Eutychiani papae exhortatio ad presbyteros, ex antiquo codice Vaticano

OF POPE EUTYCHIAN

EXHORTATION TO THE PRESBYTERS, FROM AN ANCIENT VATICAN MANUSCRIPT.

Brothers and priests of the Lord, you are fellow workers of our order. We indeed, though unworthy, hold the place of Aaron; you the place of Eleazar and Ithamar: we act in the stead of the twelve apostles; you are after the pattern of the seventy-two disciples: we are your shepherds; you [are shepherds] of the people committed to you:

we are to render account of you to the chief Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ; you of the people committed to you: we of you shepherds; but you of the sheep, that is, of the peoples entrusted to you: and therefore, dearest sons, let us foresee the peril of so great an office committed to us. We admonish, therefore, and beseech

your fraternity, that you commit to memory what we suggest for your salvation and ours. First of all we admonish that your life and conduct be irreproachable: namely, that your cell be next to the church, and that you do not have women in your houses; rise every night for the nocturns; chant your course at fixed hours; perform the celebrations of masses religiously; receive the body and blood of the Lord with fear and reverence. Let no one give himself to chess or to games of dice; wash and wipe the sacred vessels with your own hands. Let no one sing mass unless fasting; let no one sing it who does not communicate; let no one sing it without amice, alb, stole, maniple (that is, the fanon) and chasuble, and let these vestments be clean, and let them serve no other uses. Let no one sing it in an alb which he uses for his own purposes. Let no one dare to celebrate mass in a wooden or a glass chalice. Let no woman approach the altar or touch the chalice of the Lord; let the corporal be most clean. Let the altar be covered with clean linens. Let nothing be placed upon the altar except reliquaries and relics and the four Gospels, or a pyx with the body of the Lord for the viaticum of the sick; let the rest be put away in a clean place. Let each one have a plenary missal, a lectionary, an antiphonary, and the book of forty homilies. Let a place be prepared in the sacristy or next to the altar where water may be poured out when the sacred vessels are washed, and where a clean vessel with water may hang, so that the priest may wash his hands after communion. Let the churches be well roofed and vaulted, and let the court of the church be fenced on every side.

Let no one sing mass outside the church in houses, nor in unconsecrated places; let no one sing mass alone; let every priest have a cleric or a scholar who may read the epistle or the lesson, and make the responses to him at mass, and with whom he may sing the psalms. Visit the sick, and reconcile them by confession, and according to the apostle anoint them with holy oil, and give them communion with your own hand. Let no one presume to hand over communion to a layman or to a woman to carry to a sick person; let no one sell the sacred chrism; let none of you demand a reward or a price or a gift for baptizing infants, or for reconciling sinners or the sick, or for burying the dead, or for consecrating churches, or snatch away the churches of others by money given or by any evil device. See that through your negligence no infant dies without baptism. Let none of you be a drunkard or quarrelsome; let no one bear arms in sedition, except the word of the Lord. Let no one devote himself to sports with dogs or birds; let no one eat and drink in taverns. Let each of you, as far as he has understanding, announce to his people on Sundays and feast days something from the gospel, or from the epistle, or from some divine scripture. Let him take care of the poor, of pilgrims, of orphans, offering them the hospitality of refreshment, so that they may have sustenance. Let him call the discordant back to concord; let him defend widows, so that in these and other things of this kind he may give an example of all good. Every Sunday before mass let him make holy water, and sprinkle his people and the places of the faithful, and for this alone

to be done let him have one vessel, and let him go in procession around his churchyard or around the church. Do not give the sacred vessels and the priestly vestments in pledge to a merchant, or to any layman. Let none of you, for the sake of anything whatever, bring to reconciliation one who has done penance less than worthily, and bear him testimony of reconciliation. Let none of you exact usury, and become the contractor of his own interest. Know that the goods and means which you acquire through the day of your ordination belong to the church to which you are titled, or which you serve.

Let no one acquire and hold a church without the knowledge and consent of the bishop; let no one hold a church through the power of laymen; let no one leave the church to which he is titled and move to another; let no one have several churches without the help of other priests; by no means let one church be divided among several. Let no one receive another's parishioner to Mass, except on a journey, or if he has come to a plea [court]; let no one sing Mass in another's church or parish without the will and request of its own priest; let no one receive a tithe belonging to another church. Let no one invite a penitent to eat meat and drink wine, unless alms are given for him on the spot. Let no one presume to baptize except on the vigil of Easter and of Pentecost, unless for necessity and danger of death. Let each have a font of stone; but if he cannot have one of stone, let him have another vessel prepared for this, in which nothing else is done. See that you instil the Creed and the Lord's Prayer into all your parishioners. Proclaim to your people that the fast of the Four Times, and of the Rogations, and of the Greater Litany is to be observed in every way. On the Wednesday before the Forty [Days], invite the people to confession, and impose penance on them according to the nature of the offence, not out of your own heart, but as it is written in the penitential. Admonish all the faithful to approach the communion of the Body and Blood three times in the year, that is, at the Nativity of the Lord, and at Easter, and at Pentecost, except penitents, to whom it is forbidden. Exhort the married to abstain from their wives at certain times, that is, from the Advent of the Lord until the octave of Epiphany is past; and from Septuagesima until the octave of Easter is past; and from the Rogations until the octave of Pentecost is past. Moreover, on all Saturdays until Monday, and on the vigil of St Mary, and of St John, and of the apostles, and on the appointed vigils of other saints, and on their feasts, distribute eulogiae to the people after Mass on Sundays. Let no priest go about on a journey without an orarium, that is, a stole. Let none of you be clothed in lay garments and in varied colours. Let no one presume to sell or exchange a property or possession of the church, or a slave, or by any device to alienate it from her.

Teach [them] to celebrate the Lord's day and the other feasts without servile work from evening to evening. Forbid the songs and dances of women and the jesters' games, and singing, to take place in the church and in the churchyard. The devilish songs which the common people, over the dead in the hours of night,

are accustomed to perform, and the guffaws in which they indulge, forbid to take place, under solemn invocation of God almighty. Do not communicate with the excommunicated: let no one presume even to sing mass with them, and announce this also to the peoples entrusted to you. Let none of you go to weddings: declare to all that no one is to take a wife except by nuptials publicly celebrated; let no one take another man's betrothed; and forbid weddings to take place from the Advent of the Lord until the octave of Epiphany is past, and from Septuagesima until the close of Easter is past, and from the Rogations until the octave of Pentecost is past. Forbid abduction by every means, and pronounce anathema, so that no one approaches a woman nearest to him in blood, or [has union] with his kinsfolk, down to the seventh generation. Admonish that each one cause all his herdsmen and other servants to come to church on Sundays and feast days. Let godparents instil the creed and the Lord's Prayer into their spiritual godchildren, or have them taught. Let the chrism be kept under seal or under lock, on account of certain unbelievers. Concerning the mystery entrusted to you, we take care to admonish you that each of you, if it can be done, should keep by him, in writing, an exposition of the creed and of the Lord's Prayer according to the tradition of the orthodox fathers, and understand it fully, and from it instruct the people entrusted to him by assiduous preaching; and, if he does not know it, let him at least keep it by him and believe it. Let him also understand well the prayers of the masses and the prefaces and the canon, and if he is not able at least to recite them distinctly and from memory, let him be able to read the epistle and the gospel well,

and would that he were able to make plain the sense according to the letter! Let him know how to recite by heart, correctly, the verses and divisions of the Psalms together with the customary canticles. Let him hold in memory the sermon of Bishop Athanasius whose beginning is "Whoever wishes", and sing it every day. Let him be able and know how to pronounce distinctly the exorcisms and prayers for making a catechumen and for consecrating the font of baptism, or the other prayers over a male and a female, in the singular and in the plural; and let each one have, and know with prudence, the order of baptizing for the relief of the sick, and the order of reconciling according to the authority of the canons, and the order of anointing the sick. Let him also, when invited, run of his own accord to visit the sick and to reconcile them, and let him come to the aid of their need, not for earthly gain but out of that charity with which Christ loved us, and let him take care to chant the prayers and the seven special psalms over them. Likewise let him hold in memory the order for performing the funeral rites of the dead, the prayers, and also the exorcisms of salt and water; let him know the night chant and also the day chant. Let him know the computus, if not the greater, at least the lesser, that is, the epacts, the concurrents, the regular terms, and, if he can, the rest. Let him be acquainted with the martyrology and the penitential. Let each one have this little book and read it often, so that he may not consign to oblivion the things that he must observe. That we may be able to retain this in memory and carry it out to our salvation, dearest brethren, may almighty God deign to grant us, Whose kingdom and dominion without end abides for ages of ages. Amen.