Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/1096 (page 28)
    Guere culeo vivos, vel exurere, judicantem opor- teat.” Compare Diet. Antiq. art. Leges Corneliae, Lex Pompeia de Parricidiis,” and for burning, Pauli Sentent. Receft. v. 24. Baronius (sub fin. Ann. 339) has a note on “ Sacrilegos,”—a word which placed the male oftenderin a deeply cidminal light. The execution of the sentence was en- forced by clear cases of adultery being excepted from appeal (Sisnt. Recept. ii. 26, 17), and after- wards (Cod. Theod. 9, tit. 38, s. 3-8), from the Easter indulgence, when, in Imperial phrase, the Resurrection Morning brought light to the dark- ness of the prison, and broke the bonds of the transgressor. Yet we may ask. Was the Con- stantian law really maintained? Just thirty years later, Ammianus (xxviii. 1) gives an ac- count of the decapitation of Cethegus, a senator of Lome ; but though the sword was substituted for fire, he reckons this act among the outrages of Maximin, prefect of the city ; and how easily a magistrate might indulge in reckless barbai'ity may be seen by the horrible trial for adultery described by Jerome (Ad Innocent.'), in which both the accused underwent extreme tortures. Again, though the Theodosian code (in force from a.d. 439) gave apparent life to the Constantian law, yet by a rescript of Majorian (a.d. 459) it is ordered that the adulterer shall be punished “ as under former emperors,” by banishment from Italy, with permission to any one, if he return, to kill him on the spot (Novell. Major. 9). That death in various times and places was the penalty, seems clear from Jerome on Nah. i. 9 ; the Vmdal customs in Salvian, 7; and Can. Wallici, 27. Fines appear in later Welsh, as in Salic and A. S. codes. For these and other punishments among Christianized barbarians, see Ancient Laves of Wales; Lindenbrogii Cod. Leg., Wilkins, vol. i., Olaus Mag. de Gent. Septent. XIV.; and Ducange 8. V. and under Trotari. For Justinian’s legislation see his 134th Novell. Cap. 10 renews the Constantian law against the male offender, extends it to all abettors, and in- flicts on the female bodily chastisement, with other penalties short of death. Cap. 12 contem- plates a possible evasion of justice, and further offences, to which are attached further severities. Caps. 9 and 13 contain two merciful provisions. Leo, in his 32nd Novell, (cited by Harmenop. as 19th), compares adultery with homicide, and punishes both man and woman by the loss of their noses and other inflictions. For a final summary, cf. Harmenop. Proch. vi. 2, and on the punishment of incontinent manned men, vi. 3. Spiritual penalties may be thus arranged—1. Against adultery strictly so called (Can. Apost. 61 al. 60). A convicted adulter cannot receive orders.—Ancyra, 20. Adultera and adulter (so Schol., husband with guilty knowledge, Routh and Fleury), 7 years’ ])enitence.—Neocaesarea, 1. Presbyter so offending to be fully excommunicated and brought to penitence.—Neocaesarea, 8. The layman whose wife is a convicted adultera can- not receive orders. If the husband be already ordained, he must put her away under penalty of deprivation.—Basil, can. 9. An unchaste wife must be divorced. An unchaste husband not so, even if adulterous; this is the rule of Church custom. [N.B.—We place Basil here beciiuse ac- cepted by Trull. 2.}|—Ba.sil, 58. The adulter 15 years’ penitence; cf. 59, which gives 7 years to simple incontinence, and compare with both can. 7 and Scholia.—Gregor. Nyss., can. 4, prescribes 18 years (9 only for simple incontinence).—Basil, 27, and Trull. 26, forbid a presbyter who has ignorantly contracted an unlawful marriage be- fore orders to discharge his functions, but do not degrade him.—Basil, 39. An adultera living with her paramour is guilty of continued crime. This forbids her marriage with him, as does also the civil law. Cf. on these marriages Triburiense, 40, 49, and 51.—On intended and incipient sin, com- pare Neocaesarea, 4, with Basil, 70 (also Scholia) and Blastaris Syntagma, cap. xvi.—The synod of Eliberis, though held a.d. 305, was not accepted* by any Universal Council, but it represents an important part of the Western Church, and its canons on discipline are strict. The following arrangement will be found useful. Eliberis, 19. Sin of Clerisy. (Cf. Tarracon. 9.)—31. Of young men.—7. Sin, if repeated.—69. Of married men and women.—47. If habitual and with relapse after penitence.—64. Of women continuing with their accomplices ; cf. 69.—65. Wives of clerks. —70. Husbands’connivance (F. Mendoza remarks on the antiquity of this sin in Spain).—78. 01 married men with Jewesses or Pagans. 2. Against Adultery as under Spiritual hut not Civil Law.—Both canonists and divines joined with our Saviour’s precepts, Prov. xviii. 23 ; Jer. iii. 1 (both LXX); 1 Cor. vi. 16, and vii. 11-16 and 39. They drew two conclusions: (1) Divorce, except for adulteiy, is adultery. Under this fell the questions of enforced continence, and of marriage after divorce. (2) To retain an adulterous wife is also adultery—a point disputed by divines, e.g. Augustine, who yielded to the text in Proverbs (Retract, i. xix. 6). These divisions should be remembered though the points are often blended in the canons. Can. Apost. 5. No one in higher orders to cast out his wife on plea of religion. This is altered as regards bishops by Trull. 12, but the change (opposed to African feeling) was not enough to satisfy Rome. It must be remem- bered that, though divorce was restrained by Constantine, whose own mother had thus suf- fered (see Eutrop. ix. 22), his law was relaxed by Theod. and Valentin, and their successors, and it was common for a clerk, forced into conti- nence, to repudiate his wife. Trull. 13, opposes the then Roman practice as concerns priests and deacons, and so far maintains, as it, says, Can. Apost. 5.—The Scholia on these three canons should be read. For the Roman view of them compare Binius and other commentators with Fleury, Hist. Eccl. xl. 50. Cf. Siricius, Ad Himer. 7; Innocent I. Ad Exup. 1, and Ad Max. et Sev.; Leo I. Ad Rustic. 3, and Ad Anastas. 4. See also Milman, Lat. Christ, i. 97-100. The feeling of Innocent appears most extreme if Jerome’s asser- tion (Ad Dcmetriad.) of this pope’s being his predecessor’s son is literally meant, as Milman and others believe.—Can. Apost. 18, al. 17. On marriage with a cast-out wife; cf. Levit. xxi. 7.—18, al. 47. Against casting out and marrying again, or marrying a dismissed woman. “ Casting out ” and “ dismi.ssed ” are explained by the Scholiasts in the sense of unlawful repu- diations. Sanchez (De Matrim. lib. x. de Divort. Disp. ii. 2) quotes this canon in the opposite sense, and brings no other authority to forbid divorce before Innocent I.; indeed in Disp. i. 12, he says, “ Posterior (excusatio) est, indissolubilitatem ma-