The Presbyters Project

Canon 11

Episcopi, presbyteri uel uniuersi honoratiores clereci cum sublimi dignetatis apice sublimantur, actibus omnino renuntient saeculi et ad sacrum electi mystirium repudient carnale consortium ac permixtiones pristinae contubernium permutent germanetatis affectum; et, quisquis ille est, diuino munere benedictione percepta uxori prius suae frater ilico efficiatur ex coniuge. Eos uero, quos repperimus ardore libidenis inflammatos abiecto religionis cingulo ad uomitum pristinum et inhibeta rursus coniugia repetiisse adque incesti quodammodo crimine clarum decus sacerdotii uiolasse, quod nati etiam filii prodiderunt: quod quisquis fecisse cognuscitur, omni in perpetuo, quam admisso iam crimine perdedit, dignetate priuabitur.

(ed. de Clercq 1963: 225)

Canon 11

Since bishops, presbyters, and other clerics of honourable grade have been elevated to the high position of their dignity, they should entirely renounce in their deeds the secular [world], and reject carnal intercourse as elected to the holy mystery, and substitute intimacy with their former spouses with brotherly affection. And every man of such condition should become the brother out of the husband to his former wife immediately after receiving the benediction of divine office. Those incited by the fire of lust who come back to the former vomit having cast away the girdle of religion, going back to their forbidden marriages and clearly violating the priestly honour with a crime of incest of some sort, which is also revealed by the newborn children. If someone is known to do such things, he should be deprived forever of all dignity, which he already lost when committing such crime.

(trans. J. Szafranowski)

Place of event:

Region

Gaul

City

Mâcon

About the source:

Title: First Council of Mâcon, Concilium Matisconense I anno 581/583
Origin: Mâcon (Gaul)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

The First Council of Mâcon was called by King Guntram and gathered bishops from his entire realm: the metropolitans of Lyon, Vienne, Sens, Bourges, and Besançon, and sixteen other bishops. The exact dating of this synod is unsure as the acts give us both the date of 1st November of the twenty-second year of King Guntram`s rule (i.e. 583) and that of the fifteen indiction (i.e. 581).

Edition:

C. de Clercq ed., Concilia Galliae a. 511-a. 695, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 148 A, Turnhout 1963.

Translation:

J. Gaudemet, B. Basdevant, Les canons des conciles mérovingiens VIe-VIIe siècles, Sources chrétiennes 353, Paris 1989.

Categories:

Family life - Marriage

Family life - Separation/Divorce

Sexual life - Sexual activity

Sexual life - Sexual abstinence

Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος

Public law - Ecclesiastical

Reverenced by

Relation with - Wife

Relation with - Woman

Sexual life - Marital

Administration of justice - Ecclesiastical

Administration of justice - Demotion

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: J. Szafranowski, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1536, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1536