LXXX.  On polygamy the Fathers are silent, as being brutish and altogether inhuman.  The sin seems to me worse than fornication.  It is therefore reasonable that such sinners should be subject to the canons; namely a year’s weeping, three years kneeling and then reception. i.e.probably only into the place of standers.  Zonaras and Balsamon understand by polygamy a fourth marriage; trigamy being permitted (cf. Canon l. p. 240) though discouraged.  The Ben. annotator dissents, pointing out that in Canon iv. Basil calls trigamy, polygamy, and quoting Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. 31) as calling a third marriage παρανομία .  Maran confirms this opinion by the comparison of the imposition on polygamy of the same number of years of penance as are assigned to trigamy in Canon iv.  “Theodore of Canterbury a.d. 687 imposes a penance of seven years on trigamists but pronounces the marriages valid (Penitential, lib. 1. c. xiv. § 3).  Nicephorus of Constantinople, a.d. 814, suspends trigamists for five years.  (Hard. Concil. tom. iv. p. 1052.)  Herard of Tours, a.d. 858 declares any greater number of wives than two to be unlawful (Cap cxi. ibid. tom.v. p. 557).  Leo the Wise, Emperor of Constantinople, was allowed to marry three wives without public remonstrance, but was suspended from communion by the patriarch Nicholas when he married a fourth.  This led to a council being held at Constantinople, a.d. 920, which finally settled the Greek discipline on the subject of third and fourth marriages.  It ruled that the penalty for a fourth marriage was to be excommunication and exclusion from the church; for a third marriage, if a man were forty years old, suspension for five years, and admission to communion thereafter only on Easter day.  If he were thirty years old, suspension for four years, and admission to communion thereafter only three times a year.”  Dict. Christ. Ant. ii. p. 1104.