Exhortation to the Priests

Brothers and priests of the Lord, you are co-workers of our order. We indeed, however unworthy, hold the place of Aaron; you hold the place of Eleazar and Ithamar: we perform the function 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 shall render an account of you to the chief shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ; you shall render an account of the people committed to you: we of you as shepherds; you truly of the sheep, that is, of the peoples entrusted to you: and therefore, most dear sons, let us foresee the peril of so great an office committed to us. We admonish and beseech your brotherhood, therefore, that you commit to memory the things 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 keep no women in your houses; rise every night for the night office; chant your course at fixed hours: perform the celebrations of Masses devoutly: receive the body and blood of the Lord with fear and reverence. Let no one give attention to games of chess or dice: wash and wipe the sacred vessels with your own hands. Let no one sing Mass unless fasting: let no one sing who does not communicate: let no one sing without amice, alb, stole, maniple, that is fanon and chasuble, and let these vestments be clean, and be used for no other purposes. Let no one sing in the alb which he uses for his own purposes. Let no one dare to celebrate Mass in a wooden or glass chalice. Let no woman approach the altar, nor 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 stored in a clean place. Let each one have a full Missal, a Lectionary, an Antiphonary, and the book of forty homilies. Let a place be prepared in the sacristy or near 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 atrium of the church be enclosed on all sides.

Let no one sing Mass outside the church, through houses, nor in unconsecrated places: let no one sing Mass alone: let every priest have a cleric or scholar who may read the epistle or lesson, and respond to him at Mass, and with whom he may chant the psalms. Visit the sick, and reconcile them through confession, and anoint them with holy oil according to the apostle, and communicate them with your own hand. Let no one presume to hand over communion to a layman or a woman to carry to the sick: let no one sell the sacred chrism: let none of you demand reward or payment or gift for baptizing infants, or for reconciling sinners or the sick, or for burying the dead, or for consecrating churches, nor seize the churches of others by money given or by any evil device. Take care that through your negligence no infant die 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 serve the sports of dogs or birds: let no one eat and drink in taverns. Let each of you, to the extent of his knowledge, announce to his people from the Gospel, or from the Epistle, or from some divine scripture on Sundays and feast days. Let him take care of the poor, strangers, and orphans, providing them with 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 such matters he may offer an example of all goodness. On every Sunday before Mass let him make blessed water, and sprinkle his people and the places of the faithful, and for this purpose alone let him have one vessel, and let him go in procession around his atrium or around the church. Do not give sacred vessels and priestly vestments in pledge to a merchant or to any secular person.

Let none of you bring a penitent of any matter whatsoever to reconciliation less worthily than is due, and bear witness of reconciliation to him. Let none of you demand usury and become a collector of his own interest. Know that the goods and properties which you acquire from the day of your ordination belong to the church to which you are assigned, 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 secular persons: let no one abandon the church to which he is assigned and migrate to another: let no one have several churches without the assistance of other priests: let one church by no means be divided among several. Let no one receive another's parishioner at Mass, except on a journey, or if it has been arranged by agreement: let no one sing Mass in another's church or parish without the will and request of the proper 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 be given on his behalf at that time. Let no one presume to baptize, except at the vigil of Easter and Pentecost, unless for necessity and danger of death.

Let each one have stone fonts: but if he cannot have stone ones, let him have another vessel prepared for this purpose, in which nothing else be done. Take care that you instruct all your parishioners in the creed and the Lord's prayer. Proclaim to your peoples in every way the fast of the four seasons, and of the rogations, and of the greater litany, to be observed. On the Wednesday before Lent, invite the people to confession, and impose penance upon them according to the quality of the offence, not from your own heart, but as it is written in the penitential. At three seasons of the year, that is at the Nativity of the Lord and Easter and Pentecost, admonish all the faithful to approach the communion of the body and blood, except penitents, to whom it is forbidden.

Exhort married persons to abstain from their wives at fixed times, that is from the Advent of the Lord until the octaves of Epiphany are past; and from Septuagesima until the octaves of Easter are past; and from the Rogations until the octaves of Pentecost are past. Moreover, on all Saturdays until the second weekday and the vigil of holy Mary, and of Saint 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 travel on a journey without an orarium, that is a stole. Let none of you be clothed in lay garments and various colors. Let no one presume to sell, or exchange, or by any device alienate from the church any property or possession of the church or any servant.

Teach that the Lord's day and other feast days are to be celebrated without servile work from evening to evening. Forbid the songs and dances of women and the games of jesters, and singing in the church and in the atrium. Under the attestation of almighty God, forbid the diabolical songs which the common people are accustomed to make over the dead in the night hours, and the laughter which they practice. Do not communicate with the excommunicated: let no one presume to sing Mass with them, but announce this also to the peoples entrusted to you. Let none of you go to weddings: announce to all that no one is to take a wife except with publicly celebrated nuptials: let no one take another's betrothed, and forbid weddings from the Advent of the Lord until the octaves of Epiphany are past, and from Septuagesima until the close of Easter is past, and from the Rogations until the octaves of Pentecost are past.

Forbid abduction in every way, and pronounce anathema that no one approach a woman of his own blood or his own kindred up to the seventh generation. Admonish all shepherds and other servants that each one cause his people to come to church on Sundays and feast days. Let godparents instruct their spiritual godchildren in the creed and the Lord's prayer, or cause them to be taught. Let the chrism be kept under seal or under lock, on account of certain unbelievers. We take care to admonish you concerning the mystery committed to you, that each of you, if it can be done, have written in his possession an exposition of the creed and the Lord's prayer according to the tradition of the orthodox fathers, and understand it fully, and from it instruct the people committed to him by continual preaching, and if he does not know it, at least hold it with him and believe it.

Let him also understand well the prayers of the Masses and the prefaces and the canon, and if not, let him at least be able to recite them distinctly and from memory, and be able to read the epistle and gospel well, and would that he might be able to make plain the sense according to the letter! Let him know how to pronounce the verses and divisions of the psalms regularly by heart together with the customary canticles. Let him hold by memory the sermon of Bishop Athanasius, whose beginning is "Whosoever will," and chant it every day. Let each one be able and know how to recite distinctly the exorcisms and prayers for making a catechumen, and for consecrating the font of baptism, or the remaining prayers over a man and a woman singly and in the plural, and let him have and prudently know the order of baptizing for the assistance 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 run willingly when invited to visit the sick and to reconcile them, and let him come to their need not for earthly gain, but for that charity with which Christ loved us, and let him take care to chant the prayers and the seven special psalms around them. Likewise let him hold by memory the order to be followed in the obsequies of the departed, the prayers, and also the exorcisms of salt and water: let him know the night and 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 versed in the Martyrology and the Penitential. Let each one have this booklet and read it frequently, lest he consign to oblivion the things he must observe.

That we may be able to retain these things in memory and carry them out wholesomely, most dear brothers, may almighty God deign to grant us, whose kingdom and dominion endures without end for ever and ever. Amen.