Praeceptum Quando Iussi Sunt Omnes Episcopi Cellulanos Habere

VII. A Decree When All Bishops Were Ordered to Have Cell Managers. No one doubts that a man who has subdued the allurements of carnal desire by the art of living as a master, a lover of the sacred institute, and has removed the errant shoots from the root of his conduct with the scythe of heavenly precepts, intending to consign them to a life-giving fire so that fruitful plantings may foster an annual profit for divine commands, and that he may rejoice both in the sincerity of his innocence and in the light of his reputation. Nor should it be believed that the torch of good merits can be extinguished by the blast of a slanderer, since, even if touched by the tooth of envy, the splendor of life excludes the shadow of poisoned calumny. Darkness seeks out its author, which is fitted to envelop radiance: the infused night does not overwhelm the brightness of the stars: for the genius of clarity, conflict with obscurity is beneficial: the service of the lunar globe shines more brightly when the day departs and pleases by its own light, while it dispels another's. He who assumes the light as his author is not placed under external authority.

But since harmful minds think that they are not bound by definitions established for their elders, believing that the precepts of the prophets, which say that the mouth of a slanderer will be uprooted, grow old with age and have no force over time—as if fear were owed only to recent statutes and an aged law does not hold the guilty to punishment—while God, the maker of the ages, using the office of a prophet, has commanded both ancient things and arranges modern ones, and the same one builder of the good institution preserves among posterity what he set forth in parents concerning men. But let us return to our subject. Holy souls are indeed exercised by the words of rivals and count as an increase of glory whatever an accuser has brought against their merit, just as the teacher of the Gentiles proclaims that men are exercised by slanders. As trees that have reached the depths of the earth with strong roots are accustomed to despise the blasts of winds and to scorn the contests of storms, animated by their own stability, so those men, rejecting the darkness of a fabricated charge that has been thrust upon them, show forth the rays of good conduct through clear skies. For when one of them, with his conscience as witness, engages with the objections made against him, he runs through to the hope of triumph by internal assessment.

Nevertheless, we who are bound by pastoral care, to whom the diligence of guarding souls has been entrusted—lest any of the highest or the lowest perish, especially when the recent example of evil itself is placed before our eyes, when the ruler of the apostolic see and the one handling the governance of almost all churches was bitten by such a mouth through the fire of a neighbor’s uproar, by the rage of enemies, and in.

our eyes, the madness of some has arisen without just indignation to their own ruin. Therefore, wishing to cut off this deadly plague of diseases, lest anyone exploit the negligences of our people in place of unjust assertion and, supported by a semblance of truth, come forth to attack—those who, as they say, do not fear the living testimonies of men, while, what is unspeakable to say, the unwary is assigned the place of the convicted, and he who is said to have been able to commit a crime is believed to have done it (no one judges the eyes of God to be more feared than those of man: solitude is believed to foster error, and unaccompanied state to admit profound wickedness, as if crimes hidden in inner chambers do not lie open to heaven and evil that man does not see cannot be punished)—believing that they can assign what is a matter of choice to necessity, and, when man is guardian to man, they can apply chastity to fear by another order of slander, we indeed, even from one side, incur occasions for censure, mindful of the heavenly discipline, we extend whatever priestly right hand we have to those willing to perish, and we hold back those driven by diabolical goads from the precipice of ruin, so that the talkative may learn, even after the present decrees, to love religious silence.

Therefore, we wish that no priest obedient to ancient and modern laws, and no Levite without a well-proven companion, remain in any place whatsoever as a person, or if the meagerness of his means has not permitted him to have a partner, let him himself become the cell-mate of another. Let everything that is done be public among religious men: let clandestine obscurity be rejected; let him who owes innocence to God have many witnesses to his actions. Let rivals see that he who employs witnesses wishes to be proven: let a way of life that does not wish to be known be judged as having been caught in evil. Certainly, even if the mind is conscious of what is right, he who becomes a cause of danger to another is worthy of punishment: for while he opens access to suspicions, he becomes the origin of a brother's peril, and he who supplies the tinder for sinning thrusts his own throat into death, as the divine and blessed herald, the confessor Ambrose, says: do not detract, lest you be uprooted. Many have not given place to error, and have given place to suspicion. That suspicion is the destruction of the one who suspects, and he who gives rise to it does not lack sin. Hence, with the enduring ordinance of our God and Redeemer established, we decree, supported by the authority of the apostolic see of blessed Peter and of his bishop the pope, which desires vices to be cut out by the roots, that none of the religious from the aforementioned orders dare to live otherwise than we have stated above, or that whoever presumes to do so shall suffer losses of honors along with the loss of modesty.

Since it is a great evil for a person dedicated to God not to obey salutary admonitions, let no one have with him foreign women beyond the persons designated by the canons, lest by acting in such a manner, even if his life be innocent, he incur damage to his reputation.