Canons of the Council of Arles (second)

Contents

1. 1The newly baptized may not be ordained deacon or priest.
2. 2A married man may not be ordained priest unless he has first undertaken continence.
3. 3Clerics from deacon upward may not keep women in their homes other than close relatives or a wife living in continence with them.
4. 4Clergy may not admit girls or women servants into their private rooms.
5. 5A bishop may be ordained only with the metropolitan or his letter and three bishops of the province; in a disputed election the metropolitan follows the majority.
6. 6One made bishop without the metropolitan's knowledge is no bishop, according to Nicaea.
7. 7Men who castrate themselves may not be ordained.
8. 8Whoever receives someone excommunicated by another bishop answers for it before the council.
9. 9Novatians are received only after penance and renouncing their error.
10. 10Those who apostatized willingly in persecution do the penance set by Nicaea, which the bishop may shorten for true repentance.
11. 11Those forced by torture to deny or sacrifice do two years among the catechumens and three among the penitents.
12. 12Penitents who die before reconciliation receive communion and have their offering accepted.
13. 13No cleric may leave his own church; an ordination conferred on him elsewhere against his bishop's will is void.
14. 14Clerics who lend at interest, farm others' property, or trade for gain are deposed and excommunicated.
15. 15A deacon may not sit with presbyters or give the Eucharist in a presbyter's presence.
16. 16Photinians and followers of Paul of Samosata are to be baptized on joining the church.
17. 17Bonosians, baptized in the Trinity like the Arians, are received with chrism and the laying on of hands.
18. 18Synods are to meet at the call of the bishop of Arles; a bishop prevented by illness sends a deputy.
19. 19A bishop who fails to attend or leaves a council early is excluded from communion until the next synod.
20. 20Baptized charioteers and actors are excommunicated while they continue in their trade.
21. 21A penitent widow who remarries or lives in suspect familiarity with a man is excluded from the church with him; the same applies to a male penitent.
22. 22A married person may enter public penance only with the spouse's consent.
23. 23A bishop who tolerates pagan cults at trees, springs, or stones in his territory is guilty of sacrilege; the landowner who will not stop them is excommunicated.
24. 24Those convicted (of the offence named in the lost heading) are excluded from communion until death, unless they do worthy penance.
25. 25Those who abandon the religious life without penance are excluded from communion and from the clergy; a penitent may not return to secular dress.
26. 26Repeats Orange (441), canon 1.
27. 27Repeats the opening of Orange (441), canon 2.
28. 28Penitents who recover after receiving the viaticum return to the order of penitents (the end of Orange, canon 3).
29. 29Repeats Orange (441), canon 4.
30. 30Fugitives in a church are not handed over but persuaded to leave under a promise of pardon; masters who then punish them are excommunicated.
31. 31Clerics may not take church causes or disputes among clergy to secular courts.
32. 32Repeats Orange (441), canon 6.
33. 33Those freed by will may not be reduced again to servitude (as Orange, canon 7).
34. 34A master may not revoke a manumission performed in church on grounds of ingratitude unless he proves it before the municipal authorities.
35. 35Repeats Orange (441), canon 8.
36. 36Repeats Orange, canon 10, adding that gifts of the founding bishop to the church may not be taken away by the local bishop.
37. 37Repeats the end of Orange, canon 10, on lay founders who invite another bishop.
38. 38One who suddenly loses speech may be baptized; the insane receive what piety allows (Orange, canons 12–13).
39. 39Repeats Orange (441), canon 14.
40. 40Repeats Orange (441), canon 15.
41. 41Repeats Orange (441), canon 16.
42. 42If two bishops ordain a bishop without the metropolitan's letter, he is deposed with them.
43. 43Repeats Orange (441), canon 22, on married deacons.
44. 44Repeats Orange (441), canon 23, on deacons who are incontinent with their wives.
45. 45Men married to a widow or married twice may not be ordained above subdeacon, and are removed if ordained.
46. 46Vowed widows who consent to their abduction are condemned with the abductors.
47. 47Whoever withholds bequests to the church is excluded from it, as at Vaison.
48. 48One who rejects his bishop's sentence is heard by the synod (Vaison, canon 5).
49. 49One excommunicated by his bishop is to be shunned by clergy and people alike until he repents.
50. 50Those in open enmity with each other are excluded from church assemblies until reconciled.
51. 51Whoever takes in an exposed infant posts a notice; if unclaimed in ten days the finder keeps it, and later claimants are punished as murderers.
52. 52Consecrated virgins over twenty-five who marry are excommunicated with their husbands; they may do penance, but reconciliation is long delayed.
53. 53A slave who wounds or kills himself to bring odium on his master alone bears the guilt.
54. 54For a bishop's election the bishops nominate three candidates, and the clergy and citizens choose one.
55. 55The canon breaks off after its opening words.
56. 56Metropolitans may claim nothing for themselves against the decrees of Nicaea.