THE TWENTY CANONS OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE.
The principal substance and purport of these synodical decrees are here copied and translated from the various Latin authors, who have tried to collect and explain as much of them as could be found extant.
"In the first place the impiety," as the Synod termed it, "of Arius having been condemned, as well as his blasphemous sentiments,"[1] the Council proceeded to settle the Meletian question, and, then, that of the Paschal Festival, and, finally, that of the Novatian schism, etc.,[2] enacting, also, twenty canons, in the following order:—
1. Forbidding the promotion in the church of self-made eunuchs:
Against Ordaining a Self-Mutilator.
The language of the Council's decree was, "If any has been deformed by physicians on account of a physical infirmity, or has been mutilated by barbarians, he may, nevertheless, remain among the clergy. But, if any, being sane, has dismembered himself, it becomes necessary, both that he should be prohibited from being established among the clergy,[3] and that no such one should be successively promoted." However, if the evidence showed
- ↑ See the synodical epistle to the Alexandrian Church, for the particular heresy of Arius, and in what it consisted, as the Synod conceived.
- ↑ See also the letter of Constantine to those bishops who were not present, concerning the matters transacted by the Council of Nice.
- ↑ Leontius, the Arian, being thus unhappily self-mutilated, was deposed from the grade of a presbyter, becoming, subsequently, conspicuous for Arian principles.
