[2706] "'Athesmo gamo." Illicitas nuptias.
[2707] 1 Tim. iv. 4.
[2708] Matt. xiv. 10.
[2709] Matt. v. 34.
[2710] Ps. cxix. 106.
[2711] The Ben. Ed. point out that in Canon xxii. four years is the allotted period, as in the case of fornicators.
[2712] St. Basil on Isaiah iv. calls sins wilfully committed after full knowledge "sins unto death." But in the same commentary he applies the same designation to sins which lead to hell. The sense to be applied to the phrase in Canon xxxii. is to be learnt, according to the Ben. note, from Canons lxix. and lxx., where a less punishment is assigned to mere wilful sins unto death than in Canon xxxii.
[2713] Nahum i. 9, LXX.
[2714] Or, according to another reading, in every way.
[2715] 1 Cor. vii. 39.
[2716] This is Can. xciii. of the Council in Trullo.
[2717] Generally reckoned rather as Manichæans than as here by Basil as Marcionites, but dualism was common to both systems.
[2718] A Manichæan sect, who led a solitary life. Death is threatened against them in a law of Theodosius dated a.d. 322 (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 9), identified by the Ben. Ed. with the Hydroparastatæ.
[2719] A Manichæan sect. cf. Epiphanius ii. 18. In the work of Macarius Magnes, published in Paris 1876, they are identified with the Encratites.
[2720] katalipe for apoluse.
[2721] Matt. v. 22.
[2722] cf. however Canon iv., where trigamy is called polygamy or at best a limited fornication, and those guilty of it subjected to exclusion from the Eucharist.