12.07.2015 Views

A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

439The Council of Laodicæa is of uncertain date, but its earliestpossible date is 343 and the latest 381, i.e., between theCouncils of Sardica and Constantinople. See Hefele, § 93.It owes its importance not to any immediate effect it hadupon the course of the <strong>Church</strong>'s development, but to thefact that its canons were incorporated in collections andreceived approval, possibly at Chalcedon, A. D. 451, thoughnot mentioned by name in Canon 1, and certainly at theQuinisext, A. D. 692, Canon 2. In the West the canons wereof importance as having been used by Dionysius Exiguus inhis collection. That the Canon of Holy Scripture was settledat this council is a traditional commonplace in theology,but hardly borne out by the facts. The council only drewup one of the several imperfect lists of sacred books whichappeared in antiquity. The following canons show the influxof heathenism into the <strong>Church</strong>, resulting from the changedstatus of the <strong>Church</strong>.Canon 35. Christians must not <strong>for</strong>sake the <strong>Church</strong> of God and goaway and invoke angels and gather assemblies, which things are<strong>for</strong>bidden. If, there<strong>for</strong>e, any one shall be found engaged in secretidolatry, let him be anathema; <strong>for</strong> he has <strong>for</strong>saken our Lord JesusChrist and gone over to idolatry.Canon 36. They who are of the priesthood and of the lowerclergy shall not be magicians, enchanters, mathematicians 154 norastrologers; nor shall they make amulets, which are chains <strong>for</strong>their own souls. And those who wear such we command to becast out of the <strong>Church</strong>.(d) Augustine, Epistula 29. (MSL, 33:117.)Heathenism in the <strong>Church</strong>.154 Cf. Suetonius, Vita Tiberii, c. 36, expulsit et mathematicos. Probably theywere a sort of <strong>for</strong>tune-tellers, computers of nativities, etc. Cf. Hefele, loc. cit.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!