Canon
LXI.
Those
who give themselves up to
soothsayers or to those who are called hecatontarchs or to any such, in
order that they may learn from them what things
376
they wish to have revealed to them, let all such, according to the
decrees lately made by the Fathers concerning them, be subjected to the
canon of six years. And to this [penalty] they also should be
subjected who carry about
377
she-bears or
animals of the kind for the diversion and injury of the simple; as well
as those who tell fortunes and fates, and genealogy, and a multitude of
words of this kind from the nonsense of deceit and imposture.
Also those who are called expellers of clouds, enchanters,
amulet-givers, and soothsayers.
And those who persist in these things, and do not turn
away and flee from pernicious and Greek pursuits of this kind, we
declare are to be thrust out of the Church, as also the sacred canons
say. “For what fellowship hath light with darkness?”
as saith the Apostle, “or what agreement is there between the
temple of God and idols? or what part hath he that believeth with an
infidel? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon
LXI.
Whoever shall deliver himself over to a hecatontarch or
to devils, so as to learn some secret, he shall be put under penance
for six years. So too those who take around a bear, who join
themselves with those who seek incantations and drive away the clouds,
and have faith in fortune and fate, shall be cast out of the assembly
of the Church.
Hefele.
According to Balsamon (in Beveridge,
Synod
., Tom.
I., p. 228) old people who had the reputation of special knowledge
[were called “hecatontarchs”]. They sold the hair [of
these she bears and other animals] as medicine or for an amulet.
Cf
. Balsamon and Zonaras
ut supra
.
St. Chrysostom in his Homilies on the Statutes explains,
in answer to certain who defended them on this ground, that if these
incantations are made in the name of Christ they are so much the
worse. The Saint says, “Moreover I think that she is to be
hated all the more who abuses the name of God for this purpose, because
while professing to be a Christian, she shows by her actions that she
is a heathen.”
376
Bev. reads
ὅτι
.
377
Bev. reads
ἐπιφερομένους
.