Apostolic Constitutions

The apostles and the presbyters to all who from among the Gentiles have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace from the almighty God through our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied in the knowledge of him. The catholic church is God’s planting and his chosen vineyard: those who have believed in his unerring religion, who by faith reap the fruit of his eternal kingdom, who have received his power and a share in the Holy Spirit, who are armed through Jesus and have taken his fear into their hearts, who share in the sprinkling of the precious and innocent blood of Christ, who have received boldness to call the almighty God Father, fellow heirs and sharers with his beloved Child. Hear holy teaching, you who hold fast to his promise, given at the command of the Saviour and in agreement with his glorious words.

Take care, sons of God, to do everything in obedience to God, and be well-pleasing in all things to the Lord our God. For if anyone pursues lawlessness and does what is contrary to the will of God, such a one will be reckoned by God as a lawless nation.

Abstain therefore from all greed and injustice. For it is written in the Law: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his beast of burden, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.” For every desire for these things comes from the evil one.

For one who has coveted his neighbour’s wife or manservant or maidservant is already, in his mind, an adulterer and a thief, unless he repents; and he has been judged by our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

For he says in the Gospel, summing up, confirming and fulfilling the ten commandments of the Law: “It is written in the Law, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you” — that is, in the Law given through Moses it was I who spoke, but now I myself say to you — “everyone who looks at his neighbour’s wife so as to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” So the one who has desired is judged an adulterer in intention.

And does not the one who has desired the ox or the ass intend to steal them and make them his own, or to drive them off? Or again, does not the one who has desired the field, and persists in that disposition, plot wickedly, so that by moving the boundary marks he may force the owner to sell it to him for nothing? For the prophet says somewhere: “Woe to those who join house to house and bring field near to field, so as to take away something of their neighbour’s. Will you dwell alone on the earth? For these things have been heard in the ears of the Lord of hosts.” And elsewhere: “Cursed is he who moves his neighbour’s boundaries, and all the people shall say, So be it, so be it.” Therefore Moses says: “You shall not move your neighbour’s boundaries, which your fathers set.”

For these reasons, then, terrors, deaths, tribunals and condemnations from God follow such people.

But for those who obey God there is one law of God, simple, true and living, which is this: “What you hate to have done to you by another, you shall not do to another.”

You do not want anyone to look at your wife with evil intent to corrupt her; so neither shall you gaze maliciously at your neighbour’s wife.

You do not want your garment taken away; so neither shall you take another’s.

You do not wish to be struck, reviled, or insulted; so neither shall you do these things to another.

But does someone curse you? Bless him, for it is written in the book of Numbers: “He who blesses you is blessed, and he who curses you is cursed.” Likewise it is written also in the Gospel: “Bless those who curse you.”

When wronged, do not wrong in return, but endure, for the Scripture says: “Do not say, I will take vengeance on my enemy for the wrong he did me; but endure, so that the Lord may help you and bring vengeance on the one who wrongs you.”

For again in the Gospel he says: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, and you will be sons of your Father who is in heaven, because he makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”

Let us therefore pay heed to these commandments, beloved, so that we may be found children of light by doing them.

Bear with one another, therefore, you servants and sons of God:

the husband his wife, not proud or boastful, but tender-hearted and generous, wishing to please his own wife alone and to cherish her with honour, eager to be agreeable to her; not adorning yourself so as to ensnare some other woman into desire for you.

For if, compelled by her, you sin with her, eternal death from God will come upon you, and you will be bitterly punished in full awareness.

Or if you do not commit the abomination, but shake her off and refuse it, even so you have sinned, though not equally, if only in this, that by your adornment you ensnared a woman into desiring you; for you made the woman who suffered this commit adultery over you through her craving.

Yet you are not so much to blame, since you did not send messages to the woman ensnared by you; for it was not you who desired her. And since you did not give yourself up to her, you will find mercy from the Lord God, who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” and “You shall not covet.”

For if she, having seen you or met you at an unsuitable time, was struck in mind and sent to you, and you as a God-fearing man refused her and kept away and did not sin with her, yet she was wounded in her heart because you are a handsome young man and adorned, so that she fell in love with you, you are found guilty of her transgression, as having become a cause of stumbling to her, and an heir of the “woe.”

Therefore pray to the Lord God that no evil may become fixed upon you through this. For you must not please people unto sin, but God unto holiness, and hold fast to the life and rest that are eternal.

Do not add further adornment to the beauty given you by God through nature, but in humility of mind moderate it before people. So do not let the hair of your head grow long, but rather cut it short and trim it, lest, by combing it and keeping your head unruffled or anointing it with perfume, you draw upon yourself women who are caught or who go out to catch in this way.

Nor shall you use studied dress to deceive; nor craftily stitch trousers or shoes for your feet, but only what is decent and needed; nor put a gold ring on your fingers, for all these are marks of harlotry, and if you cultivate them beyond what is fitting you will not act justly. [10] For since you are a believer and a man of God, it is not permitted to you to let the hair of your head grow, and to make a sisoē, that is, a love-lock, or to keep a fringe or a parting; nor to make it bushy, combing it out and arranging it in curls, or to dye it fair, since the Law too forbids it, saying in Deuteronomy: “You shall not make yourselves a sisoē nor trousers.” [11] Nor must you spoil the hair of the beard and change the form of man against nature: “You shall not shave,” says the Law, “your beards.” For God who made us made this becoming for women, but judged it unbecoming for men. If you do these things to please, opposing the Law, you will be abominable before God, who created you after his own image. [12] If, then, you wish to please God, abstain from all that he hates, and do nothing that displeases him.

You shall not be like one who flits and wanders about the streets, prying at the wrong time into those who live badly; but attending to your trade and your work, seek to do what is pleasing to God, and meditate continually, keeping in mind the oracles of Christ.

For the Scripture says to you: “You shall meditate on his Law day and night, walking in the field and sitting in the house, lying down and rising up, so that you may understand in all things.”

But even if you are rich and have no need of a trade to support yourself, do not be a vagrant or one who walks about at the wrong time; but if you go to the faithful who share your faith, converse with them and share with them the life-giving words;

otherwise, sitting at home, read the Law, the Books of Kings, the Prophets; sing the Hymns; go through the Gospel diligently, which is the completion of these.

Abstain from all the books of the Gentiles.

For what have you to do with foreign words or laws or false prophets, which indeed turn the unstable away from the faith?

For what do you lack in the law of God, that you should rush to those Gentile fables?

For if you wish to go through histories, you have the Books of Kings; if works of wisdom and poetry, you have the Prophets, Job, and the author of Proverbs, in which you will find greater insight than in all poetry and sophistry, because they are the utterances of the Lord, who alone is wise.

If you desire songs, you have the Psalms; if the origins of things, you have Genesis; if laws and precepts, the glorious Law of the Lord.

Abstain strongly, then, from all foreign and diabolical writings.

Moreover, when you read the Law, abstain from the things that were added to it — if not all, at least some of those of the second legislation; read them only for history, so that you may know and glorify God, that he delivered you from such and so great bonds.

Keep before your eyes the knowledge of what the natural law is, and what the things of the second legislation are, the additions given in the wilderness to those who made the calf.

For the law is what the Lord God spoke before the people fell into idolatry, that is, the Decalogue; but what was imposed on them after they had sinned — those bonds do not draw upon yourself. [10] For our Saviour came for no other reason than “to fulfil the Law and the Prophets,” and either to end or to change the bonds of the additions of the second legislation. For this reason he called us, saying: “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” [11] You, then, having read the Law, which agrees with the Gospel and the Prophets, read also the Books of Kings, so that you may know how many kings were righteous and were prospered by God, and the promise of eternal life remained with them before him; but how many kings went whoring away from God perished swiftly in their apostasy by the just judgment of God and were deprived of his life, inheriting eternal punishment instead of rest. [12] Reading these things, then, you will grow much in faith and be built up into Christ, whose body and member you are. [13] When you walk in the marketplace and wish to bathe, use a bath for men, lest by showing your body in unseemly exposure to women, or by seeing a sight not fit for men, you either be ensnared or ensnare others through yourself. [14] Guard against such things, then, lest you bring snares upon your own soul.

For let us learn what the holy word says in Wisdom:

“My son, keep my words, and hide my commandments with you.”

“Say that Wisdom is your sister, and make understanding your friend, so that she may keep you from the strange and evil woman, if she assails you with words meant to please.”

“For, peering from the window of her house into the streets, whomever she sees among the foolish children, a young man lacking sense, passing through the marketplace by the corners of her house and talking in the dark of evening, when the stillness of night has come and the gloom —”

“the woman meets him, with the look of a harlot, which makes the hearts of young men take flight; she is flighty and dissolute, and her feet do not stay quiet at home; for a time she roams outside, and for a time she lies in wait in the streets at every corner.”

“Then she seized him and kissed him, and with a shameless face she said to him: I have a peace offering today; I am paying my vows. For this reason I came out to meet you; longing for your face, I have found you. I have spread my bed with coverlets and covered it with tapestries from Egypt; I have sprinkled my couch with saffron and my house with cinnamon. Come, let us enjoy love until the dawn; come, let us roll in passion,” and so on, after which it adds:

“She led him astray with much talk, and with the snares of her lips she drove him aground; and he followed her like a silly bird.”

And again it says: “Do not pay heed to a worthless woman; for honey drips from the lips of a harlot, which for a time anoints your throat, but afterward you will find it more bitter than gall and sharper than a two-edged sword.”

And again: “But spring away, do not linger, and do not fix your eye upon her; for she has wounded and cast down many, and countless are those whom she has slain.”

Otherwise, it says, “you will repent at the last, when the flesh of your body is worn away, and you will say: How I hated instruction, and my heart turned aside from the reproofs of the righteous! I did not listen to the voice of the one who instructed and taught me, nor did I incline my ear; I was all but in every evil.”

So as not to prolong the testimonies further — and if we have passed any over — you who are wise, choosing the good things for yourselves from the holy Scriptures, be made firm, refusing all that is base, so that you may be found holy in eternal life with God.

But let the wife be subject to her own husband, because the husband is the head of the wife; and of the husband who walks in the way of righteousness Christ is the head; and the head of Christ is the God who is over all, and his Father.

After our almighty God and Father, Lord of the present and of the coming age, maker of every breath and power, and his beloved Son our Lord Jesus the Christ, through whom be glory to God, fear your husband, O wife, and reverence him, pleasing him alone and being agreeable to him in your services to him, so that your husband too may be called blessed on your account, through Wisdom, who says these things through Solomon:

“Who will find a courageous wife? Such a one is more precious than costly stones. The heart of her husband trusts in her; such a woman will not lack spoils, for she does her husband good all her life. [4] Having spun wool and flax, she made useful things with her hands; she became like a merchant ship, gathering her living from afar.

“And she rises by night and gave food to the household and tasks to the maidservants; having looked at a field, she bought it, and from the fruit of her hands she planted a property.”

“Girding her loins, she strengthened her arms, and she tasted that working is good, and her lamp does not go out all night; she stretches out her forearms to useful things, she sets her hands to the spindle.”

“She opened her hands to the needy and stretched out fruit to the poor.”

“Her husband has no worry about those at home, for all who are with her are clothed in double garments; and she made cloaks for her husband, garments of fine linen and purple.”

“Her husband becomes admired in the gates, when he sits in council with the elders of the inhabitants. [10] She made fine linen cloths and sold them to the Phoenicians, and girdles to the Canaanites; she put on strength and dignity, and rejoiced in the last days. [11] She opened her mouth wisely and fittingly, and set her tongue in order; close-kept are the ways of her house, and she has not eaten the bread of idleness. She will open her mouth wisely and lawfully, and ordinances of mercy are on her tongue. [12] Her children rose up and, having grown rich, praised her, and her husband praised her: Many daughters have acquired wealth, many have done mightily; but you surpass and excel them all. [13] Let false charms and a woman’s vain beauty not be in you; for a pious woman is blessed; let her praise the fear of the Lord. [14] Give her of the fruits of her lips, and let her husband be praised in the gates.” [15] And again: “A courageous wife is a crown to her husband.” And again: “Many women have built a house.” [16] You have learned what praises a chaste woman who loves her husband receives from the Lord God. [17] If you wish to be faithful and pleasing to the Lord, O wife, do not adorn yourself so as to please other men, nor imitate a harlot by wearing her braids or garments or shoes, so as to draw on those who are snared by such things. [18] For even if you do not commit these abominations in order to sin, but only to adorn yourself, not even so will you escape punishment afterward, since you have forced someone to be drawn to desire you and did not guard yourself so that neither you would fall into sin nor others into stumbling. And if you give yourself up and sin, you too have done wrong and have become guilty of that man’s soul. [19] Then, having sinned with one, as if despairing once for all, you will turn aside again to another, having grown callous, as the divine word says: “When the ungodly comes into the depth of evils, he despises; but dishonour and reproach come upon him.” For such a woman, wounded now without restraint, ensnares the souls of the foolish. [20] Let us learn, then, how the divine word holds such women up to shame, saying: “I have hated more than death the woman who is a snare and a net for the heart, and her hands are fetters.” [21] And elsewhere: “As a gold ring in a pig’s snout, so is beauty to an ill-minded woman.” And again: “As a worm in wood, so an evil-doing woman destroys a man.” [22] And again: “It is better to live in a corner of the open air than with a talkative and quarrelsome woman.” [23] Do not, then, imitate such women, you who are Christian women. But if you wish to be faithful to your husband, take care to please him alone, and in the streets cover your head; for by the veil you will shut off the sight of you from the overly curious. [24] Do not paint your face, which was made by God; for nothing in you needs adorning, since “all things that God made” are “very good”; but wanton embellishment of what is good insults the grace of the Craftsman. Walk with your eyes looking down, veiling yourself, as befits women.

Avoid also the disorderly bathing with men that takes place in the bath; for many are the nets of the evil one. Let a believing woman not bathe in a bath for both sexes. For if she veils her face, hiding with modesty the sight of herself from strange men, how will such a woman go naked into the bath with men? [2] But if there is a bath for women, let her bathe in an orderly way, with modesty and moderation. [3] And let her not bathe to excess, nor long, nor often, nor in the middle of the day, but if possible not even every day. [4] Let your fixed hour for seasonable bathing be the tenth;

for you, being a believer, must in every way and always flee curiosity with its many eyes.

Cut away your quarrelsomeness toward everyone, and above all toward your husband, since you are a believer, so that your husband, whether he is a believer or a heathen, may not stumble on your account and blaspheme God, and you be found before God an heir of the woe. For “woe,” it says, “to him through whom my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.”

But if your husband is a believer, he will be compelled, as one who knows the Scriptures, to say the word written in Wisdom: “It is better to live in a desert than with a talkative and quarrelsome woman.”

You wives, then, show your piety by your modesty and gentleness, for the conversion and encouragement to faith of all those outside, whether women or men.

And if we have admonished and instructed you in few words, sisters and daughters and our members, as women who are wise and yourselves blameless in your life, seek to know the teachings through which you will be able to draw near, in a manner pleasing to him, to the kingdom of our Lord and to find rest.

Concerning bishops we have heard thus from our Lord. The shepherd who is appointed bishop for the churches in every district must be blameless, irreproachable, untouched by any wickedness of men, not less than fifty years old; for such a one has in some measure escaped the disorders of youth and the slanders of outsiders, and stands proof against the blasphemies that certain false brothers bring against many, not knowing the word of God in the Gospel: “Whoever speaks an idle word will give account of it to the Lord in the day of judgment,” and again: “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Let him then be educated, if possible; but if he is unlettered, let him at least be skilled in the word, and of suitable age.

But if in a small district no one advanced in years is found who is well attested and wise enough to be appointed to the episcopate, but there is a young man there, attested by those who live with him as worthy of the episcopate, who in his youth shows the maturity of age by gentleness and good order, let him be examined, and if he is so attested by all, let him be appointed in peace.

For Solomon reigned over Israel at twelve years old, and Josiah reigned in righteousness at eight, and likewise Joash ruled the people at seven.

So even if he is young, let him be gentle, timid and quiet, for the Lord God says through Isaiah: “On whom shall I look, but on the gentle and quiet who trembles at my words always?” Likewise in the Gospel too: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Let him also be merciful, for again it is said: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Let him also be a peacemaker, for again it says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” [8] And let him be of good conscience, cleansed of all malice and wickedness and injustice, for again it is said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Let him then be sober, chaste, orderly, steadfast, untroubled; not given to wine, not a striker, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money; not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil; for “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.”

Such must the bishop be: one who has been “the husband of one wife,” a wife who has herself been married only once, “who rules his own house well.”

For let him be examined thus when he receives ordination and is appointed to the seat of the episcopate: whether he is grave, faithful and orderly; whether he has or has had a wife who is grave and faithful; whether he has brought up his children piously, trained them in the admonition of the Lord and brought them forward; whether those of his household reverence and respect him and all obey him.

For if his own kin according to the flesh rebel against him and disobey, how will those outside his house become his own and be subject to him?

Let him be examined, then, whether he is blameless in the affairs of life; for it is written: “Inspect for blemish the one who is to be advanced to the priesthood.”

Let him then be free from anger, for Wisdom says: “Anger destroys even the prudent.”

Let him be compassionate, courteous, loving, for the Lord says: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Let him be generous, a lover of widows, a lover of strangers, ready to serve, a good minister, willing to take trouble, not ashamed, knowing who is more worthy of support.

For if there is a widow who is able to supply herself with the necessities of life, while another, not a widow, is in need through illness or the rearing of children or weakness of hands, let him rather stretch out his hand to her.

But if someone is in distress in his livelihood because he is a glutton or a drunkard or idle, he is not worthy of help, nor indeed of the church of God.

For the Scripture says of them: “The sluggard who has hidden his hand in his bosom will not be able to bring it to his mouth.”

And again: “The idle man folded his hands and ate his own flesh. For every drunkard and fornicator will become poor, and every drowsy man will be clothed in tatters and rags.”

And elsewhere: “But if you set your eyes on the bowls and the cups, afterward you will walk about more naked than a pestle.”

For truly idleness is the mother of famine.

Let the bishop show no partiality, neither deferring to the rich nor flattering them beyond what is fitting, nor overlooking or oppressing the poor.

“You shall not accept,” God says to Moses, “the person of the rich, nor pity the poor in judgment, for the judgment is the Lord’s”; and again: “You shall pursue what is just justly.”

Let the bishop be frugal and content in food and drink, so that he may be sober to admonish the uninstructed; let him not be extravagant, not luxurious, not pleasure-loving, not fond of dainties.

Let him be patient under wrong, long-suffering in his admonitions, a diligent teacher, meditating and studying in the books of the Lord, much given to reading, so that he may interpret the Scriptures carefully, interpreting the Gospel in harmony with the Prophets and the Law; and likewise let the interpretations drawn from the Law and the Prophets agree with the Gospel.

For the Lord Jesus says: “Search the Scriptures, for they are what testify about me”; and again: “For Moses wrote about me.”

Above all let him be a good discerner, distinguishing the law from the second legislation, and showing what is the law of believers and what are the bonds of unbelievers, so that no one may fall under the bonds.

Take care, then, of the word, O bishop, so that, if you can, you may interpret everything word by word, and with much teaching feed your people richly and give them to drink the light of the law. For “Enlighten yourselves,” says God, “with the light of knowledge, while there is still time.”

Let the bishop be “not greedy for gain,” especially among the Gentiles, rather suffering wrong than doing it; not grasping, not rapacious, not a defrauder, not a lover of the rich, not a hater of the poor, not a slanderer, not a false witness, not hot-tempered, not quarrelsome, not entangled in the business of life, not standing surety for anyone or acting as advocate in suits over money, not ambitious for power, not double-minded, not double-tongued, not eager to listen to slander or evil-speaking, not a hypocrite, not hankering after the festivals of the Gentiles, not given to empty deceits, not covetous, not a lover of money; for all such things are hostile to God and dear to demons.

All these things let the bishop also firmly enjoin on the laity, leading them to become imitators of his own manner of life; for “Make the sons of Israel reverent,” it says.

Let him be wise, humble, apt to admonish with the Lord’s instructions, of sound judgment, having renounced all wicked practices of life and all Gentile desires.

Let him be readily obedient, quick to recognize the wicked and to guard himself against them, yet a friend of all, just in judgment; and whatever things are good among men, let the bishop possess them in himself. [5] For if the shepherd is free from all reproach of wrongdoing, he will constrain his own disciples, and urge them by his conduct, to become worthy imitators of his own works, as the prophet too says somewhere: “And it shall be: as the priest, so also the people.”

For our Lord and Teacher Jesus Christ, the Son of God, began first to do and then to teach, as it says somewhere: “which Jesus began both to do and to teach.” Therefore he says: “Whoever does and teaches, he shall be called great in the kingdom of God.”

For you bishops must be watchmen over the people, because you too have Christ as your watchman. So you too be good watchmen for the people of God, for the Lord says through Ezekiel, addressing each of you:

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, and you shall hear a word from my mouth and keep it and declare it from me.

When I say to the lawless man, You shall surely die, and you have not spoken to warn the lawless man away from his lawlessness, that lawless man shall die in his lawlessness, and his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the lawless man to turn from his way, and he does not turn, he shall die in his lawlessness, and you have delivered your soul.” [10] Likewise also: “If the sword of war is coming, and the people set a watchman as a lookout, and he sees it coming and does not give warning, and it takes a life, that soul was taken in its sin, but the blood will be required at the hand of the watchman,” because he did not sound the trumpet. “But if he sounds the horn, and the one who hears does not take heed, and the sword comes and takes him, his blood shall be upon him, because he did not take heed when he heard the horn; but the one who took heed has delivered his soul,” and the watchman, because he gave warning, shall surely live. [11] The sword is the judgment, the trumpet is the holy Gospel, and the watchman is the bishop appointed for the church, who must preach and testify and affirm concerning the judgment. [12] For if you do not declare and testify to the people, the sin of those who are ignorant will be found upon you. Therefore admonish and rebuke with boldness those who live without instruction, teach the ignorant, strengthen those who have knowledge, bring back those who have gone astray. [13] In saying the same things about the same matters, brothers, we shall not sin; for from hearing often it is likely that some, put to shame, will do at least once something good and reject what is evil. [14] For God says through the prophet: “Testify these things to them; perhaps they will hear your voice”; and again: “If perhaps they will hear, if perhaps they will yield.” [15] And Moses says to the people: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.” [16] And the Lord in the Gospel often reminds us, saying: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”; and the wise Solomon says: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s ordinances.” [17] And to this day they have not heard; and even those who seem to have heard have heard amiss, abandoning “the one and only true God” and being dragged into destructive and terrible heresies, of which we shall speak again.

Let it be known to you, beloved, that those who have been “baptized into the death of the Lord Jesus” ought no longer to sin; for as the dead are incapable of acting toward sin, so those who have died with Christ are inactive toward sin.

We do not believe, then, brothers, that anyone who has washed in the washing of life still commits the licentious deeds of the lawless. But whoever has sinned after baptism, unless he repents and ceases to transgress, will be condemned to Gehenna.

But if anyone is slandered by unbelievers because he no longer joins them in licentiousness, let him know that such a one is blessed before God, as the Lord too says in the Gospel: “Blessed are you when they revile you or persecute you or speak every evil word against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

If, then, anyone is reviled on a false charge, such a one is blessed; for the Scripture says: “A man untested is unapproved before God.”

But if anyone is convicted of having done something lawless, such a one has not only harmed himself but has also brought blasphemy on the common body of the church and on its teaching, as though we did not do the things that we say are good; and we too shall be reproached by the Lord, that “they say and do not do.”

Therefore the bishop will with boldness reject those who are truly convicted, unless they change their ways.

For the bishop must not only be without offence, but also impartial, correcting sinners with kindness.

But if he himself, not having a good conscience, shows partiality and, for the sake of some shameful taking of gifts, spares one who sins lawlessly, allowing him to remain in the church, disregarding the divine voice of the Lord, which says: “You shall pursue what is just justly; you shall not accept a person in judgment; you shall not justify the ungodly; you shall not take gifts against a life, for gifts blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the just”;

and elsewhere it says, “Remove the wicked one from among yourselves”; and Solomon says in Proverbs: “Cast a pestilent man out of the council, and strife will go out with him” —

he who pays no heed to these things, and without discernment spares one who deserves punishment, as Saul spared Agag and Eli his sons who did not know the Lord, such a one has profaned both his own dignity and the church of God in his district. He is therefore unjust both to God and to holy men, since he has become a cause of stumbling to many of the newly baptized and the catechumens, and also to young men and young women. The “woe” awaits him, and “the donkey’s millstone on the neck, and the deep,” to which he is liable.

For because of the lawlessness of his lack of discernment, seeing such a man as their ruler, they will waver within themselves, and, sharing the same disease, will be forced to perish with him, as the people did with Jeroboam, and those who joined with Korah.

But if the sinner sees the bishop and the deacons free of blame and the flock pure, first he will not dare in contempt to enter the church of God, being smitten by his conscience; and if, thinking nothing of it, he does enter, either he will be exposed at once, like Uzzah when he touched the ark to steady it, and like Achar over the theft of the devoted thing, and like Gehazi over Naaman’s money, and will be punished immediately; or, admonished by the shepherd, he will be led to repentance.

For having looked round at each one and found no blemish in any, neither in the bishop nor in the people placed under him, he will be ashamed, and with shame and many tears he will go out quietly, pierced to the heart; the flock will remain cleansed; and he will weep before God and repent of his sins and will have hope. And the whole flock, seeing his tears, will receive admonition, that the sinner does not perish because of repentance.

For this reason, then, O bishop, be eager to be pure in your works, knowing your place and your dignity, as one who holds the figure of God among men, ruling over all men: priests, kings, rulers, fathers, sons, teachers, and all your subjects together.

And so sit in the church when you speak, as one who has authority to judge those who have sinned, for to you bishops it has been said: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Judge, then, O bishop, with authority, as God; but receive the penitent, for God is a God of mercy. Rebuke those who sin, admonish those who do not turn, exhort those who stand to persevere in what is good, receive the penitent; for the Lord God promised with an oath to grant forgiveness to those who repent of their sins.

For he says through Ezekiel: “Say to them: As I live, says the Lord Adonai, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that the ungodly turn from his evil way and live. Turn, then, from your evil ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Here he has given good hope to those who have sinned, that if they repent they will have hope of salvation, lest, having grown callous, they give themselves up to transgressions; but having hope of salvation, they may turn and weep before God for their sins and repent from the heart, having appeased him, and they will receive from him the forgetting of their sins, as from a good father.

Those, however, who are without sin should remain such, and have no need of the experience of sins, so that they may not need the pain, grief and tears that forgiveness requires.

For how do you know, O man, when you have sinned, whether you will live days enough in this life to repent as well? For your departure from this life is uncertain, and for one who dies in sin there is no repentance, as he says through David: “In Hades who will confess to you?”

We must therefore be ready in good works, so that we may set out on that road without grief. Therefore the divine word also exhorts through Solomon the wise, saying to you: “Prepare your works for your departure,” so that nothing of the good may fail us, as the oil of piety failed the five virgins in the Gospel through their folly, and they were shut out of the bridal chamber.

Therefore everyone who spares his own life and remains without sin is free of danger, so that he may preserve for himself the righteous deeds he did before. [5] Judge, then, as one who judges for God; for “the judgment,” it says, “is the Lord’s.” First, then, condemn the guilty with authority; then, with mercy and compassion and receiving him, draw him to yourself, promising him salvation if he changes his ways and comes to repentance. When he repents, discipline him and receive him, remembering the Lord who said that “there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.”

But if you do not receive the penitent, you hand him over to those who lie in wait for him, forgetting David, who says: “Do not deliver to the beasts a soul that confesses to you.”

Therefore, urging to repentance, Jeremiah says: “Does not he who falls rise again, or he who turns away return? Why has my people turned away with a shameless turning, and been confirmed in their choice? Turn back, you rebellious sons, and I will heal your breaches.”

Receive, then, the penitent, without hesitating at all, and do not be hindered by those who say without mercy that one must not be defiled with such people nor even share a word with them. For these counsels are those of people who do not know God and his providence, of irrational, undiscerning and implacable beasts. For they do not know that what must be avoided is not fellowship in word with sinners, but fellowship in deed.

“For the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the lawlessness of the lawless shall be upon him.” And again: “If a land sins against me by committing wrong, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and destroy man and beast from it, even if these three men are in the midst of it, Noah and Job and Daniel, they shall save their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord Adonai.” [5] The Scripture has shown most clearly that a righteous man living with an unrighteous one does not perish with him. For in this world righteous and unrighteous herd together in a fellowship of life, though not of holiness, and in this those who love God do not sin; for they are imitators of their Father in heaven, “who makes his sun rise on the righteous and the unrighteous, and sends his rain on the wicked and the good.”

And the righteous man will be in no danger from this; for in the stadium there are both victors and vanquished, but at the crowning only those who have contended nobly; “and no one is crowned unless he competes lawfully.”

For each will make confession for himself, and God “will not destroy the righteous with the unrighteous,” since with him sinlessness goes unpunished. For he neither drowned Noah, nor burned up Lot, nor destroyed Rahab with the rest.

And if you wish to know also what happened in our own time: Judas, who was with us, received the lot of the ministry, as we did too, and Simon the magician received the seal in the Lord; but each of them was shown to be wicked: the one hanged himself, and the other, flying against nature, was dashed to pieces. And in the ark there were Noah and his sons, but Ham, found wicked, alone of the sons received punishment.

And if “fathers are not punished for their children, nor sons for their fathers,” it is clear that neither wives are punished for husbands, nor servants for masters, nor kin for kin, nor friends for friends, nor the righteous for the unrighteous; but each will be required to give account for his own work. For neither did Noah pay the penalty for the world, nor was Lot burned for Sodom, nor Rahab slain for the people of Jericho, nor Israel for the Egyptians. For it is not living together that condemns the righteous with the unrighteous, but agreement of mind.

We must not, then, heed those who are quick to condemn to death, who hate mankind, who love accusations, and who on a pretext deal death. For one will not die for another, but “each is bound by the cords of his own sins,” and: “Behold the man and his work before his face.” [11] But we must help those who are sick and in danger and stumbling, and as far as we can heal them by the exhortation of the word and rescue them from death; for “those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill,” since “it is not the will before the Father that one of the little ones should perish.” For we must establish not the will of hard-hearted men, but that of God the Father of all, made known through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Nor is it right for you, O bishop, who are the head, to heed the tail, that is, a seditious layman, to the destruction of another, but God alone. For you must rule your subjects, not be ruled by them; for neither does a son rule his father, according to the order of birth, nor a slave his master, according to the order of authority, nor a disciple his teacher, nor a soldier his king, nor indeed a layman his bishop.

For on the notion that those who draw near to the unrighteous with the teaching of the word are defiled with them or share in their sins, Ezekiel, cutting off the suspicion of the malicious, says:

“Why do you speak this parable among yourselves in the land of Israel: The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth were set on edge? As I live, says the Lord Adonai, this parable shall no longer be spoken among you in Israel. For all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. [15] The soul that sins, it shall die. But the man who is righteous, doing judgment and righteousness —” and, going on to list the remaining virtues, he seals it, saying: [16] “Such a one is righteous; he shall surely live, says the Lord Adonai. And if he begets a son who is a pestilent man, shedding blood, he did not walk in the way of his righteous father.” [17] And after adding what follows, he brings in at the end: “He shall not live; he has done all these lawless things, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him. [18] And you will say: Why did the son not bear the father’s injustice, or his righteousness, having done righteousness and mercy?” And you shall say to them: “The soul that sins, it shall die; the son shall not bear the injustice of the father, nor shall the father bear the injustice of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the lawlessness of the lawless shall be upon him.” [19] And a little later he says: “When the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, according to all his lawless deeds, all his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered; in the injustice that he has committed and in the sin that he has sinned, in it he shall die.” [20] And a little later he adds: “When the lawless turns away from the lawlessness that he has done, and does judgment and righteousness, he has guarded his soul and turned away from all the ungodly deeds that he has done; he shall surely live and shall not die.” [21] And next: “I will judge each of you according to your ways, O house of Israel, says the Lord Adonai.”

You see, our beloved children, how compassionate, together with righteousness, the Lord our God is, good and loving toward mankind; and “while acquitting he will not acquit the guilty,” yet he receives the one who turns and gives him life, leaving no ground for suspicion to those who wish to judge pitilessly and to turn away completely from sinners and not to share with them words of exhortation able to lead them back to repentance. To them, on the contrary, God says through Isaiah, addressing the bishops: “Comfort, comfort my people, O priests; speak to the heart of Jerusalem.”

You, then, hearing him, must comfort those who have sinned, urge them to repentance and give them good hope, and not suspect that you become sharers in their transgressions because of your love for them.

Receive the penitent gladly, rejoicing over them, and judge sinners with mercy and compassion. For if, when someone is walking by a river and about to slip, you push him into the river with a pole instead of stretching out your hand to him, you have murdered your brother; whereas you ought rather to give your right hand to the one who is slipping, so that he may not perish completely, and so that the people too may be admonished and the sinner may not perish altogether.

You must, O bishop, neither overlook the sins of the people nor turn away the penitent, lest as an unskilled shepherd you destroy the Lord’s flock and dishonour his new name laid upon his people, and you be reproached like the shepherds of old, of whom God said to Jeremiah: “Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have polluted my inheritance”; and elsewhere: “My anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I will be angry with the lambs”; and in other places: “You priests who dishonour my name.”

When you see the one who has sinned, show yourself severe and order him to be put out; and when he has gone out, let the deacons too be severe with him, and, seeking him out, keep him outside the church; then let them come in and plead with you for him. For the Saviour too besought the Father for sinners, as it is written in the Gospel: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

Then you shall order him to come in, and having examined whether he repents and is worthy to be received into the church at all, afflict him with days of fasting according to his sin, two or three or five or seven weeks, and so dismiss him, telling him whatever is fitting for a sinner by way of admonition — rebuking, teaching and exhorting — that he may remain by himself in humility, praying God to find him favourable, and saying: “If you mark iniquities, Lord, Lord, who shall stand? For with you is propitiation.”

For something of this kind is also hinted at in what was said to Cain in Genesis: “You have sinned; be still,” that is, do not add to it. And that the sinner must be ashamed for his own transgression, the oracle spoken to Moses about Miriam is enough, when he asked that she be forgiven; for God says to him: “If her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that she shall come in.”

So you too ought to do: exclude for a fixed time, in proportion to the sin, those who say they repent of their sins, and then receive the penitent as fathers receive sons.

But if the bishop himself is a stumbling block, how can he still go on to search out anyone’s wrongdoings or rebuke anyone, when through partiality or the taking of gifts he himself or his deacons do not have a good conscience?

For when the ruler asks and the judge takes, and judgment is not carried through to the end, and they are “partners of thieves and pay no heed to the judgment of widows,” those under the bishop will not be able to fight alongside the bishop. For they will say to him what is written in the Gospel: “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam in your own eye?”

Let the bishop, then, with his deacons, beware of hearing any such word; that is, let him give no occasion. For when the sinner sees someone else doing the like, he will be built up to do the same things. Then the evil one, taking occasion from one, works in others — may it not happen! And so the flock will be perverted; for the more sinners there are, the greater too will be the wickedness accomplished through them. [4] For sin left unrebuked becomes worse than itself and spreads to others; since “a little leaven corrupts the whole lump,” and one thief brought the abomination upon the whole nation, and “dead flies spoil a preparation of sweet oil,” and “when a king listens to an unjust word, all the servants under him are lawless.” So too a scabby sheep passes its disease on to others if it is not separated from the healthy sheep, and a man with the plague must be guarded against by many, and a dog seized with madness is dangerous to anyone it touches. If, then, we do not separate a lawless man from the church of God, we shall make “the house of the Lord a den of robbers.”

For one must not keep silent about sinners, but rebuke, admonish, press down, and afflict them with fasts, so that he may instil reverence in others also; for “Make the sons of Israel reverent,” it says.

For the bishop must, by his admonition, become a hindrance to sins, a watchman of righteousness, a herald of the good things prepared by God, and a proclaimer of the wrath to come in the judgment, lest, having despised God’s planting, he hear through his negligence what is said in Hosea: “Why have you kept silent about ungodliness and gathered its fruit?”

Let the bishop, then, care for all, both for those who have not sinned, that they may remain sinless, and for those who sin, that they may repent; for the Lord says to you: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones.”

And you must grant forgiveness to the penitent; for as soon as one of those who have transgressed says with a sincere disposition, “I have sinned against the Lord,” the Holy Spirit answers, “And the Lord has put away your sin; take courage, you shall not die.”

Know, then, O bishop, your dignity: that as you have received the authority to bind, so also the authority to loose. Having, then, authority to loose, know yourself and conduct yourself in this life worthily of your place, knowing that you will be required to give a greater account. For “from him to whom they entrusted much,” it says, “they will demand more.”

For no one among men is without sin except him who became man for our sake, since it is written: “No one is pure from filth, not even if his life is one day.” [5] For this reason the lives and conduct of the righteous men and patriarchs before us were recorded, not that we might reproach them when we read, but that we might repent and have good hope of obtaining forgiveness. For their stains are our security and exhortation, that we too, if we sin and repent, shall have pardon; since it is written: “Who will boast of having a pure heart, or who will be bold to say he is pure from sin?”

No one, then, is without sin. So, as far as you can, strive to be irreproachable, and care for everyone, lest anyone stumble because of you and perish. For the layman cares for himself alone, but you for all, as one who has a heavier weight and carries a greater burden; for it is written: “And the Lord said to Moses: You and Aaron shall bear the sins of the priesthood.”

As one who must give account for many, then, take thought for all: preserve the healthy, admonish those who have sinned, and when you have afflicted them with fasting, relieve them with forgiveness; and when one has wept before God, receive him while the whole church prays for him, and having laid hands on him, let him from then on be in the flock. Rouse the drowsy and the slack, support them, exhort them, heal them, knowing how great a reward you have if you do these things, and likewise how great a danger if you neglect them.

For Ezekiel says to the bishops who neglect the people: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who fed themselves! The shepherds do not feed the sheep, but themselves. You eat the milk and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the strong, you do not feed the sheep. The weak you did not strengthen, the sick you did not heal, the broken you did not bind up, the one driven away you did not bring back, the lost you did not seek; and you ruled them with force and with mockery. And they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and became food for all the beasts of the forest.”

And again: “And the shepherds did not seek out my sheep, and the shepherds fed themselves, but my sheep they did not feed.”

And a little later: “Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand, and I will make them cease from feeding my sheep; and the shepherds shall no longer feed themselves, and I will rescue my sheep from their hand, and they shall no longer be food for them.” [11] And he adds, speaking to the people too: “Behold, I will judge between sheep and sheep, and ram and ram. Was it a small thing to you that you fed on the good pasture, and trampled the rest of the pasture with your feet, and the sheep ate what your feet had trampled?”

And a little later he adds: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, and you are the sheep of my pasture; you are my people, and I am your God, says the Lord Adonai.”

Hear, you bishops, and hear, you laity, how God says: “I will judge between ram and ram, and sheep and sheep”; and to the shepherds he says, You will be judged for your unskilfulness and for the ruin of the sheep; that is, I will judge bishop against bishop, layman against layman, and ruler against ruler.

For these sheep and rams are rational, not irrational, lest the layman should ever say, “I am a sheep and not a shepherd.”

For as with a good shepherd the sheep that does not follow is exposed to wolves for destruction, so with a wicked shepherd the sheep that follows has death plainly before it, because he will devour it. Therefore one must flee from corrupting shepherds.

Let the layman honour the good shepherd, love him, fear him as father, as lord, as master, as high priest of God, as teacher of piety. For he who hears him hears Christ, and he who rejects him rejects Christ, and he who does not receive Christ does not receive his God and Father. For “he who hears you,” it says, “hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

Likewise let the bishop love the laity as children, cherishing and warming them with the zeal of love, as eggs are warmed for the hatching of chicks, or as one holding chicks in his arms that they may be reared into birds; admonishing all, reproving all who need reproof, but not striking; pressing them down to shame, but not to overthrow; admonishing for conversion, rebuking for correction and straightness of path:

“keeping the strong,” that is, keeping secure the one firm in faith, and shepherding the people peaceably; “strengthening the weak,” that is, making firm by admonition the one who is tempted; “healing the sick,” that is, curing by teaching the one who is sick in faith through doubt;

“binding up the broken,” that is, bandaging with consoling admonition the one who has strayed, or been crushed or broken by sins so as to go lame on the road, relieving him of his transgressions and giving him good hope; so restore him strong in the church, bringing him back into the flock. “Bring back the one driven out,” that is, do not allow the one who has fallen into sins and been cast out as a penalty to remain outside, but receive him, bring him back, and restore him in the flock, that is, among the people of the blameless church.

“Seek the lost,” that is: the one who through the multitude of his transgressions has despaired of his own salvation, do not let him perish completely; the one who through great coldness and sluggishness has fallen asleep, and through heavy sleep has forgotten his own life and gone far from his own flock, so as to fall prey to wolves — you seek him out, and admonishing him bring him back; exhort him to be sober, and sow hope in him, not allowing him to say what some have said: “Our impieties are upon us, and we waste away in them; how then shall we live?”

If possible, then, let the bishop take the transgression upon himself and say to the sinner: Only turn back, and I will take upon myself death for you, as the Lord did for me and for all. For “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep; but the hireling, who is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming,” that is, the devil, “and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them.”

It is fitting to know, then, that God, being compassionate toward those who have sinned, promised repentance with an oath. But the one who has sinned, being ignorant of God’s promise about repentance and not understanding his long-suffering and forbearance, and moreover not knowing the holy Scriptures that proclaim it, since he has not learned them from you, perishes through his folly.

But you, as an affectionate shepherd and a diligent herdsman, search out and number your flock; seek out what is missing, as did the Lord God, our good Father, who sent his own Son as the good shepherd and saviour, our teacher Jesus, charging him “to leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that strayed, and when he found it, to lift it onto his own shoulders and carry it to the flock, rejoicing at finding the lost.”

So you too, O bishop, be obedient, “seeking the lost, guiding the straying, bringing back the one who has gone away”; for you have authority “to bring back and to send away the crushed in release.” Through you the Saviour says to the one paralysed by sins: “Your sins are forgiven; your faith has saved you; go in peace.” [10] And that peace, the calm haven, is the church of Christ, into which, loosing those who have sinned, restore them sound and blameless, hopeful, zealous, labouring at good works, as a skilled and sympathetic physician healing all who have been wounded by sins. For “those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill”; for “the Son of man came to seek and to save what had strayed.” [11] Being, then, the physician of the Lord’s church, apply the treatment that suits each of the sick; in every way cure them, heal them, restore them safe and sound to the church. Shepherd the flock not “with force and with mockery,” as one lording it over them, but as a kind shepherd, “gathering the lambs in his bosom and comforting those that are with young.”

Be kind, good, gentle, without guile, truthful; not harsh, not self-willed, not severe, not boastful, not merciless, not puffed up, not a man-pleaser, not cowardly, not double-minded; not mocking the people under you, not hiding from them God’s ordinances and the words about repentance; not quick to expel and cast out, but steady; not fond of rebuking, not rash; not accepting testimony against anyone without three witnesses, and those whose character has long been attested, and provided they are not moved by enmity or envy.

For there are many who rejoice in evil, ready-tongued, having “a threefold tongue,” haters of their brothers, who make it their business to scatter Christ’s sheep. If you are willing to accept their words without discernment, you will scatter your flock and hand it over to wolves for food, that is, to demons and wicked men — or rather not men, but beasts in human form: Gentiles, Judaizers and godless heretics.

For the destroyers at once draw near like wolves to one who has been cast out of the church, and regard him as a lamb for food, counting his ruin their own gain; for their father, the devil, is a murderer. And one who has been unjustly excluded through your lack of discernment, seized by despondency and losing heart, will either wander off to the Gentiles or be entangled in heresies, and will be wholly estranged from the church and from hope in God, entangled by ungodliness; and you will be guilty of his ruin.

For it is not just to be ready to cast out the one who has sinned but slow to receive the one who returns, quick to cut off but merciless in healing the one who suffers. For of such people the divine Scripture says: “Their feet run to evil, they are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.”

The way of peace is our Saviour Jesus the Christ, who also taught us, saying: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you,” that is, give forgiveness of sins, and your transgressions will be forgiven you; as he also taught us through the prayer to say to God: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.”

If, then, you do not forgive those who have sinned, how will you receive forgiveness of your own sins? Do you not, on the contrary, bind yourself, saying that you forgive while not forgiving? You will be contradicted by your own mouths, saying that you forgive while not forgiving.

For know that he who casts out one who has done no wrong, or does not receive one who returns, murders his brother and sheds his blood, as Cain did the blood of Abel his brother; and his blood, crying to God, will be required. For “the righteous man” unjustly murdered by someone “will be at rest” with God forever; and likewise the one excluded without cause by the bishop.

He who casts out the innocent as a pestilent man is crueller than a murderer; he does not look to the mercy of God, nor remember his goodness toward the penitent, nor take as examples those who after many transgressions received forgiveness through repentance.

Therefore he who throws out the innocent is more reckless than a murderer of the body. Likewise he who does not receive the penitent scatters what is Christ’s, setting himself against him. For as God is just in judging sinners, so he is merciful in receiving those who return; for the God-loving David sings to him of “mercy and judgment.”

You must, O bishop, also keep before your eyes what has happened before, and use it skilfully for the admonition of those who need severe or consoling words; and further, in judging it is right for you to follow the will of God, and to judge as God judges those who sin and those who return. [2] For did he not reproach David through Nathan when he slipped, and when he said he repented, at once redeem him from death, saying, “Take courage, you shall not die”? Did he not cause Jonah, who would not preach to the Ninevites, to be swallowed by the sea and the whale, and when he prayed in the belly, bring up his life from corruption? Did he not release Hezekiah from the charge, when he had been puffed up for a little while and prayed with tears? [3] Hear, then, O bishops, an example useful for such cases; for it is written in the fourth book of Kingdoms and in the second of Chronicles, thus: [4] “Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Hephzibah. [5] And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not keep from the abominations of the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel. And Manasseh turned and built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had pulled down, and set up pillars to Baal and raised an altar to Baal, and made groves, as Ahab king of Israel had done. And he made altars for all the host of heaven, and built an altar in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, In it I will put my name. [6] And Manasseh set up altars and served Baal on them, and said, My name shall be forever; and he built altars for the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he made his children pass through fire in Ge-Benennom, and practised divination and sorcery, and appointed mediums and enchanters and diviners and teraphim, and did much evil in the eyes of the Lord to provoke him to anger. [7] And he set the molten and graven image of the grove, the image which he had made, in the house of the Lord, where the Lord had chosen to set his name, in Jerusalem the holy city, forever; and he had said, I will no more cause my foot to be moved from the land of Israel which I gave to their fathers, provided that they keep all that I commanded them, according to every commandment that my servant Moses commanded. And they did not listen; and Manasseh led them astray to do evil in the sight of the Lord more than the nations whom the Lord removed from before the sons of Israel. [8] And the Lord spoke concerning Manasseh and concerning his people by the hand of his servants the prophets, saying: Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these wicked abominations, beyond all that the Amorite did who was before him, and has made Judah sin with his idols, thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I bring

evils upon Jerusalem and Judah, so that both ears of everyone who hears of them shall ring; and I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as a writing tablet is wiped clean, and turn it upside down; and I will give up the remnant of my inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies, and they shall become plunder and spoil to all their enemies, because of all the evil they have done in my eyes, and because they have been provoking me from the day I brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt until this day. [9] Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from end to end, besides the sins by which he made Judah sin, to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. [10] And the Lord brought against him the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, and they seized Manasseh in bonds and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon; and he was bound and wholly loaded with iron in the prison house, and bread of bran was given him, little and by weight, and water mixed with vinegar, little and by measure, just enough to keep him alive; and he was in distress and great pain. [11] And when he was severely afflicted, he sought the face of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the Lord, the God of his fathers, and prayed to the Lord God, saying: [12] “Lord Almighty, God of our fathers, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of their righteous seed; you who made heaven and earth with all their order; who bound the sea by the word of your command; who shut up the deep and sealed it with your terrible and glorious name; before whom all things shudder and tremble at the presence of your power; for the majesty of your glory cannot be borne, and the anger of your threat against sinners cannot be withstood, and immeasurable and unsearchable is the mercy of your promise; for you are the Lord, long-suffering, compassionate, very merciful, relenting at the evils of men. For you, O God, according to the kindness of your goodness, have promised forgiveness through repentance to those who have sinned, and in the multitude of your mercies you have appointed repentance for sinners unto salvation. [13] You, then, Lord, God of the righteous, did not appoint repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against you; but you have appointed repentance for me, a sinner, for I have sinned beyond the number of the sand of the sea. My transgressions are multiplied, Lord, my transgressions are multiplied, and I am no longer worthy to look up and see the height of heaven for the multitude of my iniquities, bowed down by many bonds of iron, because I provoked your anger and did evil before you, setting up abominations and multiplying offences. [14] And now I bend the knee of my heart, begging for your kindness. I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my transgressions; but I ask, begging you: Release me, Lord, release me, and do not destroy me with my transgressions; do not be angry forever and store up evils for me, nor condemn me to the lowest parts of the earth. For you are the God of those who repent, and in me you will show your goodness, for unworthy as I am you will save me according to your great mercy; and I will praise you continually all the days of my life; for all the host of the

heavens praises you, and yours is the glory forever. Amen.” [15] And the Lord heard his voice and had compassion on him; and a flame of fire came about him, and all the iron about him melted away; and the Lord healed Manasseh of his affliction and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. [16] And Manasseh knew that the Lord, he alone is God, and he served the Lord God alone with all his heart and with all his soul all the days of his life, and was reckoned righteous. [17] And he removed the foreign gods and the graven image from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city; and he restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it a sacrifice of peace offering and praise; and Manasseh told Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. [18] And he slept in peace with his fathers; and Amon his son reigned in his place, and did evil before the Lord according to all that Manasseh his father had done at first, and provoked the Lord his God.”

You have heard, our beloved children, how the Lord God, after briefly punishing one who had devoted himself to idols and murdered many innocent people, received him when he repented, and forgiving him his transgressions restored him to his kingdom. For he not only forgives the penitent but also brings them back to their former dignity. There is no sin greater than idolatry, for it is impiety against God; yet even this has been forgiven through genuine repentance.

But if anyone sins deliberately, testing God as though he did not punish the wicked, such a one will have no forgiveness, even if he says to himself, “May I have peace, for I will walk in the waywardness of my evil heart.”

For such a one was Amon, the son of Manasseh. For the Scripture says: “And Amon reasoned an evil reasoning of transgression and said: My father transgressed much from his youth and repented in old age; and now I will walk as my soul desires, and afterward I will return to the Lord.

And he did evil before the Lord beyond all who were before him, and the Lord God quickly destroyed him from his good land; and his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his house, and he reigned only two years.”

Take heed, then, you laity, lest any of you fix the reasoning of Amon in his heart, and he be swiftly destroyed.

Likewise let the bishop, as far as he can, keep those who have not sinned so that they remain sinless, and let him heal and receive those who turn from their sins.

But if, being merciless, he does not receive one who has repented, he will sin against the Lord his God, justifying himself above God’s own righteousness and not receiving one whom God received through Christ — for whose sake he sent his Son on earth to men as a man; for whose sake he was pleased that the Maker of man and woman should be born of a woman; for whose sake, not sparing him the cross and death and burial, he allowed him to suffer, who by nature cannot suffer, his beloved Son, God the Word, “the angel of his great counsel,” so that he might rescue from death those subject to death.

Him those who do not receive the penitent provoke to anger. For he was not ashamed of me, Matthew, who had formerly been a tax collector; and Peter, who had denied him three times through fear but appeased him by repentance and wept bitterly, he accepted and made shepherd of his own lambs; and Paul, our fellow apostle, who had formerly done us many evils and blasphemed the holy name, he appointed an apostle instead of a persecutor, showing him to be “a vessel of election.”

And to another, a sinful woman, he says: “Your sins, which are many, are forgiven, because you loved much.”

Another woman who had sinned the elders set before him, and leaving the judgment to him they went out; and the Lord, who knows the heart, asked her whether the elders had condemned her, and when she said no, he said to her: “Go, then; neither do I condemn you.”

This Saviour, our King and God, O bishops, you must have as your model; you must be his imitators: “meek, quiet,” compassionate, merciful, peaceable, free from anger, “apt to teach,” eager to convert, ready to receive, ready to console; “not strikers, not quick-tempered,” not insolent, not boastful, not arrogant, not given to wine, not drunkards, not wasteful, not luxurious, not extravagant; using the gifts of God not as another’s but as your own, as men appointed good stewards, as those who will be required by God to give account.

Let the bishop have sufficient food and clothing, such as befit need and dignity; let him not use the Lord’s goods as another’s, but with moderation; for “the labourer is worthy of his wages.”

Let him not be luxurious or vain, but desire only what is needed to sustain him. The tithes and first fruits given according to God’s command let him spend as a man of God; and the free-will offerings brought in on behalf of the poor let him dispense well to orphans and widows and the afflicted and needy strangers, as one who has God, who entrusted this stewardship to him, as the auditor of these things.

Distributing with righteousness to all who are in need, and yourselves using the Lord’s goods but not abusing them, eating from them but not devouring them alone, sharing with those in want — be blameless before God. For if you consume them alone, you will be reproached by God, who says as to the greedy who eat alone: “You eat the milk and clothe yourselves with the wool,” and elsewhere: “Will you dwell alone on the earth?” Therefore it is also commanded you in the Law: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

And we say these things not that you should not partake of your labours — for it is written, “You shall not muzzle an ox that treads out the grain” — but that you should do so with moderation and righteousness.

As, then, the ox working unmuzzled on the threshing floor eats but does not devour everything, so you too, working on the threshing floor, that is, in the church of God, eat from the church, as did the Levites who ministered at the tabernacle of witness, which was in every respect a figure of the church; moreover, by its very name the tabernacle was appointed beforehand as a witness to the church.

There, indeed, the Levites who attended the tabernacle shared freely in what was given by all the people for God’s offering — gifts, heave offerings, first fruits, tithes, sacrifices and offerings — they and their wives and their sons and daughters; and since their work was the ministry of the tabernacle, they received no allotment of land among the sons of Israel, because the contributions of the people were the allotment of Levi and the inheritance of his tribe.

You, then, O bishops, are today priests and Levites to your people, who minister at the sacred tabernacle, the holy catholic church, who stand at the altar of the Lord our God and offer him the rational and bloodless sacrifices through “Jesus the great high priest.” To the laity among you, you are prophets, rulers, leaders and kings, mediators between God and his faithful, receivers and heralds of the word, knowers of the Scriptures, voices of God and witnesses of his will, who bear the sins of all and make defence for all. Against you, as you have heard, the word threatens heavily if you hide from men “the key of knowledge”; for you there is deadly danger if you do not declare his will to the people under you; for you there is from God an unfailing reward and indescribable glory, if you have ministered well at the holy tabernacle.

For as the burden is yours, so you also enjoy the provision of food and of your other needs.

For you are imitators of Christ the Lord; and as “he himself bore the sins of us all” upon the tree, the blameless one crucified for those who deserved punishment, so you too must make the sins of the people your own. [10] For it is said of the Saviour in Isaiah: “He bears our sins and suffers pain for us.” [11] And again: “He himself bore the sins of many and was handed over because of their iniquities.” [12] As, then, you are watchmen, so you also have Christ as your watchman; as, then, he is so for all of you, so are you for the laity under you. For do not think that the episcopate is an easy or a light burden. [13] As you bear the weight, then, so you must also be the first to partake of the fruits, and share them with those in need, as those who will give account to the one who will audit you without error. [14] For those who attend upon the church must be maintained from the church, as priests, Levites, presidents and ministers of God, as it is written in the book of Numbers concerning the priests: [15] “And the Lord said to Aaron: You and your sons and your father’s house shall bear the sins of the holy things, of your priesthood. [16] Behold, I have given you the keeping of the first fruits of all that is consecrated to me by the sons of Israel; I have given them to you as a portion, and to your sons after you, a perpetual ordinance; and this shall be yours from the holy things, from the burnt offerings and from the gifts and from all the sacrifices and from every trespass offering and for sins; and all that they render to me of all the holy things shall be yours and your sons’; in the holy place you shall eat them.” [17] And a little later: “All the first fruits of oil and wine and grain, whatever they give to the Lord, I have given to you, and all the first produce I have given to you, and every devoted thing shall be yours. Every firstborn of man and of beast, clean and unclean, and the sacrifices, and the breast and the right shoulder belong to the priests and to the rest of the Levites who attend them.”

Hear these things, you laity too, the elect church of God. For the people formerly were called “the people of God and a holy nation”; so you also are the holy and sacred church of God, “enrolled in heaven, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,” a bride adorned for the Lord God, a great church, a faithful church. What was said before, hear now: heave offerings and tithes and first fruits to Christ the high priest and to those who minister to him; the tithes of salvation are the first letter of the name of Jesus.

Hear, holy catholic church, you who have escaped the ten plagues, received the ten commandments, learned the law, kept the faith, believed in the Lord Jesus, known the decad, and believed in the iota, which is the beginning of the name of Jesus, you who are called by his name and established in the perfection of his glory: the sacrifices of that time are now prayers and supplications and thanksgivings; the first fruits and tithes and heave offerings and gifts of that time are now the offerings presented through the holy bishops to the Lord God through Jesus Christ, who died for them.

For these are your high priests; your priests are the presbyters; and your Levites are now the deacons, and those who read to you, and the singers and the doorkeepers; and so are your deaconesses, and the widows and the virgins and your orphans.

But the high priest above all these is the bishop. He is the minister of the word, guardian of knowledge, mediator between God and you in your worship of him. He is the teacher of piety; he, after God, is your father, who has begotten you again “through water and the Spirit” to adoption; he is your ruler and leader; he is your king and potentate; he is your earthly god after God, who ought to receive honour from you. For concerning him and those like him God said: “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High,” and, “You shall not revile gods.” Let the bishop, then, preside over you as one honoured with the dignity of God, by which he governs the clergy and rules all the people.

Let the deacon stand beside him as Christ beside the Father, and serve him blamelessly in all things, as Christ, doing nothing of himself, always does what pleases the Father.

And let the deaconess be honoured by you as a figure of the Holy Spirit, doing or saying nothing without the deacon, as the Paraclete too does or says nothing of himself but, glorifying Christ, waits for his will; and as it is not possible to believe in Christ without the teaching of the Spirit, so let no woman approach the deacon or the bishop without the deaconess.

And let the presbyters be regarded by you as a figure of us, the apostles. Let them be teachers of the knowledge of God, since the Lord too, sending us, said: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you.” [8] Let the widows and the orphans be reckoned by you as a figure of the altar, and let the virgins be honoured as a figure of the altar of incense and of the incense.

As, then, it was not lawful for a foreigner who was not a Levite to offer anything or to approach the altar without the priest, so you too do nothing without the bishop.

And if anyone does anything without the bishop, he does it in vain; for it will not be reckoned to him as a work.

For as Saul, having offered sacrifice without Samuel, heard, “You have acted foolishly,” so every layman who performs anything without the priest labours in vain.

And as King Uzziah, who was not a priest, performing the office of the priests, was struck with leprosy for his transgression, so every layman too will not go unpunished who despises God and rages against his priests and seizes the honour for himself, not imitating Christ, “who did not glorify himself to be made high priest,” but waited to hear from the Father: “The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

If, then, Christ does not glorify himself without the Father, how can a man thrust himself into the priesthood without receiving the dignity from one greater, and do what is lawful for the priests alone? Were not the followers of Korah, though they were of the tribe of Levi, consumed by fire for rising up against Moses and Aaron and contending for what did not belong to them? And Dathan and Abiram went down alive into Hades, and the rod that budded checked the folly of the many and showed who was the high priest appointed by God.

It is fitting, then, for you too, brothers, to bring your sacrifices, that is, your offerings, to the bishop as to a high priest, either yourselves or through the deacons. Not only so, but bring him also the first fruits and the tithes and the free-will offerings; for he knows well who are afflicted and gives to each what is fitting, so that no one receives several times on the same day or in the same week while another receives nothing at all. For it is more just to relieve those who are truly afflicted than those who are thought to be afflicted.

Those who choose to invite older women to a love-feast, or a banquet as the Lord called it, should most often send for the one whom the deacons know to be in distress.

And let the portion customary for the shepherd be set apart at the banquet — I mean the first-fruit portion — as for a priest, even if he is not present at the banquet, in honour of God who entrusted the priesthood to him.

As much as is given to each of the older women, let double be given to the deacons, as an honour in honour of Christ.

To the presbyters too, since they labour in the word of teaching, let a double portion be set apart, for the sake of the Lord’s apostles, whose place they keep as counsellors of the bishop and the crown of the church; for they are the council and senate of the church.

If there is also a reader, let him too receive one portion in honour of the prophets; likewise the singer and the doorkeeper. Let the laity, then, render to each rank the honour proper to it, in gifts and in respectful conduct.

But let them not lightly trouble the ruler, but make known what they want through his attendants, that is, through the deacons, with whom they may speak more freely; for neither is it possible to approach God Almighty except through Christ. So, then, let the laity make all their wishes known to the bishop through the deacon, and act as he decides.

For neither in the temple of old was any holy offering made or anything done without the priest. “For the lips of the priest will guard knowledge, and they will seek the law from his mouth,” as Haggai the prophet says somewhere.

For if even the worshippers of demons, in their foul, abominable and unclean abominations, imitate holy things to this day — though in comparison let the abomination be set far apart from the holy things — yet in their mockeries they offer or perform nothing without their defiled priest, but regard him as the mouth of the stones, waiting to hear what he will order them to do; and all that he orders them they carry out, and do nothing without him; and they honour this defiled priest and hold his name venerable, in honour of lifeless images and in worship of evil spirits;

If, then, they, who glorify vain and false things and rest their hope on nothing sure, are eager to imitate holy things, how much more right is it that you, who have the clearest faith and an unfailing hope and await a glorious, eternal and unfailing promise, should honour the Lord God through those who preside over you, regarding the bishops as the mouth of God?

For if Aaron, because he announced to Pharaoh the words from Moses, is called a prophet, and Moses a god to Pharaoh, as king and high priest at once, as God says to him, “I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet,” why should you not also regard the mediators of the word to you as prophets and revere them as gods?

For now, for you, Aaron is the deacon, and Moses the bishop. If, then, Moses was called a god by the Lord, let the bishop also be honoured by you as a god, and the deacon as his prophet.

For as Christ does nothing without the Father, so neither does the deacon without the bishop; and as the Son is not without the Father, so neither is the deacon without the bishop; and as the son is subject to the father, so every deacon is to the bishop; and as the Son is the angel and prophet of the Father, so the deacon is the angel and prophet of the bishop.

Therefore let everything he does for anyone be made known to the bishop and be accomplished through him. Let him do nothing at all without the bishop, nor give anything to anyone without his consent.

For if he gives to anyone as to one in distress without the bishop’s knowledge, he gives it to the bishop’s reproach, and slanders him as neglecting the distressed.

And whoever speaks ill of the bishop, by word or deed, offends against God, not having listened to him who said, “You shall not revile your gods.” For he was not legislating about stones or wooden abominations, which are detestable because of their false names, but about the priests and the judges, to whom he also said, “You are gods and sons of the Most High.”

If, then, O deacon, you know someone in distress, remind the bishop, and then give; but do nothing secretly to his reproach, lest you stir up murmuring against him.

For the murmuring will not be against him but against the Lord God; and the deacon and the others will hear what Aaron and Miriam heard when they spoke against Moses: “How were you not afraid to speak against Moses my servant?” And again Moses himself says to those who gathered against him: “For your murmuring is not against us but against the Lord our God.”

For if one who “has said ‘Raca’ or ‘Fool’” to a layman is not unpunished, as having insulted the name of Christ, what of one who says anything against the bishop? Through him the Lord gave you the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands; through him you learned holy doctrines and “have known God” and believed in Christ; through him “you were known by God”; through him you were sealed “with the oil of gladness” and the ointment of understanding; through him you were shown to be “sons of light”; through him the Lord, at your illumination, bearing witness through the laying on of the bishop’s hands, extended his sacred voice over each of you, saying: “You are my son; today I have begotten you.”

Through your bishop God adopts you as a son, O man. Acknowledge, son, the right hand that is your mother, and love it; and revere him who after God has become your father. [2] For if concerning parents according to the flesh the divine oracle says, “Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you,” and, “Whoever reviles father or mother, let him surely die,” how much more will the word exhort you to honour and love your spiritual parents, as benefactors and ambassadors to God: those who have begotten you again “through water,” who have filled you with the Holy Spirit, who have fed you with the milk of the word, who have nourished you with teaching, who have strengthened you with admonitions, who have made you worthy of the saving body and the precious blood, who have loosed you from your sins, who have made you partakers of the holy and sacred Eucharist and made you sharers and fellow heirs of the promise of God. [3] Revere them and honour them with every kind of honour; for they have received from God authority over life and death, in judging those who have sinned and condemning them to the death of eternal fire, and in loosing from their sins those who return and giving them life.

Regard these as your rulers and consider them kings, and bring them tribute as to kings; for they and their households must be maintained by you.

As Samuel gave ordinances to the people about the king in the first book of Kingdoms, and Moses about the priests, so we too give you ordinances about the bishops.

For if there the multitude rendered services in proportion to so great a king, how much more ought the bishop now to receive from you what God has appointed for the maintenance of himself and of the clergy with him?

And if something must be added to the argument, let him receive more than that king of old did. For the king administered military affairs only, entrusted with war and peace for the protection of bodies; but the bishop exercises the priesthood toward God, warding off dangers from body and soul. As much, then, as the soul is better than the body, so much is the priesthood better than kingship; for it binds and looses those who deserve punishment or forgiveness.

Therefore you ought to love the bishop as a father, fear him as a king, and honour him as a lord, bringing him your fruits and the works of your hands for your blessing, giving him your first fruits and your tithes and your heave offerings and your gifts as to the priest of God: the first fruits of grain, wine, oil, fruit and wool, and of all that the Lord God supplies to you.

And your offering will be acceptable to the Lord your God “as a fragrant aroma,” and the Lord will bless the works of your hands and multiply the good things of your land; for “a blessing is upon the head of the one who shares.”

But you must know that, although the Lord has delivered you from the slavery of the added bonds and brought you out into refreshment, no longer allowing you to sacrifice irrational animals for sins and purifications and scapegoats, and for continual washings and sprinklings, he has certainly not freed you also from the contributions you owe to the priests and from doing good to the needy. For the Lord says to you in the Gospel: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In this way, then, your righteousness will abound: by your taking greater care of the priests, the orphans and the widows, as it is written: “He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures forever”; and again: “By almsgiving and faithfulness sins are purged away”; and again: “Every simple soul is blessed.”

So, then, you shall do as the Lord commanded, and give the priest what is owed him: first fruits of the threshing floor and the winepress, and offerings for sins, as to the mediator between God and those in need of cleansing and pardon. For it is fitting for you to give, and for him to administer, as steward and manager of the church’s affairs.

You shall not, however, call the bishop to account, nor watch his administration — how he carries it out, or when, or to whom, or where, or whether well or badly or as he ought; for he has as his auditor the Lord God, who put this stewardship into his hands and counted him worthy of the priesthood of so great a place.

Keep the fear of God before your eyes, always remembering the ten oracles of God: to love the Lord God, the one and only, “with all your strength”; not to give heed to idols or to any others as gods, lifeless or irrational, or to demons.

Know the manifold creation of God, which took its beginning through Christ; and you shall keep the sabbath on account of him who ceased from making but not from providing — a sabbath of meditation on the laws, not of idleness of the hands. Thrust away every lawless desire, every ruin that leads to the corruption of men, all anger.

Honour your parents as the causes of your birth.

“Love your neighbour as yourself”; share your livelihood with those in need.

Shun perjury and frequent, idle swearing; for you will not be held guiltless.

“Do not appear before the priests empty-handed,” and bring your free-will offerings continually. And do not forsake the church of Christ, but go to it early in the morning before any work, and again in the evening, giving thanks to God that he has granted you life.

Labour, persevere, toil; bring your free-will offerings to the Lord; for “Honour the Lord,” it says, “from your just labours.”

Putting into the treasury what you can, share with strangers one or two or five lepta; “store up for yourself heavenly wealth, which neither moth nor thieves will destroy.”

And in doing so, do not judge your bishop or your fellow layman; for if you judge your brother, you have become a judge though no one appointed you. For judging has been entrusted to the priests alone, since it was said to them: “Judge righteous judgment,” and again: “Be approved money-changers.” [10] But it has not been entrusted to you; for on the contrary it was said to those outside the dignity of the judicial office: “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”

The bishop, however, must judge rightly, as it is written: “Judge just judgment,” and elsewhere: “And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?”

Be, then, like skilled money-changers; for as they reject the bad coins and keep the genuine ones, in the same way the bishop must keep what is blameless, and either heal what is blemished or cast out what is incurably sick, and not cut off quickly nor believe just anyone.

For it can happen that some, through jealousy or envy, bring a false accusation against a brother, as the two elders did against Susanna in Babylon, and the Egyptian woman against Joseph.

You, then, as “a man of God,” do not readily accept such things, “lest you destroy the innocent and kill the righteous.”

For he who is willing to accept such things is a father of anger rather than of peace; and where there is anger, there the Lord is not. For anger, which is the friend of Satan — I mean anger stirred up unjustly through false brothers — never allows concord to arise in the church.

Therefore, recognizing such people as foolish, quarrelsome and rejoicing in evil, do not believe them, but keep watch on such people when you hear anything from them against a brother; for murder is nothing in their eyes, and they cast a man down where he does not suspect it.

You, then, pay attention to the accused, observing his conduct with wisdom — who and what kind of man he is; and if you find that the charge is true, act according to the Lord’s teaching: taking the accused alone, “rebuke him,” with no one else present, so that he may repent.

“But if he is not persuaded,” go with a second or a third, and so show him his transgression, admonishing him with gentleness and instruction, because “wisdom will rest in a good heart, but in the heart of fools it is not recognized.” [3] If, then, he is persuaded at the mouth of the three of you, it would be well; but if he hardens himself, “tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to it, let him be to you as the Gentile and the tax collector,” and no longer receive him into the church as a Christian, but reject him as a Gentile.

But if he wishes to repent, receive him; for neither do you receive the Gentile or the tax collector into communion before each of them has repented of his former impieties; for to those who repent our Lord Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, has appointed a place of repentance.

For I too, Matthew, one of the twelve who speak to you in this teaching, am an apostle, though I was formerly a tax collector; but now, through believing, I have obtained mercy, repented of my former deeds, and been counted worthy to be an apostle and herald of the word.

And Zacchaeus, whom the Lord received when he besought him in repentance, was likewise formerly a tax collector.

And already soldiers and a crowd of tax collectors, coming to the Lord’s word about repentance, hear from the prophet John, after baptism: “Do nothing more than what is appointed for you.”

Likewise for the Gentiles too, life is not despaired of, if they repent and cast off their unbelief.

Hold, then, the one convicted of an evil deed who does not repent “as a tax collector or a Gentile.”

But if he later repents — as we receive the Gentiles into the church when they wish to repent and turn from their error, so that they may hear the word, yet do not communicate with them until they have received the seal and are perfected, so also with such people: until they show the fruit of repentance, we allow them to enter, so that by hearing the word they may not perish utterly. But let them not communicate in the prayer; let them go out after the reading of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel, so that by going out they may amend their manner of life, being eager to attend the assemblies every day and to devote themselves to supplication, so that they too may be able to be received, and those who see them may be moved to compunction and become more secure, fearing to fall into the same things.

Yet you shall not abhor, O bishop, one who has fallen into one or two faults, nor keep him from the word of the Lord, nor thrust him out of common life; for neither did the Lord refuse to eat with the tax collectors and sinners, and when he was accused of this by the Pharisees he said: “Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.”

With those, then, whom you have excluded because of sin, keep company and live together, caring for them, exhorting them, supporting them, and saying to them: “Be strong, you slack hands and paralysed knees.”

For we must comfort those who mourn and give courage to the faint-hearted, lest through excessive grief they turn to folly, since “the faint-hearted man is exceedingly foolish.”

But if anyone turns back and shows the fruit of repentance, then receive him also to the prayer, as the lost son was received, the prodigal who had squandered his father’s property with harlots, who fed pigs and longed to be filled with carob pods and did not get them; who repented and ran back to his father and said, “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” His father, who loved his child, received him with music, gave him back his former robe and the ring and the sandals, killed the fatted calf, and made merry with his friends.

Do likewise, then, O bishop. As you receive the Gentile after baptizing him following his instruction, so too, laying hands on this man as one cleansed by repentance, while all pray for him, you shall restore him to his former pasture; and the laying on of hands shall be for him in place of the washing; for through the laying on of our hands the Holy Spirit was given to believers.

And if one of his brothers who has not been shaken complains to you that you have been reconciled to him, say to him: “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours; but it was right to make merry and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, and was lost and has been found.”

For that God not only receives the penitent but also restores them to their former dignity, holy David is a sufficient witness, who after his sin concerning Uriah prayed to God, saying: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a guiding spirit”; and again: “Turn your face away from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.”

You too, then, as a sympathetic physician, heal all who have sinned, using saving methods of treatment to help them: not only cutting or burning or applying drying powders, but also bandaging and packing with lint and putting in soothing, healing medicines and moistening with words of comfort.

If the wound is deep, feed it with plasters, so that once filled up it may become level with the sound flesh; if it becomes foul, cleanse it with drying powder, that is, with a word of rebuke; if it becomes swollen, smooth it down with a sharp salve, the threat of judgment; and if it spreads, cauterize it and cut away the rot, afflicting him with fasts.

But if you do these things and find that from the feet to the head there is no place to apply a poultice, or oil, or bandages, but the spreading sore extends and outruns every cure, like gangrene rotting a whole limb, then with much consideration and consultation with other skilled physicians cut off the rotten limb, so that the whole body of the church may not be corrupted.

Do not, then, be readily quick to cut off, nor rush quickly to the many-toothed saw; but first use the scalpel, opening the abscesses, so that the cause of the pain lying within, once drawn out, may keep the body free of pain.

But if you see someone who is unrepentant and hardened, then with grief and mourning cut him off from the church as incurable; for “remove the wicked one from among yourselves,” and “you shall make the sons of Israel reverent,” and again, “You shall not accept the person of the rich in judgment,” and, “You shall not pity the poor in judgment, for the judgment is the Lord’s.”

But if the slanderous accusation is false, and you shepherds together with the deacons accept the falsehood as truth, either through partiality or for the exchange of gifts, wishing to do what pleases the devil, and drive out of the church the one who was accused but is a stranger to the charge, you will give account on the day of the Lord; for it is written: “You shall not kill the innocent and righteous; you shall not take gifts to strike down a life; for gifts blind the eyes of the wise and corrupt righteous words”; and again: “Those who justify the ungodly for the sake of gifts and take away the righteousness of the righteous.”

Take heed, then, lest by showing partiality you fall under this voice of the Lord.

Guard yourselves, then, against condemning anyone unjustly and pleading the cause of the wicked; for “woe to him who calls evil good and good evil, bitter sweet and sweet bitter, who makes light darkness and darkness light.”

For if you condemn others unjustly, you pronounce sentence against yourselves, for the Lord says: “With the judgment with which you judge you will be judged, and as you condemn, you will be condemned.”

If, then, you judge without partiality, you will recognize the one who brings false testimony against his neighbour; and when you have shown him to be a slanderer, envious, a murderer, one who stirs up trouble with his contradictions as though against a wicked man, unstable in his words, contradicting himself in what he says and caught by the words of his own mouth — “for his own lips are a strong snare set for him” — him, after he has been proved a liar, you shall judge severely and hand over to the sword of fire, and “you shall do to him as he wickedly intended to do to his neighbour.”

For, as far as lay in him, he murdered his brother, by getting to the judge’s ears first; and it is written: “Whoever sheds a man’s blood, in return for his blood his own shall be shed,” and, “You shall remove from yourself the innocent blood shed in vain.”

You shall, then, put him out of the congregation as the murderer of his brother. Then, after an interval of time, if he says he repents, afflict him with fasts, and after that lay hands on him and receive him, but take precautions that he does not trouble anyone again.

But if, after coming back in, he again stirs up strife in the same way, not ceasing to trouble and mock the brothers, contriving faults out of contentiousness, cast him out as a pestilent man, so that he may not ravage the church of God; for such a one stirs up disturbances in cities. For even if he is inside, he is not fit for the church, but is superfluous and useless, staining the body of Christ as far as lies in him.

For if some people, born with superfluous members attached to their bodies, such as fingers or fleshy growths, cut them off because they are unsightly, and no unsightliness results, the person recovering his natural comeliness through the surgeon, how much more should you shepherds do so? For the church is a sound body with healthy members, those who believe in God in the fear of the Lord and in love; so when a superfluous member is found, thinking evil, making the rest of the body unsightly and tossing it with strife and fighting and slander, bringing on it reproaches, troubles, blemishes, slanders, charges and disorders, and carrying out such works of the devil as if appointed by the devil to befoul the church with blasphemies and much disorder and strife and division —

such a one, then, cast out of the church a second time, has been justly cut off from the congregation of the Lord; and the church of the Lord is now more beautiful than at first, when it had a superfluous member foreign to itself. Therefore from now on it is free of blasphemy and defilement, rid of the wicked, the deceitful, the abusive, the savage, traitors, haters of good, lovers of pleasure, the vainglorious, deceivers, the wise in their own conceit, who make it their business to scatter, or rather to disperse, the lambs of the Lord.

You, then, O bishop, together with the clergy under you, be diligent “to handle rightly the word of truth,” for the Lord says: “If you walk crookedly, I too will walk crookedly toward you,” and elsewhere: “With the holy you will be holy, and with the innocent you will be innocent, and with the crooked you will be perverse.” Walk, then, in holiness, so that you may be counted worthy of praise from the Lord rather than of blame from the adversary.

Being of one mind with one another, then, O bishops, be at peace with one another, sympathetic, loving the brothers; shepherd the people with care, teaching those under you with one accord to agree and “to think the same about the same things, so that there may be no divisions among you, but that you may be one body and one spirit, perfected in the same mind and the same judgment,” according to the Lord’s ordinance.

And let the deacon refer everything to the bishop, as Christ does to the Father; but whatever he can, let him set right by himself, having received the authority from the bishop, as Christ received from the Father the power of providence; but let the bishop judge the weightier matters.

Yet let the deacon be the bishop’s ear and eye and mouth, heart and soul, so that the bishop may not be anxious about many things, but only about the more important, as Jethro too advised Moses, and his counsel was accepted.

It is a fine commendation for a Christian to have no lawsuit with anyone; but if through some agency or temptation a dispute arises for someone, let him strive to settle it, even if he must suffer some loss, and let him not go before a heathen tribunal.

Moreover, do not allow worldly rulers to judge our people; for through them the devil plots against the servants of God and raises reproach, as though we had not one wise man able to decide what is just between us or to settle our disputes.

Let not the Gentiles, then, know of your disputes with one another; do not accept unbelievers as witnesses against yourselves, nor be judged by them; and owe them nothing in contributions or tax, but “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s,” such as tax or poll tax or the didrachm, as our Lord too paid the stater and was rid of trouble.

Choose, then, rather to suffer loss, and pursue the things that make for peace, not only with the brothers but also with unbelievers; for if you suffer loss in some matter of this life, you will lose nothing in what concerns God, since you are God-fearing and live according to the command of Christ.

But if brothers have a dispute with one another — may it not happen — you who preside must understand at once that such people are not doing the work of brothers in the Lord, but rather of hostile enemies. [4] And one of them will be found gentle, reasonable, a “child of light,” and the other savage, self-willed and grasping. Let the one who is found guilty be rebuked and excluded, and pay the penalty for his hatred of his brother; then, when he repents, let him be received. And being disciplined in this way, they will lighten the burden of your tribunals.

And one must also forgive the wrongs done to one another — not those who judge, but those who have grievances against each other — as the Lord declared when I, Peter, asked him: “How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” and he said: “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

For so the Lord wishes his disciples truly to be, and never to have anything against anyone, such as immoderate anger, or savage rage, or unjust desire, or senseless hatred.

Bring the angry, then, together into friendship, and those at enmity into concord; for the Lord says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Let your court sessions be held on the second day of the week, so that if there is any objection to your sentence, you may have time until the sabbath to set the objection right and to reconcile those at variance with one another by the Lord’s day. And let the deacons and the presbyters also be present at the court, judging impartially, as “men of God,” with righteousness.

When, then, both parties are present, as the Law too says, “Both, between whom the dispute is, shall stand in the midst of the court,” having heard them, cast your votes in holiness, striving to make them both friends before the bishop’s sentence, so that judgment may not go forth on earth against the one who has sinned, since in the court too the bishop has Christ of God as fellow-voter and witness of the case.

And if any are charged by someone with the reproach of not walking rightly in the Lord, likewise hear both parties, the accuser and the accused, not with prejudice nor one-sidedly, but with righteousness, giving sentence as in a matter of eternal life or death; for “you shall pursue justly,” says God, “what is just.” For the one who is justly punished and excluded by you has been cast out of eternal life and glory, and is dishonoured among holy men and condemned before God.

Do not pass the same sentence for every sin, but a proper one for each, judging each of the offences with much prudence, both the small and the great — a deed one way, a word another, and intention or abuse or suspicion differently. Some you will subject to threats only, others to giving to the poor, others you will afflict with fasts, and others you will exclude, each according to the size of his offence.

For the Law too did not impose the same punishment for every sin. It treated offences against God, a priest, the temple or a sacrifice one way; those against a king, a ruler, a soldier or a subject, an equal or a servant, or against property or an animal, another way; and again differently those against parents and relatives; deliberate acts one way and involuntary acts another. To some it assigned death, either by the cross or by stoning; to others a fine or scourging or suffering the like of what they had done.

So you too impose different punishments for different sins, lest some injustice slip in and move God to indignation; for whatever unjust judgment you become the agents of, of that you will receive the wages from God; for “with the judgment with which you judge, you will be judged.”

Sitting, then, at the tribunal, with both parties present — we will not call them brothers until they receive each other in peace — inquire carefully about those involved; and first about the accuser: whether this is the first man he has accused or whether he has brought charges against others too; whether the charge does not arise from some grudge or contentiousness; and what kind of life he leads.

And even if such a man is of good conscience, let him not be believed alone, for that is against the law; but let him have other witnesses too, like himself in character, as the Law says: “On the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.”

And why did we say that their character must be inquired into? Because it often happens that two or more bear witness to an evil end and agree in supporting a lie, like the two elders against Susanna in Babylon, and the sons of lawless men against Naboth in Samaria, and the multitude of the Jews against the Lord in Jerusalem, and against Stephen his first martyr.

Let the witnesses, then, be gentle, free from anger, reasonable, loving, sober, self-controlled, without malice, faithful, God-fearing; for the testimony of such people is firm because of their character and true because of their way of life.

But do not accept the testimony of those who are not such, even if they seem to agree in their testimony against someone; for it is commanded in the Laws: “You shall not be with the many for evil; you shall not accept an idle report; you shall not join with the multitude to pervert justice.”

You ought also, for your part, to know the one being judged — what he is like in the habit and conduct of his life: whether he is well attested in his life, whether blameless, whether he has been zealous for holiness, whether he is a lover of widows, strangers, the poor and the brothers; whether he is not greedy for gain, not a glutton or a grasping whirlwind for money; whether he is sober and not dissolute or a drunkard or an idle eater; whether he is compassionate and generous.

For if wicked deeds have been laid to his charge before, the accusations now brought against him might already in part be true, unless justice is fighting on his side; for it is possible that he once sinned, yet is innocent of this charge.

Therefore, being carefully watchful in such matters, make your sentences against the one convicted safe and firm; and if after his exclusion he asks pardon, falls down before the bishop and confesses that he has sinned, receive him.

But do not let the slanderer go unpunished, lest he slander another who lives well or urge someone else to do as he did; nor indeed let the convicted man go unrebuked, lest another be caught in the same things. For neither shall a witness of evil go unpunished, nor the offender escape justice.

We said that it is not just to give one-sided judgments. For if you hear one party when the other is not present and has made no defence against the charge brought, and rashly bring in a vote of condemnation, you will be found before God, the just judge, guilty of the man’s destruction and partners with the slanderer; for “as one who holds a dog by the tail, so is he who presides over another’s judgment.”

But if you become imitators of the elders in Babylon, who bore witness against Susanna and unjustly condemned her to death, you will be liable to their judgment and condemnation; for the Lord rescued Susanna through Daniel from the hand of the lawless, but condemned to fire the elders guilty of her blood, and through him he reproached you, saying: “Are you such fools, sons of Israel? Without examining or learning the truth, have you condemned a daughter of Israel? Go back, then, to the court; for these men have borne false witness against her.”

Look also at the worldly courts, by whose authority we see murderers, adulterers, sorcerers, tomb robbers and bandits led away. The governors, receiving the records of the investigation from those who bring them, ask the criminal whether these things are so; and even when he agrees, they do not at once send him to punishment, but examine him for several more days with much counsel and behind a curtain; and the one who is to pronounce the final verdict and the sentence of death against him lifts up his hands to the sun and protests that he is innocent of the man’s blood — although they are Gentiles and do not know the deity, or the vengeance that comes upon them from God for those condemned without cause.

But you, knowing who our God is and what his judgments are, how could you give sentence against anyone out of spite, when your judgment is immediately known to God?

And if you have judged justly, you will be counted worthy of just rewards both now and hereafter; but if unjustly, you will in turn receive the like. We, then, brothers, counsel you to be counted worthy of praise rather than of blame before God; for God’s praise is eternal life for men, as his blame is everlasting death.

Therefore be just judges, peacemakers, free from anger; for “whoever is angry with his brother without cause will be liable to judgment.”

And if it happens through some agency that you become angry with someone, “let not the sun go down on your anger. Be angry,” says David, “and do not sin,” that is, be reconciled quickly, so that lasting anger may not turn into resentment and bring about sin; for “the souls of the resentful are bound for death,” says Solomon.

And our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ also says in the Gospels: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

And the gift to God is each person’s prayer and thanksgiving. If, then, you have something against your brother, or he has something against you, neither will your prayers be heard nor your thanksgivings accepted, because of the anger that lies beneath.

You must pray continually, brothers; but since God does not hear those who in anger are unjustly hostile to their brothers, even if they pray three times an hour, all enmity and pettiness must be dissolved, so that we may be able to pray with a pure and stainless heart.

And indeed the Lord commanded us to love even our enemies, not to hate even our friends; and the lawgiver says: “You shall not hate any man; you shall not hate your brother in your mind; you shall surely reprove your brother, and not incur sin because of him; you shall not hate an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner with him; you shall not hate an Edomite, because he is your brother”; and David says: “If I have repaid those who repaid me with evil.”

So, if you wish to be a Christian, follow the law of the Lord: “Loose every bond of injustice”; for the Saviour has given you authority “to forgive your brother the sins committed against you up to seventy times seven,” that is, four hundred and ninety times.

How many times, then, have you already forgiven your brother, that you should refuse to forgive him now as well? And this though you have heard Jeremiah say: “Let none of you reckon in your hearts the evil of his neighbour.” But you bear a grudge, keep up enmity, go to court, harbour wrath, and your prayer is hindered.

But even if you have already granted the four hundred and ninety times and forgiven your brother, increase your forbearance still further, for goodness’ sake and your own; and even if he does not do so, still you, for God’s sake, strive to forgive your neighbour, so that you may become “a son of your Father in heaven,” and when you pray be heard as a friend of God.

For this reason, O bishops, when you are about to go to the prayer, after the reading and the psalmody and the teaching on the Scriptures, let the deacon standing near you say with a loud voice, “Let no one have anything against anyone; let no one be in hypocrisy,” so that if a dispute is found among any, struck in conscience they may pray to God and be reconciled with their brothers.

For if those who enter anyone’s house must first of all say, “Peace to this house,” as sons of peace bestowing peace on the worthy, as it is written, “To those near and to those far off, whom the Lord knew to be his,” much more must those who enter the church of God first of all pray that the people may have the peace of God.

And if he prays it for others, much more let him himself be within it, as “a child of light”; for one who does not have it in himself is not trustworthy to bestow it on others.

Therefore above all he must be at peace within himself; for one who is not at strife with himself will not fight with another, but will be peaceable and friendly, gathering what is the Lord’s and becoming his fellow worker in increasing in concord the number of those being saved.

For those who stir up enmities and fights, disputes and lawsuits are wicked and strangers to God.

For God, being a God of mercy, from the beginning calls each generation to repentance through the righteous and the prophets. Those before the flood he admonished through Abel and Shem and Seth, and also through Enosh and Enoch who was translated; those at the flood through Noah; those in Sodom through hospitable Lot; those after the flood through Melchizedek and the patriarchs and Job, beloved of God; those in Egypt through Moses; the Israelites through him and Joshua and Caleb and Phinehas and the rest; those after the law through angels and prophets; the same people through his own incarnation from a virgin; those shortly before his bodily manifestation through John the forerunner; and the same people through the same John even after his birth, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near”; and those after his passion through us the twelve and through Paul, “the vessel of election.”

We, then, who were counted worthy to be witnesses of his coming, together with James the brother of the Lord and seventy-two other disciples and his seven deacons, heard it from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and knowing it exactly we declare “what is the will of God, the good and acceptable and perfect,” made known to us through Jesus: “that no one should perish,” but that all men, “believing” in him with one accord and sending up to him a harmonious hymn of praise, “should live” eternally.

For this is what the Lord taught us to say when we pray to his Father: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth,” so that, as the heavenly natures of the incorporeal powers all glorify God with one accord, so also on earth all men with one mouth and one disposition may glorify the only God, the one and true, through the only-begotten Christ.

His will, then, is that we praise him with one mind and worship him with one accord. For this is his will in Christ: that many should be saved in him, and that you should not cause him loss, nor diminish the church, nor reduce its number by one human soul destroyed by you, which could have been saved through repentance but perished not only through its own anger but also through your scheming; and so you have fulfilled what is written: “He who does not gather with me scatters.”

Such a one, being a scatterer, is an adversary of the sheep, an enemy of God, a destroyer of the lambs — the lambs of whom the Lord was the shepherd, and we the gatherers from various nations and tongues, “in much toil and danger and labour, in watchings, fastings, sleeping on the ground, persecutions, blows, prisons,” so that, having done the will of God, “we might fill the banquet hall with guests,” that is, the holy and catholic church, with the called rejoicing and exulting, hymning and glorifying God who called them through us to life. But you, as far as lay in you, have scattered them.

And you too, laity, be at peace with one another, eager, as wise people, to increase the church, to turn toward it those thought to be wild, to tame them and to restore them. And this is the greatest reward promised by God: “If you bring out the precious from the worthless, you shall be as my mouth.”

And you, O bishop, be holy, blameless, not a striker, not quick-tempered, not harsh, but one who builds up, who turns people back, apt to teach, forbearing, mild in temper, gentle, long-suffering, ready to exhort and to comfort, as “a man of God.”

When you assemble the church of God, like the pilot of a great ship, order the assemblies to be held with all skill, charging the deacons, as sailors, to assign places to the brothers as to passengers, with all care and dignity.

And first, let the building be long, turned toward the east, with the side chambers on both sides toward the east; so it is like a ship.

Let the bishop’s throne be placed in the middle, and on each side of him let the presbytery sit, and let the deacons stand by, lightly clad, without their outer garments; for they are like the sailors and the officers of the ship’s sides. Under their care let the laity sit in the other part with all quietness and good order, and let the women also sit apart, keeping silence.

In the middle let the reader, standing on some raised place, read the books of Moses and of Joshua the son of Nun, those of the Judges and of the Kingdoms, those of the Chronicles and of the Return, and besides these those of Job and of Solomon and of the sixteen prophets.

After every two readings, let someone else sing the hymns of David, and let the people sing the refrains in response.

After this let our Acts be read, and the letters of Paul our fellow worker, which he sent to the churches under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and after these let a deacon or a presbyter read the Gospels, which I, Matthew, and John delivered to you, and which Luke and Mark, the fellow workers of Paul, received and left to you.

And when the Gospel is being read, let all the presbyters and the deacons and all the people stand in great silence; for it is written: “Be silent and hear, O Israel,” and again: “But you, stand here and you shall hear.”

And next let the presbyters exhort the people, one at a time and not all at once, and last of all the bishop, who is like the pilot. [10] Let the doorkeepers stand at the men’s entrances, guarding them, and the deaconesses at the women’s, like the officers who receive passengers on board; for in the tabernacle of witness the same pattern was followed.

And if anyone is found sitting out of his place, let him be rebuked by the deacon, as by the officer at the prow, and be moved to the place proper to him.

For the church is likened not only to a ship but also to a sheepfold. For as shepherds place each of the animals — goats, I mean, and sheep — by kind and age, and each of them runs together, like with like, so in the church too let the younger sit by themselves, if there is room; if not, let them stand upright. Let those already advanced in age sit in order; let fathers and mothers take to themselves the children, who stand; let the younger women again be by themselves, if there is room, and if not, let them stand behind the women; let the women already married and having children stand by themselves; and let the virgins, the widows and the older women stand or sit first of all.

Let the deacon take care of the places, so that each who comes in goes to his own place and they do not sit by the entrance. Likewise let the deacon oversee the people, so that no one whispers or dozes or laughs or nods; for in church one must stand with understanding, soberly and watchfully, with ear stretched out toward the word of the Lord.

And after this, when the catechumens and the penitents have gone out, let all rise together and, looking toward the east, pray to God “who rides on the heaven of heavens toward the east,” remembering also the ancient possession of paradise in the east, from which the first man was cast out when, persuaded by the counsel of the serpent, he set aside the commandment. [15] After the prayer let some of the deacons attend to the offering of the Eucharist, serving the Lord’s body with fear, and let others watch over the crowds and keep them quiet. [16] And let the deacon who stands beside the high priest say to the people: “Let no one have anything against anyone; let no one be in hypocrisy.” [17] Then let the men greet one another, and the women one another, with the kiss in the Lord; but let no one do it deceitfully, as Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss. [18] And after this let the deacon pray for the whole church and the whole world and its regions and fruits, for the priests and the rulers, for the high priest and the king, and for universal peace. [19] And after this let the high priest, praying peace upon the people, bless them, as Moses also commanded the priests to bless the people with these words: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and have mercy on you; the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace.” [20] Let the bishop, then, also pray and say: “Save your people, O Lord, and bless your inheritance, which you acquired and purchased with the precious blood of your Christ and called a royal priesthood and a holy nation.” [21] After this let the sacrifice take place, all the people standing and praying silently; and when it has been offered, let each order partake by itself of the Lord’s body and the precious blood, coming up in order, with reverence and awe, as to the body of a king; and let the women come up with their heads covered, as befits the order of women. And let the doors be guarded, lest any unbeliever or uninitiated person come in.

If a brother or sister comes from another district bringing a letter of commendation, let the deacon examine their case, inquiring whether they are faithful, whether they belong to the church, whether they are not defiled by heresy, and further whether the woman is married or a widow; and having thus learned about them that they are truly faithful and of one mind in the things of the Lord, let him lead each to the place proper to him.

And if a presbyter comes from another district, let him be received into communion by the presbyters; if a deacon, by the deacons; and if a bishop, let him sit with the bishop, being counted worthy by him of the same honour.

And you shall ask him, O bishop, to address words of teaching to the people; for the exhortation and admonition of strangers is very profitable; for “no prophet,” it says, “is acceptable in his own country.” And you shall allow him also to offer the Eucharist; but if out of reverence, as a wise man, keeping the honour for you, he is unwilling to offer it, at least you shall press him to give the blessing to the people.

And if, while you are seated, someone else comes in who is of good standing and distinguished in life, whether a stranger or a native, you, O bishop, who are speaking the word about God or listening to the singer or the reader, shall not out of partiality leave the ministry of the word to arrange a seat for him, but stay quiet, not interrupting your speaking or your listening; and let the brothers receive him through the deacons.

And if there is no place, let the deacon raise up one of the younger men, with a word and not with anger, and seat the newcomer there; and it is right that one who loves the brothers should do this of his own accord. But if he refuses, raise him up by force and make him stand behind everyone, so that the rest too may be taught to give way to those more deserving of honour.

And if a poor man comes in, a native or a stranger, old or young, and there is no place, the deacon shall make room for these too with all his heart, so that his regard may not be for persons before men, but his ministry well-pleasing before God. Let the deaconess do the same for the women who come in, poor or rich.

When you teach, O bishop, command and exhort the people to frequent the church morning and evening every day and never to stay away, but to assemble continually, and not to mutilate the church by withdrawing themselves and so leave the body of Christ short of a member. For it was not said of the priests only, but let each of the laity hear it as said of himself, considering that the Lord said: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

Do not, then, being members of Christ, scatter yourselves by not assembling. Having Christ as your head, who according to his promise is present with you and shares with you, do not neglect yourselves, nor deprive the Saviour of his own members, nor divide his body, nor scatter his members, nor put the needs of this life before the divine word; but assemble every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord’s houses, saying in the morning the sixty-second psalm and in the evening the hundred and fortieth.

And especially on the sabbath day, and on the day of the Lord’s resurrection, the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending up praise to God who made all things through Jesus and sent him to us and allowed him to suffer and raised him from the dead.

Otherwise what defence will he make to God who does not assemble on this day to hear the saving word about the resurrection — the day on which we also offer three prayers standing, in memory of him who rose after three days; on which there is the reading of the Prophets, the proclaiming of the Gospel, the offering of the sacrifice and the gift of the holy food?

And how is he not an enemy of God, who is zealous night and day for temporary things but neglects the eternal; who busies himself every day with baths and temporary food, but pays no attention to what endures forever? How will the Lord not say to such a one even now, “The Gentiles have been justified rather than you,” as he said in reproach of Jerusalem, “Sodom has been justified rather than you”?

For if the Gentiles, rising daily from their sleep, run to the idols to worship them, and pray to them first before every work and every action, and do not fall behind at their feasts and festivals but devote themselves to them — not only those of the place but also those who live far off — and all come together in their theatres as in a synagogue;

likewise those who are vainly called Jews, after six days, resting on the seventh day, assemble in their synagogue, never missing or neglecting either their rest or their synagogue — they who in their unbelief have been emptied of the power of the word, and even of the name by which they call themselves, Judah. For Judah means “confession,” but these do not confess to God, though they lawlessly brought about the suffering of Christ, so as to repent and be saved —

if, then, those who are not being saved frequent the things that do them no good, what defence will you make to the Lord God, you who turn away from his church, not even imitating the Gentiles, but by staying away grow slack, or fall away, or do evil?

To such the Lord says through Jeremiah: “You have not kept my ordinances, nor even walked according to the ordinances of the nations; you have all but surpassed them”; and again: “Israel has justified his soul more than faithless Judah”; and next: “Will nations change their gods? — and these are not gods. For cross over to the isles of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and consider well whether such things have happened; for they do not change their ordinances; but my people,” he says, “has changed its glory for that from which it will have no profit.” How, then, will anyone make his defence who has neglected the church of God or stayed away from it?

And if anyone neglects it, putting forward the excuse of his own work, “making excuses in sins,” let such a one know that the trades of the faithful are side occupations, but piety is their work.

Practise your trades, then, as a side occupation for your maintenance, but practise piety as your work, as the Lord too said: “Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life,” and again: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Be eager, then, never to leave the church of God. But if anyone despises it and goes into a defiled place of the Gentiles, or into a synagogue of Jews or of heretics, what defence will such a one make to God on the day of judgment? He has left the oracles of the living God, which are living and life-giving and able to deliver from eternal punishment, and gone into a house of demons, or into a synagogue of Christ-killers, or an assembly of evildoers, not heeding him who said: “I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and with transgressors I will not go in; I have not sat with the council of vanity, and with the ungodly I will not sit”; and again: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the pestilent; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night.”

But you, having left the gathering of the faithful, the church of God, and his laws, look to the dens of robbers, considering holy what he called profane and making common what he set apart. And not only this: you already run along with the processions of the Greeks and hurry to the theatres, wishing to be counted one of those who go in there and to share in unseemly — not to say abominable — entertainments, not heeding Jeremiah when he says, “Lord, I have not sat in their council of revellers, but I feared before your hand,” and Job when he says the like: “If I have ever walked with mockers … for I stand in a just balance.”

And why do you wish to share in the Greek writings, which were uttered by dead men under the inspiration of the devil, deadly, subversive of faith, and leading those who attend to them into polytheism?

You, then, devoting yourselves to the laws of God, regard them as more precious than the needs of life, and giving them greater honour, run together to the church of the Lord, “which he acquired with the blood” of Christ, the beloved, “the firstborn of all creation.”

For she is the daughter of the Most High, who has been in labour with you through the word of grace and formed Christ in you; sharing in him, you are holy and chosen members, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but as holy and blameless,” perfected in faith in him after the image of him who created you.

Guard yourselves, then, against spending time with those who are perishing — that is, the assembly of the Gentiles — to your deception and destruction; for God has no fellowship with the devil; for whoever gathers with those who think the things of the devil will be reckoned one of them and inherit the woe.

Flee also the unseemly spectacles — I mean the theatres and the Greek processions — and incantations, omens, divinations, purifications, augury, observation of birds, necromancy, invocations; for it is written: “For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel,” and again: “Augury is sin,” and elsewhere: “You shall not practise augury, and you shall not follow omens and divinations and mediums; you shall not keep sorcerers.” Therefore Jeremiah too exhorts, saying: “Do not walk according to the ways of the nations, and do not be afraid of the signs of heaven.”

Therefore the believer must flee the gatherings of the ungodly Greeks and Jews and of the other heretics, lest by spending time with them we take snares for our own souls, and lest by joining in their festivals, which are held in honour of demons, we share in their impiety too. [4] Their fairs also and the games held at them must be avoided; for a believer ought not to go to a fair except to buy a slave and save a soul, and to buy some other things suited to his livelihood. Abstain, then, from every procession of idols, every show, festival and banquet, from gladiatorial combat, and from every demonic spectacle.

You younger members of the church, be eager to minister without hesitation in all needs; give yourselves to your work with all dignity, so that all your life you may be able to provide “both for yourselves” and for those in need, so as “not to burden the church” of God. For we too, though we devote ourselves to the word of the Gospel, nevertheless do not neglect our side occupations; for some of us are fishermen, others tentmakers, others farmers, so that we are never idle.

And Solomon says somewhere: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, and emulate it when you know its ways, and become wiser than it; for though it has no farm, and no one to compel it, and is under no master, it prepares its food in summer and makes a great store at harvest.”

“Or go to the bee and learn how industrious it is, and how it carries on its work as something honourable; its labours kings and commoners use for health, and it is desired and renowned, though weak in strength.”

And next: “How long, O sluggard, will you lie there? When will you rise from sleep? A little you sleep, a little you sit, a little you doze, a little you fold your hands on your breast; then poverty comes upon you like an evil traveller, and want like a swift runner. But if you are diligent, your harvest will come like a spring, and want will run away like an evil man.”

And again: “He who works his own land will be filled with bread”; and elsewhere he says: “The idle man folded his hands and ate his own flesh”; and next: “The sluggard who has hidden his hand will not be able to bring it to his mouth”; and again: “Through idleness of hands the roof will sink in.”

Work, then, continually; for the reproach of the idle is incurable. “If anyone does not work, let him not eat” among you; for the Lord our God hates the idle; for none of those devoted to God ought to be idle.

Appoint widows “not less than sixty years old,” so that in some measure, because of their age, you may be sure that there is no suspicion of a second marriage.

But if you appoint a younger woman to the order of widows, and, unable to bear widowhood in her youth, she marries, she will bring disgrace on the glory of the widows’ order and will give account to God — not because she was joined in a second marriage, but because she did not keep her promise, “having grown wanton against Christ.”

Therefore the promise must not be made rashly, but with assurance; for “it is better” for her “not to vow than to vow and not pay.”

But if a younger woman, having spent a short time with her husband and lost him through death or for some other reason, remains by herself, having the gift of widowhood, she will be found blessed, like the Sidonian widow of Zarephath, with whom the holy prophet of God Elijah lodged.

Such a woman will be likened to Anna, “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who did not depart from the temple, continuing night and day in supplications and prayers, being eighty years old, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity,” who glorified the coming of Christ and “gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of him to all who were looking for redemption in Israel.” Such a woman, having received a good testimony, will be honoured, having glory among men on earth and eternal praise with God in heaven.

Let younger widows not be enrolled in the order of widows, lest, on the plea that they cannot master their youthful vigour, they enter a second marriage and come into trouble; but let them be helped and supported, lest on the plea of want they enter a second marriage and be caught up in unseemly conduct.

For you ought to know this too: that a single marriage, entered according to law, is righteous, as being in accordance with God’s will; a second marriage after the promise is unlawful, not because of the union but because of the falsehood; a third marriage is a sign of incontinence; and anything beyond a third marriage is manifest sexual immorality and undoubted licentiousness.

For God gave one wife to one man at the creation; for “the two shall become one flesh.” But to younger women, after the death of the first husband, let a second also be permitted, lest they “fall into the condemnation of the devil” and into many snares and foolish and harmful desires for their souls, which bring punishment rather than relief.

True widows are those who have had only one husband, “well attested” by many “for good works,” widows indeed, chaste, pure, faithful, pious, who “have brought up children” well and “shown hospitality” blamelessly; these must be supported as dedicated to God.

But remember the poor too, O bishop, stretching out a helping hand to them and providing for them, “as God’s steward,” distributing in season to each what is suitable — to widows and orphans, to the destitute and to those tried by affliction.

For what if some are not widows or widowers, but need help because of poverty or illness or the rearing of children? You must oversee all and take care of all.

For those who give gifts do not give them directly to the widows, but simply bring them in together, calling them free-will offerings, so that you, who know exactly who are afflicted, may distribute to them from the gift “as a good steward”; for God knows the giver, even if it is distributed by you to those in need in his absence; and he has the reward of his good deed, and you the blessedness of conscientious stewardship.

And tell them also who the giver is, so that they may pray for him by name.

For one must do good to all people, not favouring this person or that, whoever he may be; for the Lord says: “Give to everyone who asks you” — clearly, to one truly in need, whether friend or enemy, kinsman or stranger, unmarried or married.

For in all Scripture the Lord exhorts concerning the poor, saying through Isaiah: “Break your bread for the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see one naked, cover him, and do not overlook those of your own kin.”

And through Daniel he says to the ruler: “Therefore, O king, let my counsel please you, and redeem your sins by almsgiving and your iniquities by compassion on the poor.”

And through Solomon he says: “By almsgiving and faithfulness sins are purged away.”

And through David again he says: “Blessed is he who considers the poor and needy; in the evil day the Lord will deliver him,” and again: “He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.”

And Solomon says: “He who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord, and according to his gift it will be repaid to him”; and next: “He who stops his ears so as not to hear the one in need, he too will call, and there will be no one to hear him.”

Let every widow be gentle, quiet, reasonable, without malice, free from anger, not talkative, not clamorous, not hasty of tongue, not a slanderer, not a catcher at words, not double-tongued, not a busybody; if she sees or hears of something crooked being done, let her be as one who does not see and does not hear.

And let the widow have no other care than to pray for those who give and for the whole church.

When she is asked anything by anyone, let her not readily answer, except about faith and righteousness and hope in God, sending to the leaders those who wish to be instructed in the doctrines of piety.

Let her answer only on the overthrow of the error of many gods, demonstrating the teaching of the sole rule of God; but about what follows let her answer nothing rashly, lest by saying something ignorantly she bring blasphemy on the word. [5] For the Lord taught that the word is like a grain of mustard seed; and this is fiery, and if anyone uses it unskilfully he will find it bitter. For in the mysteries one must not be a betrayer, but a safe keeper; for the Lord exhorts us, saying: “Do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you.”

For unbelievers, hearing the word about Christ not as they should but deficiently, and especially the word about his embodiment or his passion, will sneer at it and mock it as false rather than glorify it; and the old woman will be guilty of rashness and blasphemy and will inherit the woe. “Woe,” he says, “to him through whom my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.”

We do not permit women, then, to teach in the church, but only to pray and to listen to the teachers.

For our Teacher and Lord Jesus the Christ himself, when he sent us the twelve to make disciples of the people and the nations, nowhere sent out women to preach, though there was no lack of them. For there were with us the mother of the Lord and his sisters, and also Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Martha and Mary the sisters of Lazarus, and Salome and certain others. For if it were necessary for women to teach, he himself would first have commanded these too to instruct the people with us; for if “the man is the head of the woman,” it is not right that the rest of the body should rule the head.

Let the widow know, then, that she is an altar of God, and let her sit in her house, not going into the houses of the faithful on any pretext to receive; for the altar of God never runs about, but is fixed in one place.

Let the virgin too and the widow not be running about, gadding into the houses of strangers; for gadabouts and shameless women and such as these do not keep their feet still in one place, because they are not widows but wallets, ready to receive, babblers, slanderers, stirrers of strife, shameless and brazen; such women are not worthy of him who called them.

For they do not come to the common rest of the assembly on the Lord’s day as the watchful do, but either doze, or chatter, or beg, or take others captive, drawing them to the evil one, not allowing them to be sober in the Lord, but making them go out such as they came in, empty, because they do not listen to those who teach or read the word of the Lord. For of such Isaiah the prophet also says: “Hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the heart of this people has grown dull.”

In the same way, then, the ears of the heart of such widows have been closed, so that they do not sit within their dwellings to speak with the Lord, but run about with schemes of gain and by their chatter do what the adversary desires.

Such widows, then, are not attached to the altar of Christ.

For there are some widows who regard the matter as a trade, and by asking shamelessly and receiving insatiably have already made most people slower to give. For when they ought to be content with what the church gives, out of moderation of mind, on the contrary they run round the houses of the rich and shake them down, heaping up abundance of money for themselves; and they lend at bitter interest and care only for mammon — their purse is their god; they prefer eating and drinking to all virtue, saying, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” reckoning these things as lasting and not as passing away.

For she who has trained herself in collecting money serves mammon instead of God, that is, she is a slave to gain, and cannot be pleasing to God nor obedient in his worship, being unable to intercede with him continually, since she has her mind and disposition set on collecting silver; for “where the treasure is, there also is” her “heart.”

For she turns over in her mind where she may go for gain, or that such-and-such a woman, her friend, has forgotten her and she ought to have a word with her. And she who thinks such things will no longer attend to her prayer, but to the thought that occurs to her. So even if she sometimes wishes to pray for someone, she will not be heard; for she does not offer her petition to the Lord with her whole heart, but with a divided mind.

But she who wishes to devote herself to God sits within and minds the things of the Lord, offering sincere petition night and day with an unceasing mouth. As, then, the most wise Judith, attested for her chastity, besought God night and day for Israel, so the widow who is like her will offer unceasing intercession to God for the church; and he will hear her, because her mind is fixed on this alone and is not given over to greed or to extravagant desire. Her eye is pure, her hearing clean, her hands undefiled, her feet quiet, and her mouth ready neither for gluttony nor for chatter, but speaking what is needful and partaking only of what is required for her sustenance. Being thus dignified and untroubled, she will be pleasing to God, and as soon as she asks anything, the gift will come before her: “For while you are still speaking,” he says, “I will say: Here I am.”

Being such, let her be free from love of money, not arrogant, not greedy for gain, not insatiable, not gluttonous, but self-controlled, gentle, untroubled, devout, modest, sitting in her house singing psalms, praying, reading, keeping vigil, fasting, conversing with God always in songs and hymns. [8] And taking wool to work, let her rather supply others than need anything herself, remembering the widow attested by the Lord in the Gospel, who “came into the temple and threw into the treasury the two lepta, which make a quadrans”; and Christ our Lord and Teacher, who knows the heart, seeing her, said: “Truly I say to you, this widow has put into the treasury more than all; for all put in out of their abundance, but she all the living that she had.” [Chapter 8.1] The widows, then, must be dignified, obedient to the bishops and the presbyters and the deacons, and also to the deaconesses, reverent, respectful, fearful, not acting on their own authority nor wishing to do anything contrary to the ordinance without the deacon’s consent — for instance, wishing to go to someone to eat or drink at his house, or to receive something from someone. And if, without being bidden, she does any one of these things, let her be punished with fasting or with exclusion as rash. [2] For what does she know of what kind of person the one is from whom she receives, or from what kind of service the food she is given comes? Whether from robbery or some other bad way of life? Does the widow not know that she will give account to God for each of these things, if she receives in a way unworthy of God? For neither will the priests ever accept a free-will offering from such people, such as a robber or a prostitute; for it is written: “You shall not covet what is your neighbour’s,” and, “You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute to the Lord your God.” One must not, then, receive from such people, nor indeed from those who are excommunicated. [3] Let the widows be ready to obey what is commanded them by their superiors, and let them act according to the bishop’s ordinance as obeying God. For whoever receives from such a notorious sinner or excommunicated person and prays for him, while he chooses to remain in his evils and will never repent, shares with him in prayer and grieves Christ, who turns away from the unjust; and he confirms them through their unworthy gift and is defiled with them, not letting them come to repentance so as to weep before God and entreat him.

As for women baptizing, we make known to you that there is no small danger for those who attempt it; therefore we do not advise it; for it is hazardous, or rather unlawful and impious.

For if “the man is the head of the woman,” and he is appointed to the priesthood, it is not right to set aside the order of creation and, leaving the head, to come to the last part of the body. For the woman is the body of the man, being taken from his side and subject to him, from whom she was also separated for the bearing of children. For “he,” it says, “shall rule over you”; for the man is the woman’s beginning, since he is also her head.

And if earlier we did not permit them to teach, how will anyone allow them, against nature, to act as priests? For this is the ignorance of the godlessness of the Greeks, to ordain priestesses for female goddesses, but it is no part of the ordinance of Christ.

And if it were necessary to be baptized by women, the Lord too would surely have been baptized by his own mother and not by John; or, when he sent us to baptize, he would have sent women with us for this. But as it is, he nowhere commanded it or handed it down in writing, knowing both the order of nature and the fitness of the matter, as being both the creator of nature and the lawgiver of the ordinance.

But neither do we permit the laity to perform any of the priestly works, such as the sacrifice, or baptism, or the laying on of hands, or the blessing, whether small or great.

For “no one takes the honour for himself, but he who is called by God”; for such a dignity is given through the laying on of the bishop’s hands.

But one to whom it has not been entrusted, but who has seized it for himself, will suffer the punishment of Uzziah.

But neither do we permit the other clergy to baptize, such as readers or singers or doorkeepers or servants, but only bishops and presbyters, with the deacons ministering to them.

Those who dare to do this will suffer the penalty of the followers of Korah.

And we do not permit presbyters to ordain deacons or deaconesses or readers or servants or singers or doorkeepers, but only the bishops; for this is the order and harmony of the church.

As to envy or jealousy or slander or strife or contentiousness, it has been said to you before that these are foreign to a Christian, and especially to widows.

But since the devil, who is at work, being cunning and many-sided, makes his entry into those who are not true widows, as once into Cain — for some say they are widows, but do not do the precepts worthy of widowhood, as Cain did not do the duties of a brother; for they do not know that it is not the name of widowhood that will bring them into the kingdom, but true faith and holy works — if, then, a woman has the name of widowhood but carries out the practices of the adversary, her widowhood will not be counted, but she will be thrust out of the kingdom and handed over to eternal punishment.

For we hear that some widows are jealous, envious, slanderous, begrudging others their relief; such women are not disciples of Christ or of his teaching.

For when a fellow widow of theirs has been clothed by someone, or has received money or food or drink or shoes, they ought, seeing their sister refreshed, to say:

“Blessed is God, who has refreshed my fellow widow. Bless, O Lord, and glorify the one who ministered to her, and may his work go up in truth to you, and may you remember him for good in the day of his visitation. And my bishop, who has served you well and taught that seasonable alms should be given to my fellow widow when she was naked — add glory to him, and give him a crown of boasting in the day of the revelation of your visitation.”

Likewise let the widow who has received the alms pray together with the one who gave her the help.

The woman who does good, however, should, as a wise woman, hide her own name, “not sounding a trumpet before” herself, so that the alms may be in secret before God, as the Lord says: “But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret”; and let the widow pray for the giver, whoever it may be, since she is a holy altar of God, “and the Father who sees in secret will reward” the one who did good “openly.”

But the widows who do not wish to live according to God’s commandment take care to find out who the woman was who gave help and who the women were who received it; and having learned it, one of them blames the woman who gave, saying: Did you not know that I was nearer to you than she, and more afflicted than she? Why then did you prefer her to me?

She says these things in her folly, not understanding that this was not the will of a man but the command of God. For if she testifies that she was nearer and in greater need and more naked than that woman, she ought to understand who gave the order, and to keep silent and not blame the woman who gave, but to go into her house, cast herself on her face, and entreat God that her transgression be forgiven her.

For God commanded the woman who does good not to make a show of her good deed; but this woman blamed her for not proclaiming her own name, so that she too, learning of it, might run to receive; and not only did she blame her, but she even cursed her, forgetting him who said: “He who blesses you is blessed, and he who curses you is cursed.”

And the Lord says: “When you enter a house, say: Peace to this house; and if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him; but if he is not worthy, your peace will return to you.”

If, then, peace returns to those who sent it out, because it did not find the others worthy of it, much more will a curse return upon the head of the one who sent it out unjustly, since the one to whom it was sent was not worthy to receive it.

For everyone who reviles without cause curses himself, as Solomon says: “As birds and sparrows fly away, so a vain curse will come upon no one”; and again he says: “But those who utter revilings are most foolish.”

And as the bee, weak in its strength, loses its sting and becomes barren when it stings someone, in the same way you too will bring upon yourselves whatever wrong you do to others. For “he dug a pit and hollowed it out, and he will fall into the hole that he made”; and again: “He who digs a pit for his neighbour will fall into it.” So let one who would escape a curse not curse another; for “what you hate to have done to you, you shall not do to another.”

Therefore admonish the disobedient, rebuke the shameless, encourage the faint-hearted, strengthen the weak, praise those who walk in holiness. Let them bless rather than revile, make peace and not stir up war.

Let neither bishop nor presbyter nor deacon nor anyone else on the roll of the priesthood defile his tongue with reviling, lest instead of a blessing he inherit a curse. And let the bishop be zealous and careful that no layman either utters a curse; for he must care for all — for clergy, for virgins, for widows, for laity.

Therefore, O bishop, appoint as your fellow workers, workers of life and righteousness, deacons who are pleasing to God, whom you have tested out of the whole people and found worthy and ready for the needs of the ministry. Appoint also a deaconess who is faithful and holy for the services to women. For there are times when you cannot send a male deacon to women in certain houses because of unbelievers; you will therefore send a woman deacon, because of the thoughts of the wicked.

For we need a woman deacon for many needs. And first, when women are being baptized, the deacon shall anoint only their forehead with the holy oil, and after him the deaconess shall anoint them; for there is no need for women to be looked upon by men.

But only at the laying on of hands shall the bishop anoint her head, as the priests and the kings were anointed of old — not that those who are now baptized are ordained priests, but as being Christians from Christ, “a royal priesthood and a holy nation, the church of God, the pillar and foundation” of the bridal chamber, who once were not a people but now are beloved and elect.

You, then, O bishop, after that pattern, shall anoint the head of those being baptized, whether men or women, with the holy oil, as a figure of the spiritual baptism. Then either you, the bishop, or the presbyter under you, pronouncing and naming over them the sacred invocation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, shall baptize them in the water; and let the deacon receive the man and the deaconess the woman, so that the conferring of the unbreakable seal may take place with dignity. And after this let the bishop anoint those who have been baptized with the chrism.

Baptism, then, is given into the death of Jesus; the water is in place of the burial, the oil in place of the Holy Spirit, the seal in place of the cross; the chrism is the confirmation of the confession;

the mention of the Father as cause and sender; the joint naming of the Spirit as witness;

the going down is dying with him; the coming up is rising with him.

The Father is the God over all; Christ is the only-begotten God, the beloved Son, the Lord of glory; the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, who is sent by Christ, taught by him, and proclaims him.

Let the one who is baptized be a stranger to all impiety, inactive toward sin, a friend of God, an enemy of the devil, an heir of the Father and a fellow heir of his Son, having renounced Satan and the demons and his deceits; chaste, pure, holy, God-loving, a son of God, praying as a son to his father and saying, as in the name of the common assembly of the faithful, thus:

“Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth; give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”; for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Let the deacons too be blameless in all things, like the bishop, only more active, in number proportioned to the size of the church, so that they can serve the infirm too, as “workers who need not be ashamed”; and let the woman be eager to care for the women; and let both be ready for carrying messages, for journeys, for service and ministry, as Isaiah said of the Lord: “to justify the righteous one who serves many well.”

Let each, then, know his own place and fulfil it zealously, with one mind and one soul, knowing the reward of the ministry.

And let them not be ashamed to serve those in need, as our Lord Jesus the Christ “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”; so they too must do. And if they must lay down their life for a brother, let them not hesitate; for neither did our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ hesitate, “laying down his life,” as he himself said, “for his friends.”

If, then, the Lord of heaven and earth endured all things for us, how could you hesitate to serve those in need, you who ought to be imitators of him who endured slavery and want and blows and the cross for us? You too, then, must serve the brothers as imitators of Christ; for “whoever wishes,” he says, “to be great among you, let him be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be your slave.”

For so he himself fulfilled “serving many well” in deed and not in word. For “taking a towel he girded himself; then he poured water into the basin”; and while we were reclining he came to all of us and “washed our feet and wiped them with the towel”; and in doing this he showed us his brotherly love, “so that we too might do this for one another.” If, then, our Lord and Teacher so humbled himself, how will you be ashamed to do this for the infirm and weak among the brothers, you who are workers of truth and champions of piety?

Serve, then, lovingly, without murmuring or quarrelling; for you do it not for man’s sake but for God’s, and you will receive the reward of your ministry from him in the day of your visitation.

You deacons, then, must visit all who need visiting, and report about the afflicted to your bishop; for you ought to be his soul and his senses, active and obedient to him in everything, as to your bishop and father and teacher.

We command that a bishop be ordained by three bishops, or at the least by two, and that you are not permitted to appoint one by a single bishop; for “the testimony of two or three” is firmer and safer. But a presbyter and a deacon are to be ordained by one bishop, and so the rest of the clergy.

Neither a presbyter nor a deacon may ordain clergy from among the laity; but the presbyter only teaches, offers, baptizes and blesses the people, and the deacon assists the bishop and the presbyters, that is, he serves, but does not perform the other functions.

When a Christian child is orphaned, whether a boy or a girl, it is good if one of the brothers who has no child takes the boy and keeps him in place of a son; and as for the girl, let one who has a son of an age to match her at the time of marriage join them together. For those who do this accomplish a great work, becoming fathers of orphans, and they will receive from the Lord God the reward of this service.

But if some are not so minded, but one walking in man-pleasing, being rich, is ashamed of the members of the orphans, “the Father of orphans and judge of widows” will provide for the orphan; but upon that man there will fall someone who will squander what he has spared, and the saying will be fulfilled in him: “What the holy did not eat, the Assyrians will eat,” as Isaiah too says: “Your land — strangers devour it before you.”

You, then, O bishops, take care of their upbringing, letting them lack nothing: giving the orphans what parents give, the widows what husbands give, marriage to those of marriageable age, work to the craftsman, compassion to the infirm, shelter to strangers, bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, visits to the sick, help to prisoners.

Besides this, let there be greater care for those who are orphans, that they may lack nothing: for the girl, until she reaches the age of marriage and you give her to a brother; for the boy, provision for him to learn a trade and be maintained from the support, so that when he has skilfully mastered the trade he may then be able to buy himself the tools of the trade, and so no longer burden the brothers’ sincere love for him, but provide for himself.

For truly blessed is he who, being able to help himself, does not encroach on the place of the orphan, the stranger and the widow; since the Lord too said that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

For again it has been said by him: “Woe to those who have and receive in hypocrisy, or who are able to help themselves and wish to receive from others; for each will give account to the Lord God in the day of judgment.”

For one who receives because of orphaned youth, or the weakness of old age, or the onset of sickness, or the feeding of many children, such a one will not only not be blamed but will be praised; for, being reckoned an altar to God, he will be honoured by God, praying without slackness and continually for those who give to him, not receiving idly, but repaying the gift, as far as he can, through his prayer. Such a one will be blessed by God in eternal life.

But one who has, and receives in hypocrisy or through idleness instead of working and helping others too, will be liable to punishment from God, because “he has snatched the bread of the poor.”

For one who has money and neither shares it with others nor uses it himself has taken the place of the serpent which, they say, sleeps on treasures; and true of him is the Scripture which says, “He gathered wealth of which he will not taste,” and there is no profit for him when he perishes from justice; for “possessions will not profit,” it says, “in the day of wrath.”

For such a one has not believed in God but in his own gold, regarding it as God and trusting in it; such a one is a counterfeiter of the truth, a respecter of persons, faithless, a dissembler, cowardly, unmanly, light-minded, fickle, a grumbler, miserable, an enemy to himself and a friend to no one.

His possessions will perish, and “a stranger will eat them,” either taking them from him while he lives or enjoying them when he is dead; for “wealth unjustly gathered will be vomited up.”

We exhort, then, the widows and the orphans to partake of what is supplied to them with all fear and all reverence, and to give thanks to God, “who gives food to the hungry,” and to lift up their eyes to him.

“For who,” it says, “will eat or who will drink apart from him?” For he opens his hand and fills every living thing with good pleasure: grain for young men and wine for maidens, and oil for the gladness of the living, grass for the cattle and green plants for the service of men, flesh for the wild beasts, seeds for the birds, and for all their proper food.

Therefore the Lord too says: “Consider the birds of the sky, that they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your Father feeds them; are you not of more value than they? Do not, then, be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink? For your Father knows that you need all these things.”

Since, then, you enjoy so great a providence from him and partake of the good things that come from him, you ought to send up praise to him “who receives the orphan and the widow,” the almighty God, through his beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom be glory to God in spirit and truth forever. Amen.

The bishop must know whose offerings he ought to receive and whose he ought not.

For he must beware of petty traders as givers; for “a petty trader will not be justified from sin.” For it was of them, somewhere, that Isaiah too spoke in reproach of Israel: “Your traders mix the wine with water.”

He must also avoid the sexually immoral — for “you shall not bring to the Lord the hire of a prostitute” — and the rapacious, those who covet what belongs to others, and adulterers; for their sacrifices are abominable to God. [4] But also those who oppress the widow and overpower the orphan and fill the prisons with the innocent, or treat their own servants wickedly — with blows, I mean, and hunger and cruel servitude — or even ravage whole cities: let them be avoided by you, O bishop, and their offerings are abominable.

You shall also refuse rogues, and advocates who fight on the side of injustice, makers of idols, thieves, unjust tax collectors, those who cheat with balances and false measures, and a soldier who is a false accuser, “not content with his wages, but extorting from the poor”; a murderer and an executioner and an unjust judge, an overturner of causes, a plotter against men, a worker of abominations, a drunkard, a blasphemer, a catamite, a usurer, and everyone else who is wicked and fights against the will of God; for the Scripture says that “all such are abominable before God.”

For those who receive from such people and feed widows and orphans with it will be answerable to the judgment seat of God, as Adonias the prophet in the books of the Kingdoms, who disobeyed God and ate bread and drank water in the place where the Lord had forbidden him to because of Jeroboam’s impiety, was also killed by a lion.

For the bread supplied to widows from honest labour is more just, even if it is short and little, than that from injustice and false accusation, even if it is plentiful and fine; for the Scripture says: “Better is a little for the righteous than the great wealth of sinners.”

And if a widow who has eaten and been filled from the ungodly prays for them, she will not be heard; for God, who knows the heart, has declared with judgment concerning the ungodly, saying: “If Moses and Samuel stand before my face for them, I will not hear them”; and: “And you, do not pray for this people, and do not ask that they be shown mercy, and do not come to me about them, for I will not hear you.”

And not only that, but those who are in sins and have not repented will not only not be heard when they pray, but will provoke God, reminding him of their own wickedness.

Avoid, then, such contributions, as “the price of a dog and the hire of a prostitute”; for both are forbidden by the laws.

For neither did Elisha accept what was brought by Hazael, nor Ahijah what came from Jeroboam; and if the prophets of God did not accept gifts from the ungodly, it is right that neither should you, O bishops. Moreover, “Simon” the magician, “offering money” to me, Peter, and to John, tried to obtain the priceless grace by purchase; we did not accept it, but bound him with eternal curses, “because he thought he could acquire the gift of God” not by good will toward God but “by an exchange of money.”

Flee, then, offerings brought to the altar of God with a bad conscience; for “Keep away,” it says, “from injustice, and you will not fear, and trembling will not come near you.”

But if you say, “These are the ones who give alms, and if we do not receive from them, from where will the widows and the needy among the people be served by us?”, you shall hear from us that it is for this that you received the gifts of the Levites, the offerings of the people among you: so that you might provide both for yourselves and for those in need, and not, pressed by want, receive from the wicked.

And if the churches are so poor, it is better to perish than to receive anything from the enemies of God, to the insult and mockery of his friends; for of such the prophet too says: “Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head.”

Be, then, examiners of such people: receive from those who walk in holiness and supply the afflicted, but do not receive from the excommunicated until they are counted worthy to be members of the church.

And if the gifts fall short, tell the brothers, and making a collection from them, minister to the orphans and the widows in righteousness.

Tell the people under you what Solomon the wise also said: “Honour the Lord from your just labours, and give him the first fruits of your fruits of righteousness, so that your storehouses may be filled with plenty of grain, and your winepresses overflow with wine.”

From the just labour of the faithful, then, feed and clothe those in want; and the money collected from them, as we said before, assign to the ransom of the saints, rescuing slaves, captives, prisoners, those who are mistreated, and those condemned by tyrants to gladiatorial combat and death for the name of Christ; for the Scripture says: “Rescue those who are led to death and redeem those about to be killed; do not spare.”

And if at some time you are forced against your will to receive money from some impious person, spend it on wood and charcoal, so that the widow or the orphan may not receive any of it and be forced to buy food or drink with it, against what is fitting; for it is right that such things from the ungodly should be fuel for the fire, not food for the godly.

And the Law too prescribes this, calling a sacrifice left over too late inedible and ordering it to be consumed by fire.

For the things offered are not evil by nature, but by the intention of those who bring them.

And we command this so that you may not turn away those who come near you, knowing that association with the godly has often been beneficial to the ungodly, and that only fellowship in worship is harmful.

Let this much, then, be said to you, beloved, for your safety.

You fathers, educate your children in the Lord, “bringing them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord,” and teach them trades that are suitable and befitting the word, lest through having leisure they grow wanton and, remaining unrebuked by their parents and gaining freedom before the time, break away from what is good.

Therefore do not be afraid to rebuke them, correcting them with seriousness; for you will not kill them by disciplining them, but rather save them, as Solomon too says somewhere in Wisdom: “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; so he will be a good hope to you; for you will strike him with the rod, but you will deliver his soul from death.” [3] And again the same says thus: “Whoever spares his staff hates his son”; and next: “Break his ribs while he is a child, lest he become hardened and disobey you.” So whoever refrains from admonishing and correcting his own son hates his own child.

Teach your children, then, the word of the Lord; restrain them even with beatings and make them submissive, teaching them from infancy “the sacred letters,” both ours and the divine, and handing on to them all divine Scripture; not giving them licence to lord it over you against your will, nor letting them meet their companions for drinking parties; for so they will turn aside to disorder and fall into sexual immorality.

And if they suffer this through their parents’ negligence, those who begot them will be guilty of their souls; for if through their parents’ carelessness they keep company with the dissolute, when the children sin they will not be punished alone, but their parents too will be judged on their account.

Therefore be eager to join them in marriage at the right age and to unite them, lest, when their youth is at its height and boiling over, habits of fornication result, and you be required to give account on the day of judgment by the Lord God.

Concerning servants, what more can we say than that the slave should bring goodwill to his master with the fear of God, even if the master is impious or wicked, but not, however, agreement with him in religion?

And let the master love the servant, even if he differs from him in rank, and let him regard what is equal between them, inasmuch as the servant is a human being.

And one who has a believing master, while his master’s authority is kept intact, should love him as master, as fellow believer and as father, not as an eye-servant but as one who loves his master, knowing that God will pay him the reward of his service.

Likewise let the master who has a believing servant, while the service is kept intact, love him as a son or as a brother, because of the fellowship of faith.

Be subject to every kingdom and authority in whatever is pleasing to God, as to “ministers of God and punishers of the wicked”; render to them all the fear that is owed them, every contribution, every tax, every honour, gift and poll tax.

For this is God’s ordinance, “to owe nothing to anyone except the token of love,” which God ordained through Christ.

Concerning virginity we have received no commandment, but we leave it to the free choice of those who wish it, as a vow, exhorting them only in this: not to promise anything rashly; for Solomon says: “It is good not to vow, rather than to vow and not pay.”

Let such a virgin, then, be holy in body and soul, as a temple of God, as a house of Christ, as a dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For she who has made the promise must, by doing works worthy of the promise, show that her profession is genuine and made for the sake of leisure for piety, not in disparagement of marriage.

Let her not be a gadabout, nor one who walks about at unsuitable times, nor double-minded, but dignified, self-controlled, sober, chaste, avoiding the company of the many, and especially of the disreputable.

If any Christian, on account of the name of Christ and his faith and love toward God, is condemned by the ungodly to the games, or to the beasts, or to the mines, do not overlook him, but from your labor and from your sweat send him something for his sustenance and for the pay of the soldiers, so that he may be relieved and cared for, and that, as far as lies with you, your blessed brother may not be afflicted.

For he who is condemned for the name of the Lord God is a holy martyr, a brother of the Lord, a son of the Most High, a vessel of the Holy Spirit, through whom each of the faithful has received “the light of the glory of the gospel,” by being counted worthy of the incorruptible crown and of the testimony of his sufferings and the fellowship of his blood, “being conformed to the death of Christ” for adoption.

For this reason all of you faithful, through your bishop, “minister” to the saints “from your possessions” and from your labor. And if anyone has nothing, let him fast for the day and set apart what it would have cost and assign it to the saints. And if anyone has abundance, let him minister to them more, in proportion to his means. And if he is able to sell his whole living and ransom them from prison, he will be blessed and a friend of Christ.

For if he who “gives his possessions to the poor” is “perfect,” after the knowledge of divine things, much more he who does so for martyrs. For such a one, having proved worthy of God, will fulfill his will by supplying those who confessed him “before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel,” of whom the Lord declared, saying: “Whoever confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father.”

And if they are such that they are borne witness to by Christ before the Father, you ought not to be ashamed to go to them in the prisons. For when you do this, it will be counted to you as a martyrdom, because for them the martyrdom was in deed, but for you for the present in willingness, as sharers in their contest.

For the Lord says somewhere to such people: “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer, saying: Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? or thirsty and give you drink? or naked and clothe you? or sick and visit you? or a stranger and take you in? or in prison and come to you?

And he will answer and say to them: Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. And these will go away into eternal life.”

But if anyone, calling himself a brother, is deceived by the evil one and does wrong, and is convicted and condemned to death as an adulterer or a murderer, separate yourselves from him, so that you may be beyond reproach, and that none of you may be suspected as a partner in the abomination and bring down blasphemy, as if all Christians rejoiced in lawless deeds. Therefore keep far away from them.

But those who for Christ's sake are spitefully shut up in prison by the ungodly, or handed over to death, or to bonds and exile, help with all zeal, rescuing your own members from lawless hands.

And if anyone who stands by them is seized and falls under torture, he is blessed, because he has become a partner of the martyrs and an imitator of the sufferings of Christ.

For we too, for Christ's sake, often received blows from Caiaphas and Alexander and Annas, and went out rejoicing that we were counted worthy to suffer such things for our Savior. And you too, rejoice when you suffer these things, for you will be blessed on that day.

And those who are persecuted for the faith and flee from city to city because of the Lord's command, receive them, supporting them and welcoming them as martyrs, rejoicing that you have become sharers in their persecution, knowing that they have been pronounced blessed by the Lord.

For he himself says: “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say every evil word against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

And again: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also”; and further: “If they persecute you in this city, flee to another”; for “in this world you have tribulation; for they will deliver you up to synagogues, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them; and he who endures to the end, he will be saved.”

For he who is persecuted for the faith, and bears witness concerning it, and endures, he is truly “a man of God.”

But he who denies that he is Christ's so as not to be hated by men, “having loved his own life more” than the Lord, “in whose hand is his breath,” is pitiable and wretched, as accursed and abominable; he wished to be a friend of men but is an enemy of God; he has taken his portion no longer with the saints but with the accursed; instead of “the kingdom of the blessed” he has longed for “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”; no longer hated by men, but rejected by God and cast out from his presence.

For concerning him the Lord declared, saying: “Whoever denies me before men and is ashamed of my name, I too will deny him and be ashamed of him before my Father who is in heaven.”

And again he says to his disciples, to us ourselves, thus: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

And further: “Do not fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

Everyone, then, who learns a craft, seeing his teacher perfect his craft by practice and experience, strives himself to make what is entrusted to him like it; but if he does not manage it, he is not perfected in the work.

So we too, having as our teacher our Lord Jesus the Christ, why do we not imitate his teaching?

For he renounced ease, luxury, glory, wealth, pride, power to defend himself, his mother and brothers, and even his own life, because of his piety toward the Father and his love for us, enduring not only persecution and scourges, reproach and mockery, but even being nailed to the wood, in order to save Jews and Greeks who repent.

If, then, he for our sake renounced rest, not being ashamed of the cross nor counting death a disgrace, why do we not imitate his sufferings and renounce, for his sake, even our very life, since he himself gives us endurance?

For he did it for our sake, but we for our own sake; for he has no need of us, but we of his mercy. He seeks only the genuineness and freedom of our faith, as the Scripture says: “If you are righteous, what will you give him, or what will he receive from your hand? Your ungodliness is for a man like you, and your righteousness for a son of man.”

Let us renounce, then, parents and kinsmen and friends and wife and children and possessions and the whole of life, whenever any of these is a hindrance to piety.

For we must “pray” that we “may not enter into temptation”; but if we are called to martyrdom, we must confess the precious name with steadfastness; and if we are punished for this, let us rejoice as hastening to immortality.

When persecuted, let us not be surprised; let us “not love the present age,” nor the praises of men, nor the glory and honor of rulers, as some of the Jews too, though they marveled at the Lord's works, did not believe in him for fear of the high priests and the rest of the rulers; “for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.”

And when we have confessed “the good confession,” we not only save ourselves but also confirm the newly enlightened and bring the catechumens to faith.

But if we give up any part of the confession, denying piety through slackness of resolve and fear of a very brief punishment, we not only deprive ourselves of eternal glory but will also become causes of destruction to others, and will undergo a double punishment, as having given ground, by our denial, for the suspicion that the truth once glorified by us is a teaching of error.

Therefore let us be neither rash nor reckless; for the Lord says: “Pray that you may not fall into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Nor yet, when we have fallen into it, let us shame the confession by cowardice.

For if someone denies his own hope, who is Jesus the Son of God, and is released from a temporary death, but tomorrow falls sick in bed with a very acute disease of the bowels or the stomach or the head, or some incurable affliction, putrefaction or gangrene or abscess or obstruction of the bowels or dropsy or colic, and comes to a swift end and departs from life, has he not been deprived of the things here and fallen from the things eternal, or rather landed within everlasting punishment, “having gone into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth”?

But let him who is counted worthy of martyrdom rejoice with joy in the Lord, as having attained so great a crown, and as making his departure from life through confession. And if he is a catechumen, let him depart without grief; for his suffering for Christ will be to him a more genuine baptism, because he dies with the Lord in reality, but the rest in a figure.

Let him rejoice, then, in imitating the Teacher, since it has been laid down beforehand: “Let everyone be perfected as his teacher.” And our Teacher, Jesus the Lord, was struck for our sake, endured blasphemies and reproaches with patience, was spat upon, buffeted, slapped, nailed to the cross after being scourged, was given vinegar and gall to drink, and when he had fulfilled all that was written, he said to his God and Father: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Therefore let him who prays to be his disciple emulate his contests and imitate his endurance, knowing that even if he is burned in fire by men he will suffer nothing, like the three youths, or if he does suffer anything, he will receive a reward from the Lord, believing in the one and only true God and Father through Jesus Christ, the great high priest, redeemer of souls and rewarder of contests, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

For the almighty God himself will raise us up through our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his unfailing promise, and will raise us with all who have fallen asleep since the beginning of the world, such as we are in our present form, having nothing lacking except corruption; for we shall rise incorruptible.

For whether we die at sea, or are scattered on the earth, or are torn apart by beasts or birds, he will raise us by his own power, because the whole world is held together by the hand of God. “Not a hair,” he says, “of your head shall perish.” Therefore he exhorts, saying: “In your endurance gain your souls.”

And concerning the resurrection of the dead and the reward of the martyrs, Gabriel says to Daniel: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting reproach; and those who understand shall shine like the sun and like the firmament and the stars.”

So the holy Gabriel foretold that the saints will shine forth as luminaries; for he, and his holy name too, bore witness that understanding the truth belongs to them. And the resurrection has been promised not only to the martyrs but to all men, righteous and unrighteous, pious and impious, so that each may pay according to his desert. “For God,” he says, “will bring every work into judgment, with every overlooked thing, whether good or evil.”

But the Jews of old, not believing this resurrection, said: “Our bones have become dry; we are lost”; to whom God answered and said: “Behold, I open your graves and will bring you up out of them, and I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I the Lord have spoken and will do it.”

And through Isaiah he says: “The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised, and those who rest in the earth shall rejoice, for the dew that comes from you is healing to them.”

Many other things, then, have been said about the resurrection, and about the abiding of the righteous in glory, and about the punishment of the ungodly: their fall, rejection, condemnation, disgrace, eternal fire, and undying worm.

And that he could have made all men immortal, had he wished, he showed by not allowing Enoch and Elijah to taste death. And that he is willing also to raise those who die in each generation, he made credible both by himself and through others, raising the widow's son through Elijah and the Shunammite's son through Elisha.

And we are persuaded that death is not a wage of punishment, since even saints underwent it, and even the Lord of the saints himself, Jesus the Christ, “the life of the faithful and the resurrection of the dead.”

For this reason, then, as with those living as citizens in a great city, he brings on, after the contests, the dissolution for a little while, so that, raising each one, he may either disown him or crown him.

For he who formed the body of Adam, and those of the rest, from earth will also raise the body both of the rest and of the first man after their dissolution. “For all those in the tombs,” he says, “will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

Besides these things, we believe that the resurrection will come about also from the Lord's resurrection. For it is he who raised Lazarus after four days, and the daughter of Jairus, and the widow's son, and who raised himself by the command of the Father within three days, he who is the pledge of our resurrection. He who brought Jonah out of the belly of the sea monster alive and unharmed after three days, and the three youths out of the Babylonian furnace, and Daniel out of the mouth of the lions, will not lack power to raise us also.

And if the Greeks mock, disbelieving our Scriptures, let at least their own prophetess, the Sibyl, convince them, who speaks to them in so many words somewhat as follows: “But when all things have already become dusty ash, and God, who kindled the fire, lays the fire to rest, God himself will again fashion the bones and ashes of men and will set mortals up again as they were before. And then there will be judgment, at which God himself will judge, judging the world again. And those who sinned in impiety, the earth will cover again; but as many as are pious will live again in the world, God giving them spirit and life and grace at once, to the pious; and then all will see themselves.”

If, then, even she confesses the resurrection and does not deny the regeneration, but distinguishes the pious from the impious, it is in vain that they disbelieve our teachings. [15] And yet they say that they can show the resurrection even in a particular case, though they do not believe what they themselves narrate. For they say that there is a certain bird, the only one of its kind, which provides a rich proof of the resurrection; they say that it is without a mate and alone in creation, and they call it the phoenix. They relate that every five hundred years it comes to Egypt, to the so-called altar of the sun, bringing a quantity of cinnamon, cassia, and balsam wood, and standing toward the east, as they say, and praying to the sun, it is consumed by fire of its own accord and becomes dust; and from the ashes a worm springs up, and this, being warmed, is formed into a newborn phoenix, and when it has become winged it sets off for Arabia, which lies beyond the Egyptian district. [16] If, then, as they themselves say, the resurrection is shown by means of an irrational bird, why do they vainly slander our teaching, when we confess that he who by his power brought what is not into being is able also to restore it to life after its dissolution? [17] For it is because of this full assurance that we endure scourges and persecutions and deaths, since we would have accepted such things in vain if we did not have full assurance of the things of which we profess to be heralds. [18] Just as, then, we have believed Moses when he said, “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and we know that he was not in need of matter, but by his will alone brought into being the things that Christ was commanded to make (I mean heaven, earth, sea, light, night, day, luminaries, stars, birds, swimming creatures, four-footed beasts, creeping things, plants, herbs), in the same way he will also raise all by his will, needing no help. [19] For it is the work of the same power to create the world and to raise the dead. And then he made man, who did not exist, out of various elements, giving him a soul out of what did not exist; but now he will restore the dissolved bodies to the souls that exist. For resurrection is of things that lie fallen, not of things that do not exist. [20] He, then, who made the first bodies out of nothing, and fashioned various things from them, will also make the dead alive and raise them. For he who forms man in the womb from a small seed and creates within him a soul that was not, as he himself says somewhere to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” and elsewhere, “I am the Lord, who makes firm the heaven and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him,” he himself will also raise all men, since they are his works, as the divine Scripture also testifies, which says that God said to his only-begotten Christ: “Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness; and God made man; according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them.” [21] And the most divine and steadfast Job, of whom the Scripture says that “it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises,” says to God: “Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews; you granted me life and mercy, and your oversight guarded my spirit. Having these things in myself, I know that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible for you.” [22] And David, beloved of God, says to God: “Your hands made me and fashioned me,” and again, “You know our frame,” and further, “You formed me and laid your hand upon me; your knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is mighty, I cannot attain to it. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book all shall be written.” And Isaiah too, praying to him, says: “We are the clay, and you are our potter.” [23] If, then, man is his workmanship, made through Christ, then surely, when he has died, he will rise again through him, either to be crowned for his good deeds or to be punished for his offenses. And if he judges with justice as lawgiver, then, just as he punishes the ungodly, so in his kindness he saves the faithful and the saints slain by men for his sake, making some bright as stars and others shine as luminaries, as Gabriel said to Daniel. [24] Since all the faithful, then, are disciples of Christ, let us believe his promises; for he who promised does not lie. And the blessed prophet David says: “The Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.” [25] For he who prepared a body for himself from a virgin is also the maker of other men, and he who raised himself from the dead will himself also raise all who lie dead. [26] He who raises wheat from the earth, many-eared from a single grain; who makes a tree that was cut down sprout again into a shoot; who made Aaron's rod, though it was dry, burst into bud: he himself will raise us also in glory. [27] He who raised up the paralytic whole, and healed the man who had the withered hand, and supplied the missing part to the man blind from birth from earth and spittle: the same will raise us also. [28] He who satisfied five thousand from five loaves and two fishes and had twelve baskets left over, and changed water into wine, and sent a stater from the mouth of a fish through me, Peter, to those demanding the tax: he will also raise the dead. [29] For all these things we bear witness concerning him, and the prophets the rest. [30] We who ate and drank with him, and were spectators of his wonders, and of his life and conduct and words and sufferings and death and his resurrection from the dead, and who spent forty days with him after his rising, and received from him the command “to preach the gospel to the whole world and to make disciples of all nations and to baptize into his death,” by the authority of the God of all, who is his Father, and the testimony of the Spirit, who is the Paraclete: we teach you all these things which he enjoined on us before he was taken up before our eyes into heaven, to him who sent him. [31] And if you believe, you will be blessed; but if you do not believe, we shall be found innocent and clean of your unbelief.

Concerning the martyrs we tell you that they should be held in all honor among you, as among us the blessed James the bishop and our holy fellow deacon Stephen have been honored.

For these have both been pronounced blessed by God and honored by holy men, pure of every fault, unswerving toward sin, not to be moved from what is good, beyond doubt as subjects of praise; of whom David too said, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones,” and Solomon, “The memory of the righteous is with praise,” and of whom the prophet also said, “Righteous men are taken away.”

These things have been said about those who have truly borne witness for Christ, but not about false martyrs, of whom the oracle says, “The name of the ungodly is quenched”; for “a faithful witness does not lie, but an unjust witness kindles falsehoods.”

For he who has gone forth in martyrdom without falsehood on behalf of the truth is a true martyr, worthy of credit in what he contended for, together with the word of piety, through his own blood.

We exhort you, brothers and fellow servants, to flee idle talk and obscene talk and coarse jesting, drunkenness, lust, luxury, and unmeasured anger together with foolish talk; for not even on the Lord's days, in your festivities, do we permit you to say or do anything unseemly. For the Scripture says somewhere: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling.”

So your rejoicings too must take place with fear and trembling. For the faithful Christian ought not to recite a pagan song or a lewd song, since it will happen that through the song he will make mention of the demonic names of idols, and instead of the Holy Spirit the evil one will enter into him.

It is forbidden also to swear by them, and to utter their abominable names with one's mouth, or to worship them or fear them as gods; for they are not gods, but either evil demons or works to be scorned.

For God says somewhere concerning the Israelites: “They forsook me and swore by those who are not gods,” and further, “I will remove the names of the idols from their mouth,” and elsewhere, “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god; they provoked me to anger with their idols.” And in all the Scriptures these things are forbidden by the Lord God.

And they not only forbid things concerning idols, but in their legislation about the luminaries too they exhort neither to swear by these nor yet to serve them; for they say: “Lest, seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, you be led astray and worship them,” and elsewhere, “Do not learn according to the ways of the nations, and do not be afraid of the signs of heaven.”

For the stars and the luminaries were given to men for light, not for worship, even if the Israelites, through depravity of character, “worshiped the creation instead of the Creator,” insulting the Maker and admiring the creation more than they ought; at one time making a calf, as in the wilderness, at another worshiping Baal of Peor, at another Baal and Tammuz and Astarte of the Sidonians, and again Molech and Chemosh, and at another time the sun, as is written in Ezekiel, and even irrational animals, like the Apis and the goat of Mendes among the Egyptians, and gods of silver and gold, as in Judea.

Because of all these things he threatened them, saying through the prophet: “Is it a small thing to the house of Judah to do these abominations which they have done, that they have filled the land with lawlessness to provoke me to anger? And behold, they are like mockers; and I will act with wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and they will cry in my ears with a loud voice, and I will not listen to them.”

You see, beloved, how many things the Lord declares against idolaters and those who worship the sun and moon.

Therefore “the man of God,” as a Christian, must not swear by the sun or the moon or the stars, nor yet by heaven or earth or any of the elements, small or great.

For if the Teacher commanded us concerning the true God “not to swear,” so that our word may be more trustworthy than an oath, “nor yet by heaven itself” (for the impiety is Greek), “nor yet by Jerusalem, or the holy things of God, or the altar and the gift, or the gold of the temple, or one's own head” (for the custom belongs to Jewish corruption and so must be forbidden), and enjoins the faithful to have “yes, yes” and “no, no,” and says that “what is more than these is from the evil one”: how much more are they liable to judgment who swear by falsely named gods as by oaths and glorify supposed gods instead of the true one? These God, for their depravity, gave up to senselessness, to do what is not fitting.

Keep the days of the feasts, brothers, and first the Nativity, which is to be celebrated by you on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month.

After this let the Epiphany be most honored by you, on which the Lord made to you the manifestation of his own divinity; and let it take place on the sixth of the tenth month.

After these you must keep the fast of the forty days, which contains a memorial of the Lord's way of life and lawgiving. Let this fast be kept before the fast of the Pascha, beginning on Monday and ending on Friday.

After which, ending that fast, begin the holy week of the Pascha, all fasting during it with fear and trembling, praying in those days for those who are perishing.

For they began to take counsel against the Lord on the second day of the week, in the first month, which is Xanthicus; and on the third day of the week the deliberation went on, and on the fourth they decided to put him to death on a cross.

And Judas, knowing this, having long been perverted, and then struck by the devil himself with love of money (although he had long been entrusted with the money bag and stole what belonged to the poor, he was not cast off by the Lord because of his long-suffering), but once, as we were dining with him, the Lord, wishing both to bring him to his senses and to teach us his foreknowledge, says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

And when each of us said, “Is it I?” and the Lord was silent, I, one of the twelve, loved by him more than the others, rose and, leaning on his breast, begged him to say who it was who would betray him; and not even then did the good Lord tell us his name, but he gave two signs of the traitor, first saying, “He who dips with me in the dish,” and second, “He to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it.”

And yet, when he too said, “Is it I, Rabbi?” the Lord did not say “Yes,” but “You have said it”; and wishing to frighten him by this, he says: “Woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed; it would have been good for him if he had not been born.”

And having heard this, he went away and said to the priests: “What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?” And they set for him thirty pieces of silver.

And on the fifth day, when we had eaten the Pascha with him, and that man had dipped his hand in the dish and taken the morsel and gone out at night, the Lord said to us: “The hour has come for you to be scattered and to leave me alone”; and when each insisted that he would not abandon him, and I, Peter, promised even to die with him, he said: “Truly I tell you, before the cock crows, you will deny three times that you know me.”

And having delivered to us the antitypical mysteries of his precious body and blood, Judas not being present with us, “he went out to the Mount of Olives, near the brook Kidron, where there was a garden”; and we too were with him, and we sang a hymn, according to custom.

And going a little way from us, he prayed to the Father, saying: “Father, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” And when he had done this a third time, and we had fallen asleep from despondency, he came and said: “The hour has drawn near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

And behold, Judas, and with him a crowd of ungodly men; and he shows them a treacherous kiss as the sign of betrayal; and they, receiving the signal, seized the Lord and, having bound him, led him into the house of Caiaphas the high priest, in which there had gathered not a people but a mob, not a holy council of elders but a sanhedrin of lawless men and a council chamber of the ungodly. And they, after doing many things against him, left out no kind of outrage: spitting on him, taunting, striking, slapping, reviling, testing him, seeking divination instead of prophecy, calling him a dissembler, a blasphemer, a transgressor of Moses, a destroyer of the temple, an abolisher of sacrifices, an enemy of the Romans, an opponent of Caesar.

And after abusing him in this way until early dawn, “the bulls and the dogs” lead him away to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas; and when they had done similar things there, it being the day of Preparation, they handed him over to the ruler of the Romans, Pilate, accusing him of many grave things, none of which they could prove; at which the ruler, vexed, said: “I find no charge against him.” [11] And they, bringing two false witnesses, wanted to slander the Lord; but when these were found not to agree, they turned the matter into a charge of treason, saying: “This man says that he is a king, and forbids giving tribute to Caesar.”

And they themselves become accusers and witnesses and judges and the authors of the sentence, saying: “Crucify, crucify him,” so that what is written about him in the Prophets might be fulfilled: “Unjust witnesses gathered against me, and injustice lied to itself,” and again, “Many dogs surrounded me; a congregation of evildoers enclosed me,” and in other places, “My inheritance became to me like a lion in the forest; it gave its voice against me.”

Pilate, then, having disgraced his office by cowardice, convicts himself of wickedness, courting the crowds in preference to justice, and while bearing witness to him as blameless, yet handing him over to the punishment of the cross as guilty, although the laws of the Romans laid down that no one should die without being convicted.

And the executioners, taking the Lord of glory, nailed him to the wood, crucifying him at the sixth hour, having received the sentence about him at the third hour. [15] Then “they gave him vinegar to drink with gall”; then “they divided his garments by lot”; then they crucified two criminals with him, one on each side, so that what was written might be fulfilled, “They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink,” and again, “They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots,” and in other places, “And I was reckoned with the lawless.” [16] Then “there was darkness for three hours, from the sixth to the ninth,” and light again toward evening, as it is written, “And it shall be neither day nor night, and toward evening there shall be light.” [17] And about the ninth hour he cried out and said to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And a little later, crying with a loud voice, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and adding, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” he breathed his last; and he is buried before sunset in a new tomb. [18] And as the first day of the week was dawning, he rose from the dead and fulfilled what he had foretold to us before his passion, saying, “The Son of Man must spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” [19] And having “risen” from the dead, he appears “first to Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James,” then to Cleopas on the road, and after this to us his disciples, who had fled for fear of the Jews but were secretly inquiring into what concerned him. These things are also written in the Gospel. [20] He himself, then, commanded us to fast these six days because of the impiety and lawlessness of the Jews, bidding us mourn and lament over them for their destruction; for he himself too “wept over them, since they did not know the time of their visitation.” And he commanded us to fast on Wednesday and Friday, the one because of the betrayal, the other because of the passion; and he commanded us to break the fast on the seventh day at cockcrow, but to fast on the Sabbath itself, not because one ought to fast on the Sabbath, since it is the rest from creation, but because on that one alone one must fast, the Creator being still under the earth on it. [21] For on their very feast they seized the Lord, so that the oracle might be fulfilled which says, “They set up their signs in the midst of their feast, and they did not know.” We must, then, mourn for them, because when the Lord came they did not believe him, but shook off his teaching, judging themselves unworthy of salvation.

You, then, are blessed, “who once were not a people, but now a holy nation,” delivered from the error of idols, from ignorance, from impiety; “who had not received mercy, but now have received mercy” through the obedience of your heart.

For to you of the Gentiles the gate of life has been opened, who once were not loved but now are loved, “a people for possession” of God, appointed to proclaim his virtues; of whom the Savior said: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I became manifest to those who did not ask for me; I said, Behold, here I am, to the nation that did not call on my name.”

For though you did not seek him, you were once sought by him; and you, believing in him, obeyed his call, abandoning the madness of many gods and taking refuge in the true monarchy, in the almighty God through Jesus Christ, having become the fullness of the number of the saved, “ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands,” as is written in David.

But to unbelieving Israel he says: “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people, who walk in a way that is not good, but after their sins, a people that provokes me before my face.”

See, then, how the people provoked the Lord by not believing him. Therefore he says: “They provoked the Holy Spirit, and he was turned into enmity against them.”

For blindness was poured over them because of their ill will, since, seeing Jesus, they did not believe that he was the Christ of God, begotten of him before all ages, the only-begotten Son, God the Word, whom they did not recognize through unbelief, neither through his works nor through the prophecies written about him.

For that he would be born of a virgin they read: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel”; and that “a child was born, a son also was given, whose rule is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of great counsel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come.”

And that because of their surpassing wickedness they would disobey him, he says: “Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” and further, “Hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the heart of this people has grown dull.”

Therefore knowledge was taken from them, because seeing they overlooked and hearing they did not hear; but to you of the Gentiles the kingdom was given, because, though you did not know God, believing through the preaching you came to know him, or rather were known by him, through Jesus the Savior and Redeemer of those who hope in him.

For having passed over from your former custom of fruitless toil, and disdaining lifeless idols and despising the demons who dwell in darkness, you ran to the true light, and having “come to know” through him “the one and only true God” and Father, you have been shown to be heirs of his kingdom.

For having been “baptized into the Lord's death” and into his resurrection, “as newborn infants” you ought to be inactive toward every sin; “for you are not your own, but his who bought you” with his own blood.

For concerning the former Israel the Lord said, because of their unbelief, that “the kingdom of God will be taken from them and given to a nation producing its fruits”; that is to say, having given the kingdom to you, who were once far estranged from him, he awaits the fruits of your gratitude.

For you are the ones who were once sent into the vineyard and did not obey, and they are the ones who obeyed; but you, having repented of your refusal, now work in it, while they, chafing at their own covenants, not only left the vineyard uncultivated but also killed the stewards of the Lord of the vineyard, one with stones, another with the sword; one they sawed in two, another they slew inside the temple, “between the sanctuary and the altar”; and at last they even “cast the heir himself out of the vineyard and killed him.” [10] And by them he was rejected as a useless stone, but by you he was received as the cornerstone. Therefore he says concerning you: “A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear it obeyed me.”

You must, then, brothers, who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, keep the days of the Pascha exactly, with all care, after the equinox, so that you do not make memorial of the one passion twice in a year, but once a year of him who died once, no longer taking care to keep the feast with the Jews.

For we now have no fellowship with them; for they have gone astray even in the very reckoning which they think they observe, so that they are astray on every side and cut off from the truth. [3] But you, keep exactly the equinox of the spring season, which falls on the twenty-second of the twelfth month, which is Dystrus, watching until the twenty-first of the moon, so that the fourteenth of the moon may not fall in another week, and that we may not, through an error made in ignorance, celebrate the Pascha twice in the year, or celebrate on another day the day of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, but on the Lord's day only.

In the days of the Pascha, then, fast, beginning from Monday until Friday and Saturday, six days, using only bread and salt and vegetables, and water to drink; but abstain from wine and meat during these days, for they are days of mourning, not of festival.

But on Friday and Saturday fast entirely, those of you who have such strength, tasting nothing until the cockcrow of the night; and if anyone cannot join the two days together, let him at least keep the Saturday. For the Lord himself says somewhere, speaking of himself: “When the bridegroom is taken away from them, they will fast in those days.”

For in these days he was taken from us by the falsely named Jews and fastened to the cross, “and was reckoned with the lawless.”

Therefore we exhort you too to fast these days, as we also fasted until evening when he was taken from us; but on the other days before Friday let each eat at the ninth hour or in the evening, or as each is able; but from the evening of Thursday until cockcrow, breaking your fast

when the first day of the week, which is the Lord's day, is dawning. From evening until cockcrow keep vigil, assembling together in the church; watch, praying and beseeching God in your night-long vigil, reading the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms until the crowing of the cocks; and having baptized your catechumens, and read the Gospel with fear and trembling, and spoken to the people what pertains to salvation, cease from your mourning, and beseech God that Israel may be converted and receive a place of repentance and the forgiveness of its impiety. [4] For the foreign judge washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man; see to it yourselves”; but Israel cried out, “His blood be on us and on our children”; and when Pilate said, “Shall I crucify your king?” they cried out, “We have no king but Caesar; crucify him, crucify him; for everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar, and if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.”

And Pilate the governor and Herod the king ordered him to be crucified, and the oracle is fulfilled which says: “Why did the nations rage and the peoples devise vain things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ”; and “they cast away” the beloved “like an abominable corpse.”

And when he was crucified on Friday and rose as the Lord's day was dawning, the Scripture was fulfilled which says: “Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you will inherit among all the nations,” and again, “Now I will arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety; I will speak boldly in it,” and “But you, O Lord, have mercy on me and raise me up, and I will repay them.”

Therefore you too, now that the Lord is risen, offer your sacrifice, concerning which he gave you command through us, saying, “Do this for my remembrance”; and thereafter break your fast, rejoicing and keeping festival, because Jesus the Christ, the pledge of your resurrection, has been raised from the dead; “and let this be to you a perpetual ordinance until the consummation of the age, until the Lord comes.”

For to the Jews the Lord is still dead, but to Christians he is risen: to the one through unbelief, to the other through full assurance; for the hope in him is immortal and eternal life.

And after eight days let there again be an honored feast for you, the eighth day itself, on which he gave full assurance to me, Thomas, who was doubtful about the resurrection, showing me the prints of the nails and the wound made by the spear in his side.

And again, counting forty days from the first Lord's day, from the Lord's day to the Thursday, celebrate the feast of the ascension of the Lord, on which, having fulfilled the whole dispensation and ordinance, he went up to God the Father who sent him, sitting at the right hand of the Power and waiting until his enemies are placed under his feet; who will also come at the consummation of the age with power and great glory, to judge the living and the dead and “to render to each according to his works”; and then “they will see” the beloved Son of God, “whom they pierced,” and recognizing him “they will mourn over themselves, tribe by tribe, and their wives by themselves.”

For even now, on the tenth of the month Gorpiaeus, they assemble and read the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which it is said, “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their corruptions,” and Baruch, in which it is written, “This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. He found out every way of knowledge and showed it to Jacob his servant and to Israel, who was beloved by him; afterward he appeared on earth and lived among men.” And when they read, they beat their breasts and lament, as they themselves suppose, over the desolation that took place under Nebuchadnezzar, but, as the truth is, they are unwillingly making a prelude to the mourning that is about to overtake them.

And ten days after the ascension, which is the fiftieth from the first Lord's day, let there be a great feast for you; for on it, at the third hour, the Lord Jesus sent to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we were filled with his working and spoke with new tongues, as he prompted within us, and we preached to Jews and Gentiles that he is the Christ of God, appointed by him judge of the living and the dead.

To him Moses bore witness, saying, “The Lord received fire from the Lord and rained it down.” Him Jacob saw as a man and said, “I have seen God face to face, and my soul was preserved.” Him Abraham entertained as a guest and confessed as judge and as his own Lord.

Him Moses beheld in the bush; concerning him he said in Deuteronomy, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers like me; you shall listen to him in all things, whatever … of that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among its people.”

Him Joshua the son of Nun saw as “the commander of the army of the Lord,” fully armed, an ally against Jericho, and he fell down and worshiped him as a servant his master. Knowing him as the Christ of God, Samuel called the priests and the kings “christs.”

Knowing him, David sang the song about him, saying, “A song for the beloved,” and, applying it to his person, he said: “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, in your comeliness and your beauty, and bend your bow and prosper and reign, for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness, and your right hand shall guide you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharp, O mighty one; peoples shall fall under you, in the heart of the king's enemies. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”

Concerning him Solomon too said, as in his person: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; in the beginning, before he made the earth, before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills, he begets me”; and again, “Wisdom has built herself a house.”

Concerning him Isaiah too said, “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root; and there shall be the root of Jesse, and he who rises up to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope”; and Zechariah, “Behold, your king comes, righteous and saving; he is meek, and mounted on a donkey and a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”

Daniel says that he is “a son of man” “coming” to the Father and receiving from him all judgment and honor, and “a stone cut out from a mountain without hands,” which became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, shattering the many rules of local principalities and the polytheism of the godless, and proclaiming the one God and appointing the monarchy of the Romans.

Concerning him Jeremiah too, prophesying, said, “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their corruptions, of whom we said, In his shadow we shall live among the nations”; and Ezekiel too, and the prophets in succession, everywhere declare that he is the Christ, the Lord, King, Judge, Lawgiver, Angel of the Father, only-begotten God.

Him, then, we too proclaim to you and preach as God the Word, who ministers to his God and Father in the creation of all things; believing in him you will live, but disbelieving you will be punished. For “he who disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

After you have celebrated Pentecost, then, celebrate one week, and after that fast one; for it is right both to rejoice in the gift from God and to fast after the relaxation. [15] For Moses and Elijah fasted forty days, and “Daniel for three weeks of days ate no pleasant bread, and meat and wine did not enter his mouth”; and the blessed Hannah, asking for Samuel, says, “I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, and I will pour out my soul before the Lord.”

And the Ninevites, fasting three days and three nights, escaped the trial of wrath; and Esther and Mordecai and Judith, by fasting, escaped the uprising of the ungodly, of Holofernes and Haman; and David says, “My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh is changed for want of oil.”

You too, then, when you fast, ask of God your petitions. [18] And after the week of fasting we command you to fast every Wednesday and every Friday, and to supply to the poor what you save by your fasting.

But keep festival on every Sabbath except the one, and on every Lord's day, holding assemblies; for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord's day, since it is the day of resurrection, or who is downcast at Pentecost or at any feast day of the Lord at all; for one must rejoice on them, not mourn.

Above all, O bishops, guard against the terrible, grievous, and unlawful heresies, fleeing them as a fire that burns those who come near it. Flee also schisms. For it is neither lawful to turn the mind aside to unholy heresies, nor lawful, out of love of rule, to separate from those of the same mind.

For some who of old dared to attempt these things did not escape punishment. For Dathan and Abiram, setting themselves against Moses, were swallowed up into the earth, and Korah and the two hundred and fifty with him, having risen in faction against Aaron, became fuel for fire; and Miriam, having reproached Moses as one who had lain with a foreign woman, was cast outside the camp for seven days; for she said that Moses had taken an Ethiopian wife.

And not only these, but also Azariah, also called Uzziah, who was king of Judah, daring to usurp the priesthood and wishing to burn the incense, which was not fitting for him, when he was forbidden by Azariah the high priest and the eighty priests and did not obey, broke out in leprosy on his forehead and hastened to go out, because the Lord had rebuked him.

Let us consider, then, beloved, what the fame of those who rebelled was, and what sort of sentence was passed on them. For if he who rises against kings deserves punishment, even if he is a son or a friend, how much more he who rises up against priests? For as much as the priesthood is better than the kingship, having its contest concerning the soul, so much heavier is the punishment of him who dares to set himself against it than of him who does so against the kingship.

And yet not one of them went unpunished; for neither Absalom and Abeddadan remained unpunished, nor Korah and Dathan. For the first rose up against David over the kingdom, the others against Moses over the primacy, as rivals.

And Absalom spoke evil of David his father as an unjust judge, saying to each one, “Your words are good, and there is no one to hear you and justify you; who will make me ruler?”

And Abeddadan: “I have no portion,” he says, “in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse,” plainly resenting being ruled by David, of whom God said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.”

And Dathan and Abiram and the Korahites said to Moses, “Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of the land of Egypt, out of a land flowing with honey and milk? And why have you put out our eyes? And are you ruling over us?” And they raised a great assembly against him.

And the Korahites: “Has God spoken to Moses alone? Why has he given the high priesthood to Aaron alone? Is not the whole congregation of the Lord holy? And why does Aaron alone serve as priest?”

And before these another said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” … to him who had parted the waters on this side and that like a wall, and led the people as through a dry desert, and drowned Pharaoh and the Egyptians and all who were with them; who sweetened a spring for them by means of wood, and brought forth water for them from the sheer rock when they were thirsty; who gave them manna from heaven and meat from the air; who provided them with a pillar of fire at night for light and guidance and a pillar of cloud for shade by day because of the heat of the sun; who provided them with the law of God, from the mouth and hand and writing of God, engraved on tablets of stone, a decalogue of perfect number; “with whom God spoke face to face, as one would speak to his own friend”; of whom he said, “And there has not arisen a prophet like Moses.” [3.2] Against him the Korahites and the Reubenites rose up, and threw stones at Moses as he prayed and said, “Do not regard their sacrifice”; and the glory of God appeared and brought some down into the earth and burned up others with fire; and so the leaders of the error of the schism, who said, “Let us appoint a leader for ourselves”: “the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their tents and their belongings, and they went down alive into Hades; and the Korahites he destroyed by fire.”

If, then, God at once brought punishment on those who split off out of love of rule, how much more on those who have led the way in ungodly heresies? Will he not bring a more severe penalty on those who blaspheme his providence or his creation?

But you, brothers, instructed from the Scripture, guard against making schisms of opinion or of your union, because those who originate an unlawful opinion are set up as marks of destruction for the peoples.

Likewise you laity too, do not draw near to those who teach doctrines contrary to the mind of God, nor become partners of their impiety; for God also says, “Separate yourselves from the midst of these men, so that you do not perish with them,” and again, “Come out from their midst and be separated, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean, and I will receive you.”

For those who blaspheme God are truly to be shunned; for most of the ungodly have ignorance of God, but these are sick with malice as fighters against God; for from the wickedness of the heretics “pollution has gone forth over all the earth,” as Jeremiah the prophet says.

For since the wicked synagogue has been cast off by the Lord God and the house rejected by him, as he says somewhere, “I have forsaken my house, I have left my inheritance,” and again, “I will abandon my vineyard, and it shall not be pruned nor dug, and thorns shall come up on it as on waste land, and I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it”;

having therefore forsaken the people “like a booth in a vineyard and like a hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city,” and having taken from them also the Holy Spirit and the prophetic rain, he filled his own church with spiritual grace like the river of Egypt in the days of new produce, and exalted it like a house on a mountain, or like a towering mountain, a curdled mountain, a fat mountain, in which God was pleased to dwell; “for the Lord will dwell there to the end”; and in Jeremiah he says, “A throne of glory exalted is our sanctuary,” and in Isaiah he says, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills.”

Since, then, he forsook the people and left the temple desolate, “having torn the veil of the temple” and taken the Holy Spirit from them (“for behold,” he says, “your house is left to you desolate”), and gave the spiritual grace to you of the Gentiles, as he says through Joel, “And it shall be after these things,” says God, “I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons will prophesy, and your daughters will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams”: for God took away from that people every power of the word and of working, and such oversight, and placed it in you of the Gentiles.

For because of this the devil too, envious of the holy church of God, moved over to you, raising against you afflictions, persecutions, disorders, blasphemies, schisms, heresies. For that people he brought under his power through the killing of Christ, but you, who have departed from his vanity, he tempts at different times in different ways, as he did the blessed Job.

For he opposed the great high priest Joshua the son of Jozadak, and he has often demanded to have us watered down, that our faith may fail.

But our Lord and Teacher, bringing him to judgment, said to him, “The Lord rebuke you, devil, and the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you; is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” And he who then said to those standing by the high priest, “Take the filthy garments off him,” and added, “Behold, I have taken away your iniquities from you,” he will say now too, as he said of old about us when we were gathered together, “I have prayed that your faith may not fail.”

The Jewish multitude too, then, had wicked heresies.

For the Sadducees were of them, who do not confess the resurrection of the dead;

and the Pharisees, who ascribe the conduct of sinners to chance and fate;

and the Masbothaeans, who deny providence and say that things exist by spontaneous motion, and cut away the immortality of the soul;

and the Hemerobaptists, who do not eat unless they bathe every day, and use none of their beds and dishes, bowls and cups and seats unless they cleanse them with water;

and the Ebionites, who have appeared among us now, who would have the Son of God be a mere man, making him born of the pleasure of a man and the union of Joseph and Mary;

but those who have separated themselves from all these and keep the ancestral customs are the Essenes.

These things, then, were among the former people; and now the evil one, being wise to do evil and ignorant of whatever is good, has cast out some from among us and worked heresies and schisms in them.

The beginning of the new heresies came about as follows. A certain Simon, a Samaritan from a village called Gitthae, a magician by trade, the devil put on and made the servant of his wicked purpose.

When Philip our fellow apostle, by the gift of the Lord and the working of his Spirit, was performing powerful deeds of healing in Samaria, so that the Samaritans were astonished and came to faith in the God of all and the Lord Jesus and were baptized into his name; and when Simon himself too had seen signs and wonders performed without any magical trickery, and had fallen into amazement, and had believed and been baptized and continued in fasting and prayer: we, having heard of the grace of God that had come to the Samaritans through Philip, came to them, and contributing much in the word of teaching, we laid our hands on all the baptized and with prayers gave them a share in the Spirit. [3] And Simon, seeing that the Spirit was given to those who believed through the laying on of our hands, took money and offered it to us, saying, “Give me also this authority, so that whoever I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit”; wishing, as he had deprived Adam by the tasting of the tree of the immortality that had been promised, so also to bewitch us by the receiving of money and cut us off from the gift of God, so that, making an exchange, we might sell to him for money the priceless gift of the Spirit.

And when we were all troubled at this, I, Peter, fixing my eyes on the wicked serpent in him, said to Simon, “Your silver perish with you, because you thought to acquire the gift of God through money; you have no part in this word nor lot in this faith, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to God, if perhaps the intent of your heart may be forgiven you; for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”

Then indeed Simon, becoming afraid, said, “I beseech you, pray for me to the Lord, that none of the things you have said may come upon me.”

But when we went out among the Gentiles to preach the word of life in the world, then the devil worked in the people to send false apostles after us for the profanation of the word; and they put forward a certain Cleobius and joined him with Simon. And these become disciples of a certain Dositheus, whom they also outdid and thrust out of the leadership. Then others again began other strange doctrines: Cerinthus and Marcus and Menander and Basilides and Saturninus.

Of these, some glorify many gods, others three that are opposed, without beginning, ever coexisting with one another, others infinite and unknown ones; and some reject marriage, holding that it is not the work of God, and others abhor certain foods, while others shamelessly commit sexual immorality, like the falsely named Nicolaitans of the present.

Simon, then, first met me, Peter, in Caesarea of Strato, where the faithful Cornelius, being a Gentile, believed in the Lord Jesus through me, and he tried to pervert the word of God, there being present with me the holy children, Zacchaeus, once a tax collector, and Barnabas, and Nicetes and Aquila, brothers of Clement, bishop and citizen of the Romans, who was a disciple also of Paul our fellow apostle and fellow worker in the gospel; and having disputed with him a third time in their presence, concerning the word about the prophet and concerning the monarchy of God, I defeated him by the power of the Lord, and having reduced him to silence I put him to flight into Italy.

And when he came to Rome, he greatly troubled the church, overturning many and winning them over to himself, and astonishing the Gentiles with magical skill and the working of demons, so that once, coming forward at midday into their theater and bidding the people to seize me too and bring me, he promised in the theater to fly through the air.

And while all were in suspense at this, I was praying by myself; and indeed, lifted up by demons, he flew aloft into the air, saying that he was ascending into the heavens and would supply good things to them from there. And as the people acclaimed him as a god, I stretched out my hands to heaven with my whole mind and besought God through the Lord Jesus to dash down the corrupter and to cut off the power of the demons, who were using it for the deceit and destruction of men, and, in dashing him down, not to kill him but to break him.

And taking up the word, I fixed my eyes on Simon and said, “If I am a ‘man of God’ and a true apostle of Jesus Christ and a teacher of piety, not of error like you, Simon, I command the evil powers of the apostate from piety, by whom Simon the magician is carried, to let go their hold, so that he may be brought down from the height, to the mockery of those deceived by him.” And when I had said this, Simon, cut off from the powers, was brought down with a great crash, and being violently dashed he broke his hip and the soles of his feet.

And a voice of the crowds said, “There is one God, whom Peter rightly proclaims in truth, him alone.” And many withdrew from him; but some, being worthy of his destruction, remained in his wicked teaching.

And so the most godless heresy of the Simonians was first planted in Rome, and through the rest of the false apostles the devil was at work.

And all these alike had one and the same aim of godlessness: to blaspheme the almighty God; to hold that he is unknown and not the Father of Christ nor the Maker of the world, but unspeakable, ineffable, unnameable, self-begotten; not to use the Law and the Prophets; that there is no providence; not to believe in the resurrection; that there is no judgment and recompense; that the soul is not immortal; to delight in pleasure alone and to turn aside indifferently to every worship.

For some say that there are more gods, others three without beginning, others two unbegotten, others infinite aeons; and some of them teach abstinence from marriage, and from meat and wine, saying that marriage and the begetting of children and the partaking of food are abominable, so that, as holy persons, they may cause their wicked opinion to be accepted as trustworthy; and some of them legislate abstinence from meat not as from irrational animals, but as from animals that have a rational soul, and that those who dare to slaughter them will pay the penalty for murder.

Others of them said that one must abstain only from pork, but eat what is clean according to the law, and be circumcised according to the law, and believe in Jesus as in a holy man and a prophet; and others taught to commit sexual immorality shamelessly and to misuse

the flesh, and to pass through every unholy deed, as if only so would the soul escape the rulers of the world. And all these are instruments of the devil and “sons of wrath.”

But we, “children of God” and “sons of peace,” proclaiming the holy and right word of piety, announce one only God, Lord of the Law and the Prophets, Maker of all that exists, Father of Christ; not self-caused and self-begotten, as they suppose, but eternal and without beginning and “dwelling in unapproachable light”; not second or third or one of many, but alone eternally; not unknown or unspeakable, but proclaimed through the Law and the Prophets; almighty, ruler of all, all-powerful;

God and Father of the only-begotten and firstborn of all creation; one God, Father of one Son, not of more; maker, through Christ, of one Paraclete and of the other orders;

one Creator, maker through Christ of a varied creation; the same the provider, lawgiver through him, the author, through him, of resurrection and judgment and recompense;

and that this same one was pleased to become man, and lived without sin, and suffered and died and rose from the dead and went up to him who sent him.

“Every creature of God is good,” we say, “and nothing is abominable”; everything that is rightly partaken of for sustenance is excellent; for according to the Scripture “all things” are “very good.”

We believe that lawful marriage and the begetting of children are honorable and undefiled; for the difference of forms was fashioned in Adam and Eve for the increase of the human race.

We confess that the soul in us is incorporeal and immortal, not corruptible like bodies, but immortal, as rational and free.

Every unlawful intercourse, and that which is practiced by some contrary to nature, we abhor as unlawful and unholy.

We confess that there will be a resurrection of righteous and unrighteous, and a recompense. [10] We confess that Christ is not a mere man, but God the Word and man, “mediator between God and men,” high priest of the Father. Nor yet are we circumcised with the Jews, knowing that “he has come for whom it was reserved,” and for whose sake the nations were kept, “the expectation of the nations,” Jesus the Christ, who sprang from Judah, the son from the shoot, “the flower from Jesse, whose rule is upon his shoulder.”

When that heresy then seemed stronger for leading astray, and the whole church was in danger, we the twelve came together in Jerusalem (for in place of the traitor, Matthias was voted with us to be an apostle, receiving the lot of Judas, as it is said, “Let another take his office”), and together with James the brother of the Lord we considered what should be done; and it seemed good to him and to the presbyters to speak words of teaching to the people.

For “some who came down from Judea” to Antioch “were teaching the brothers there, saying that unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses” and walk in the other customs which he commanded, “you cannot be saved.”

“And when there had been no small dissension and debate,” the brothers in Antioch, learning that we had all come together to inquire about this, sent to us faithful men, versed in the Scriptures, to learn about this question. “And they, having come to Jerusalem, reported” to us what had been debated in the church of the Antiochenes too, namely that some “were saying that one must be circumcised and keep” the other purifications.

And when others were saying other things, I, “Peter, stood up and said to them: Brothers, you know that from early days God chose among you that through my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe; and God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them.”

For once an angel of the Lord appeared to Cornelius, a centurion of the Roman command, and spoke to him about me, that he should send for me and hear words of life from my mouth; and he sent for me from Joppa to Caesarea of Strato.

And when I was about to go out to him, I wished to take food; and while they were preparing it, I was in the upper room praying, and I see heaven opened, and a certain vessel bound by four corners like a bright sheet, “and let down upon the earth, in which were all the four-footed beasts and the creeping things of the earth and the birds of the heaven; and there came a voice” from heaven “to me, saying: Rise, Peter, kill and eat. And I said: By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean. And a voice came again a second time, saying: What God has cleansed, do not call common. And this happened three times, and the vessel was taken up into heaven.”

And as I was perplexed as to what the vision might be, the Spirit said to me: “Behold, men are seeking you; but rise and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them.” And these were the men from the centurion.

And so, reflecting, I recognized the word of the Lord that is written, that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” and again, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he rules over the nations.”

And perceiving how everywhere it is said about the calling of the Gentiles, I rose and went with them and entered the man's house; and “while I was still declaring the word, the Holy Spirit fell on him and on those present with him, as also on us at the beginning; and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.” [10] And I knew “that God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him”; and “the faithful of the circumcision” were amazed at this. [11] “Now therefore why do you test God by putting a heavy yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord, in the same way as they.” For the Lord loosed us from the bonds and lightened our burden, and in his gentleness loosed from us the yoke of heaviness. [12] And when I had said this, “all the multitude kept silence”; and James the brother of the Lord answered, saying: “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, as it is written: After these things I will return and rebuild the tent of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins and set it up, so that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, says the Lord who does these things. [13] Known from eternity to God are all his works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the pollutions of the Gentiles, from what is offered to idols and from sexual immorality and from blood and from what is strangled”; which had also been laid down by law for the ancients before the law, who lived by nature: Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Job, and whoever else was such. [14] Then it seemed good to us the apostles and to James the bishop “and the presbyters with the whole church, to choose men from among ourselves and send them with” Barnabas and his company and Paul the apostle of the Gentiles, the man of Tarsus, “and Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, writing by their hand as follows: [15] The apostles and the presbyters and the brothers, to the brothers of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. Since we have heard that some from among us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, to whom we gave no instructions, it seemed good to us, having come to one mind, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have given up their lives for our Lord Jesus Christ, about the things you wrote. We have sent with them Judas and Silas, who will themselves report the same things by word. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: to abstain from what is offered to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves from these you will do well. Farewell.”

We sent the letter, then, and we ourselves remained in Jerusalem for a good number of days, inquiring together about what was for the common good, for correction.

And after a considerable time, having visited the brothers and strengthened them by the word of piety, and charged them to flee those who in the name of Christ and of Moses make war on Christ and on Moses, and hide the wolf in a sheep's skin;

for these are false christs and false prophets and false apostles, deceivers and corrupters, “portions of foxes” and destroyers of low-growing “vines,” through whom “the love of many will grow cold; but he who endures to the end” without being perverted, “he will be saved”; concerning whom the Lord, making us safe, gave command, saying: “Men will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves; by their fruits you will know them; beware of them; for false christs and false prophets will arise and will lead many astray.”

On their account we too, having now come together, Peter and Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Lebbaeus surnamed Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Matthias, who was voted in with us in place of Judas, and James the brother of the Lord and bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul, “the teacher of the Gentiles,” “the vessel of election”: all of us having come together, we have written to you this catholic teaching for the confirmation of you to whom the universal oversight has been entrusted, in which we make known to you

that you are to worship one only God almighty, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the all-holy Spirit; to use the holy Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets; to honor parents; to flee every unlawful deed; to believe in the resurrection and to expect judgment and recompense;

and to approach all his creatures with thanksgiving, as works of God that have nothing evil in them; and to marry lawfully, for such marriage is blameless, since “a wife is joined to a husband by the Lord”; and the Lord says, “He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Nor yet, after marriage, let it be lawful to put away a wife who is blameless. For “take heed,” it says, “to your spirit, and do not forsake the wife of your youth, for she is the partner of your life and the remnant of your spirit, and I made her, and not another.” For the Lord says, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” For the wife is a partner of life, united by God into one body from two; and he who divides again into two what is one is an enemy of God's creation and an adversary of his providence. In the same way he who keeps a woman who has been corrupted and has committed corruption is a transgressor against the ordinance of nature, since “he who keeps an adulteress is foolish and impious”; for “cut her off,” it says, “from your flesh”; for she is not a helper but a plotter, having turned her mind to another.

nor yet to circumcise the flesh, but for the faithful to be content with the circumcision of the heart in the spirit; for “be circumcised,” it says, “to your God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart.”

Likewise, to be content with one baptism only, that which is given into the death of the Lord; not that given by the abominable heretics, but that given by blameless priests “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

And let neither the baptism from the ungodly be accepted by you, nor that from the holy be annulled by a second. For as there is one God and one Christ and one Paraclete, and one also the death of the Lord in the body, so let the baptism given into him be one. But those who receive pollution from the ungodly will become partners in their opinion.

For those men are not priests; for God says to them, “Since you have rejected knowledge, I too will reject you from serving as my priest.” Nor yet have those baptized by them been initiated, but they are defiled, receiving not forgiveness of sins but a bond of impiety.

And not only so, but those also who try to baptize a second time those who have been initiated crucify the Lord again, slay him a second time, laugh at divine things, mock holy things, insult the Spirit, dishonor the holy blood as common; they act impiously against him who sent, against him who suffered, against him who bore witness.

But he too who out of contempt is unwilling to be baptized will be condemned as an unbeliever, and reproached as ungrateful and senseless; for the Lord says, “Unless one is baptized of water and Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” and again, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who disbelieves will be condemned.”

And he who says, “When I am dying I will be baptized, so that I may not sin and soil my baptism,” is ignorant of God and forgetful of his own nature; for “do not put off,” it says, “turning to the Lord; for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth.”

And baptize your infants too, and “bring them up in the discipline and admonition of God”; for “let the children,” he says, “come to me, and do not hinder them.”

All these things we have written to you, so that you may know what kind of opinion ours is. And do not accept the books patched together in our name by the ungodly; for you must not attend to the names of the apostles, but to the nature of the matters and to the undistorted opinion.

For we know that the followers of Simon and Cleobius have composed poisonous books in the name of Christ and of his disciples and carry them about to deceive you who love Christ and us his servants.

And among the ancients too some wrote apocryphal books of Moses and Enoch and Adam, of Isaiah and David and Elijah and the three patriarchs, destructive and hostile to the truth. Such things the infamous ones have now also produced, slandering creation, marriage, providence, the begetting of children, the law, the prophets; writing in certain barbarous names, of angels, as they themselves say, but, to speak the truth, of demons who prompt them.

Flee their teaching, so that you may not share in the punishment of those who composed them for the deception and destruction of the faithful and blameless disciples of the Lord Jesus.

We have said that a bishop, a presbyter and a deacon are to be appointed married only once, whether their wives are living or dead; and that it is not lawful for them after ordination, if they are unmarried, still to go on to marriage, or, if married, to be united with other women, but they are to be content with the wife they had when they came to ordination.

And the ministers and singers and readers and doorkeepers, we command that they too be married only once; but if they enter the clergy before marriage, we permit them to marry, if they have an intention to do so, so that they may not sin and incur punishment.

And we command that none of those in the clergy take a courtesan or a household slave or “a widow or a woman who has been put away,” as the Law also says.

And let a deaconess be a chaste virgin; or if not, at least a widow married only once, faithful and honorable.

Receive those who repent, “for this is the will of God in Christ”; baptize the catechumens after instructing them in the first elements; set apart the godless heretics who remain unrepentant, separate them from the faithful and make them banished from the church of God, and charge the faithful to keep away from them in every way and to share with them neither in word nor in prayers.

For these are adversaries and plotters against the church, who corrupt the flock and defile the inheritance, the seemingly wise and utterly wicked, of whom Solomon the wise said that, acting impiously, they pretend to piety. “For there is a way,” he says, “which seems right to some, but its end looks to the depth of Hades.”

These are those concerning whom the Lord declared bitterly and severely, saying that they are false christs and false teachers, who have blasphemed the Spirit of grace and spat out the gift from him after grace, “to whom it will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come”; more impious than the Jews and more godless than the Greeks;

who blaspheme God who is over all, and trample on his Son, and spit on the teaching of the Spirit; who deny the divine words, or pretend with hypocrisy to accept them, to insult God and to deceive those who come to them; who insult the holy Scriptures, and, as for righteousness,

do not know what it ever is; who corrupt the church of God like “little foxes” a “vineyard,” and become “portions of foxes.” Them we exhort you to flee, so that you may not take snares to your own souls; “for he who walks with the wise will be wise, but he who walks with fools will be known.”

For one must not run with a thief nor cast one's lot with an adulterer, since the holy David too says, “Lord, I hated those who hate you, and I pined away over your enemies; I hated them with a perfect hatred; they became enemies to me.”

And God reproaches Jehoshaphat for his friendship and alliance with Ahab and with Ahaziah, saying through Jehu the prophet, “Do you make friends with a sinner, or help one hated by the Lord? For this reason wrath from the Lord came suddenly upon you; yet because your heart was found perfect toward the Lord, the Lord spared you; but your works were broken off and your ships were shattered.”

Flee, then, their fellowship, and be strangers to peace with them; for concerning them the prophet declared, saying, “There is no rejoicing for the ungodly, says the Lord.”

For these are the hidden wolves, the “dumb dogs that cannot bark,” who are now few, but as time advances and the consummation draws near they will be more numerous and more grievous; of whom the Lord said, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” and, “Because lawlessness is multiplied, the love of many will grow cold; and false christs and false prophets will come and will give signs in heaven, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect”; from whose deceit the Lord God will deliver us through Jesus Christ, our hope. [10] For we too, going through the nations and confirming the churches, brought back some with much admonition and healing words, having cured them when they were all but dying of the deception; but those who were incurable we cast out of the flock, so that they might not pass on their mangy disease to the healthy lambs, but that these might remain pure and undefiled, healthy and spotless to the Lord God.

And these things we have done in every city throughout the whole world, leaving to you the bishops and the other priests this catholic teaching, worthily and justly, as a memorial of confirmation for those who have believed in God, sending it through our fellow minister Clement, our most faithful and like-minded child in the Lord, together with Barnabas and Timothy, our most dearly beloved son, and Mark, the genuine one; with whom we also commend to you Titus and Luke, Jason and Lucius and Sosipater.

Through them we also exhort you in the Lord to abstain from the old custom and vain bonds: separations, observances, distinctions of foods, daily washings; for “the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

For you have come to know God through Jesus Christ, and his whole dispensation from the beginning: that he gave a simple law to help the natural law, pure, saving, holy, in which he also set down his own name; perfect, lacking nothing, full of ten oracles, “blameless, converting souls”; which, when the Hebrews forgot it, he reminds them of through Malachi the prophet, saying, “Remember the law of Moses, the man of God, who commanded you ordinances and judgments.”

And this law is so holy and righteous that the Savior too, when he once healed one leper and again nine, said to the first, “Go, show yourself to the high priest and offer the gift which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them,” and again to the nine, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

For he did not abolish the law, as Simon thinks, but fulfilled it; for he says, “One iota or one stroke shall not pass from the law until all is accomplished; for I did not come,” he says, “to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfil.” [4] For Moses too, lawgiver and high priest and prophet and king together, and Elijah, the zealot among the prophets, were present at the Lord's transfiguration on the mountain as witnesses of his incarnation and his sufferings, as friends of Christ and members of his household, not as enemies or strangers; from which it is shown that both the law and the prophets are good and holy.

Now the law is the Decalogue, which God gave them as law with an audible voice before the people made the calf, the Apis of the Egyptians; and this law is righteous, and for that reason it is also called law, because by nature it passes judgments justly; it is this law that the followers of Simon disparage, thinking that they will escape punishment if they are not judged by it.

This law is good, holy, imposing no compulsion. For it says, “And if you make me an altar, you shall make it of earth for me.”

It did not say, “Make one,” but “If you make one”; it did not lay on necessity, but left it to their power, as being free.

For God has no need of sacrifices, being by nature without need; but knowing that earlier too Abel, who loved God, and Noah and Abraham and those after them, without being asked, but moved by the natural law, offered sacrifice to God of themselves from a grateful mind, he now permits the Hebrews too, not commanding but allowing it if they wish, and being pleased with their sacrifices if they offer them from an upright mind.

For this reason he says, “If you desire to sacrifice, do not sacrifice to me as though I needed it, for I am in need of nothing”; “for the world is mine, and its fullness.”

But when those of the people became forgetful of these things, and called on a calf as god instead of God, and ascribed to it the cause of their journey out of Egypt, saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” and, having acted impiously “into the likeness of a calf that eats grass,” denied God, who had visited them through Moses in their affliction, who had done the signs by hand and rod, who struck the Egyptians with ten plagues, who divided the Red Sea into divisions of waters, who led them through the midst of the water “like a horse on a plain,” who sank their enemies and those who plotted against them, who at Marah sweetened the bitter spring, who brought down water from the sheer rock to satisfy them, who with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire shaded them because of the excessive heat and gave light and guidance to those who did not know where to go, who gave them manna from heaven and gave them meat from the sea, the quail, who gave them laws on the mountain, whose voice they were counted worthy to hear: him they denied, saying to Aaron, “Make us gods who will go before us,” and they made a molten calf and sacrificed to the idol. Therefore God was angry, as having been treated with ingratitude by them, and bound them with bonds that could not be loosed, with a crushing burden and the hardness of a collar.

And he no longer said, “And if you make one,” but “Make an altar and sacrifice continually”; for you are forgetful and ungrateful; burn whole offerings continually, then, so that you may be reminded of me.

For since you misused your freedom, I now lay necessity upon you, and keep you from certain foods, and distinguish for you differences of animals, clean and unclean, although every animal is good, as having been made by me;

and I command for you such separations, purifications, continual washings, sprinklings, such purities, various rests. [10] And for each of these, if you disobey, I appoint a punishment, as for a disobedient household slave, so that, pressed and choked by the collar, you may depart from the error of many gods, and, leaving off “These are your gods, O Israel,” you may remember “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord,” and run back to that law which was laid down by me in nature for all men: that there is only one God in heaven and on earth, and that one must “love him with all the heart and with all the strength and with all the mind,” and fear no other besides him, nor take the name of other gods into the mind nor utter it with the tongue through the mouth.

For because of their hardness of heart he bound them, so that by sacrificing and resting and purifying themselves and observing such things they might come to the thought of God, who ordained these things for them.

But as for you, who have believed in the one God, not from necessity but from a sound mind, obeying him who called you: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear”; for you have been released from the bonds and set free from slavery.

“For no longer,” he says, “do I call you slaves, but friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you.” For to them, who would neither see nor hear, not through lack of the organs but through excess of wickedness, “I gave ordinances that were not good, and judgments by which they will not live”; not good, that is, in their view, since cauteries and the knife and medicines are hostile to those who are not healthy; and unkept because of their disobedience, so that, not being kept, they also bring death on them.

You, then, are blessed, who have been loosed from the curse. For Christ, the Son of God, when he came, confirmed and fulfilled the law, and took away the things that had been added, if not all, at least the heavier ones, establishing the one and ending the others; and he again set free the free will of men, not judging it by a temporary death, but holding it to account in another state. Therefore he says, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him come,” and again, “Do you also wish to go away?”

And even before his coming he refused the sacrifices of the people, since they often sinned against him and thought to propitiate him by sacrifices and not by repentance. For he says thus: “Why do you bring me frankincense from Sheba and cinnamon from a distant land? Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices have not pleased me”; and further, “Gather your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices and eat meat; for I did not command you, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

And through Isaiah he says: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am full of whole burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats, nor should you come to appear before me; for who required these things from your hands? You shall no longer tread my court. If you bring me fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me; your new moons and your Sabbaths and the great day I cannot endure; your fasting and rest and your feasts my soul hates; you have become a surfeit to me.”

And through another he says, “Take away from me the sound of your songs, and I will not hear the psalm of your instruments.” And Samuel says to Saul, who had thought fit to sacrifice, “Obedience is good beyond sacrifice, and hearkening beyond the fat of rams”; for behold, “the Lord does not desire sacrifice as much as obedience to him.” And through David he says, “I will not take calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks; if I am hungry, I will not tell you; for the world is mine and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.” And in all the Scriptures likewise he rejects their sacrifices, because they sinned against him; for “the sacrifices of the ungodly are an abomination to the Lord, for they offer them unlawfully,” and again, “Their sacrifices are to them like bread of mourning; all who eat them will be defiled.”

If, then, even before his coming he sought, instead of sacrifice, “a clean heart and a contrite spirit,” much more did he, when he came, put an end to these, I mean the sacrifices by blood. And he ended them by first fulfilling them; for he was both circumcised and sprinkled, and offered sacrifices and whole burnt offerings, and observed the other customs; and the lawgiver himself became the fulfillment of the law, not taking away the natural law, but ending the things added through the second legislation, if not all of them.

For he did not take away the natural law, but confirmed it. For he who said in the Law, “The Lord your God is one Lord,” the same says in the Gospel, “that they may know you, the only true God”; and he who said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” says in the Gospel, renewing it, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.”

He who then forbade murder now forbids even causeless anger; he who forbade adultery, now even lawless desire; he who forbade robbery now rather pronounces blessed him who supplies the needy from his own labors; he who forbade hatred, now commands love even toward enemies; he who forbade vengeance, now forbearance; not that just vengeance is unjust, but that forbearance is better. Nor did he legislate to cut out the natural passions, but their excess.

He who commanded to honor parents was himself subject to them; and he who legislated keeping the Sabbath by rest for the sake of meditation on the laws has now commanded us every day to consider the law of creation and of providence and to give thanks to God.

He ended circumcision, having fulfilled it in himself; for he was the one “for whom it was reserved, the expectation of the nations.” He who legislated to swear truly and forbade perjury has commanded “not to swear at all.”

Baptism, sacrifice, priesthood and local worship he changed in different ways: instead of daily baptism he gave only one, that into his death; instead of one tribe, he commanded that the best from every nation be appointed to the priesthood, and that not their bodies be inspected for blemishes, but their religion and lives; instead of the sacrifice through blood, the rational and bloodless and mystical sacrifice, which is performed into the death of the Lord by way of symbols, of his body and blood; and instead of local worship, he commanded that he be glorified “from the rising of the sun to its setting in every place” of his dominion.

So it was not the law that he took away from us, but the bonds; for concerning the law Moses too says, “You shall meditate on the word which I command you, sitting in the house and rising up and walking on the way”; and David says, “In the law of the Lord is his delight, and in his law he will meditate day and night.”

For everywhere he wishes us to be within the law, not outside it. “Blessed,” he says, “are the blameless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord; blessed are those who search out his testimonies; with a whole heart they will seek him”; and again, “Blessed are we, O Israel, because what is pleasing to God is known to us”; and the Lord says, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

And he wishes the law of righteousness to be shown not only through us; he was pleased that it should appear and shine through the Romans too. For they too, believing in the Lord, have departed from polytheism and injustice, and they approve the good and punish the wicked.

But they hold the Jews as tributaries and do not allow them to use their own ordinances, since they too voluntarily drew slavery on themselves, saying, “We have no king but Caesar,” and, “If we do not kill,” they say, “the Christ, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

And unwillingly they prophesied; for the nations did believe in him, and they themselves were deprived by the Romans of their authority and of their legal worship, and they are prevented from killing whom they wish and from sacrificing when they wish.

Therefore they are also accursed, since they cannot do what was ordained; for “cursed,” it says, “is he who does not abide in all the things written in the book of the law, to do them.”

And it is impossible for them, being in the dispersion among the Gentiles, to perform all the things of the law; for the divine Moses forbids them.

Following Christ, then, let us inherit the blessings; let us walk in step with the Law and the Prophets through the gospel; let us flee the polytheists and the Christ-killers and prophet-murderers and the infamous and godless heretics.

Let us obey Christ as king, as one who has authority to change various ordinances and who has, as lawgiver, wisdom to ordain in different ways, while the natural laws are everywhere kept unchanged.

Keep away, then, from all heretics, O bishops and laity, who disparage the Law and the Prophets. For being hostile to God almighty they disobey him, and they do not confess Christ as the Son of God; for they deny also his birth according to the flesh, are ashamed of the cross, hold the passion and death in dishonor, are ignorant of the resurrection, and cut away his generation before the ages.

And some of them are impious in another way, imagining the Lord to be a mere man, thinking him to consist of soul and body; and others of them suppose that Jesus himself is the God over all, glorifying him as his own Father and supposing him to be Son and Paraclete; and what could be more abominable than this?