Exhortatio ad Presbyteros

Exhortation of Pope Eutychianus to the Presbyters, from an Ancient Vatican Codex. Brothers and priests of the Lord, you are the co-workers of our order. We indeed, though unworthy, hold the place of Aaron; you hold the place of Eleazar and Ithamar. We act in the stead of the twelve apostles; you are in the form of the seventy-two disciples. We are your shepherds; you are the shepherds of the people entrusted to you. We are to render an account of you to the supreme Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ; you are to render an account of the people entrusted to you. We are to render an account of you, the shepherds; you, however, are to render an account of the sheep, that is, of the peoples commended to you. And therefore, dearest sons, let us foresee the danger of so great an office entrusted to us. We therefore admonish and beseech your fraternity that you commit to memory what we suggest for your and our salvation. First, we admonish that your life and conduct be irreproachable: namely, that your cell be near the church, and that you have no women in your houses; rise every night for the night offices; chant your office at the appointed hours; perform the celebrations of Masses religiously; receive the body and blood of the Lord with fear and reverence. Let no one attend 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.

No one is to sing while using a white [vestment] for his own purposes. No one is to dare to celebrate Mass using a wooden or glass chalice. No woman is to approach the altar, nor touch the Lord's chalice; the corporal is to be very clean. The altar is to be covered with clean linen cloths. Nothing is to be placed upon the altar except boxes and relics and the four Gospels, or a pyx with the Body of the Lord for the viaticum of the sick; the rest are to be stored in a clean place. Each one is to have a plenary missal, a lectionary, an antiphonary, and a book of forty homilies. A place is to be prepared in the sacristy or near the altar where water is poured out when the sacred vessels are washed, and where a clean vessel with water hangs, so that the priest may wash his hands after Communion. The churches are to be well roofed and vaulted, and the churchyard is to be fortified on all sides. No one is to sing Mass outside the church in houses, nor in unconsecrated places: no one is to sing Mass alone: every priest is to have a cleric or a scholar who reads the epistle or lesson, and responds to him at Mass, and with whom he sings the psalms. Visit the lowly, and reconcile them to confession, and anoint them with holy oil according to the apostle, and communicate them with your own hand. No one is to presume to give Communion to a layman or a woman to take to a sick person; no one is to...

to be sold by anyone. None of you is to demand a reward, price, or gift for baptizing infants, or for reconciling sinners or the sick, or for burying the dead, or for consecrating churches; nor is anyone to seize churches by means of money or any evil contrivance. See to it that through your negligence no infant dies without baptism. None of you is to be a drunkard or quarrelsome; none is to bear arms in a riot, except the word of the Lord. None is to engage in the games of dogs or birds; none is to eat or drink in taverns. Each of you, as far as he is able, is to announce to his people from the Gospel, or from the Epistle, or from some divine scripture on Sundays and feast days. He is to care for the poor, pilgrims, and orphans, providing them with hospitality and sustenance. He is to recall the discordant to harmony; he is to defend widows, so that in these and other such matters he may set an example of all good. Every Sunday before Mass he is to make holy water, and sprinkle his people and the places of the faithful, and for this purpose alone he is to have one vessel, and he is to go in procession around his courtyard or around the church. Do not give sacred vessels and priestly vestments as a pledge to a merchant or to any layperson. None of you is to bring a penitent to reconciliation less worthily for the sake of any matter, nor to bear him a testimony of reconciliation. None of you is to demand usury, nor to be the manager of his own loan.

You are to know that the property and goods which you acquire on the day of your ordination belong to the church to which you are appointed 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 secular power: let no one leave the church to which he is appointed and migrate to another: let no one have several churches without the assistance of other presbyters: let no single church be divided among several persons under any circumstances. Let no one receive another’s parishioner for Mass, except when traveling, or if it be by agreement: let no one sing Mass in another’s church or parish without the will and request of its own presbyter: let no one receive a tithe belonging to another church. Let no one invite a penitent to eat meat and drink wine, unless alms are given for him at once. Let no one presume to baptize, except on the vigils of Easter and Pentecost, unless from 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 is done. See to it that you teach the creed and the Lord’s Prayer to all your parishioners. Enjoin the observance of the Ember days, and the Rogations, and the Greater Litany to your congregations in every way.

On the Wednesday before Lent, invite the people to confession, and impose penance upon them according to the quality of their transgression, not from your own heart, but as it is written in the penitential. At three times in the year, that is, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, admonish all the faithful, except penitents to whom it is forbidden, to approach for communion of the body and blood. At these times, exhort married persons to abstain from their wives, that is, from the Advent of the Lord until the completed octave of Epiphany; and from Septuagesima until the completed octave of Easter; and from the Rogations until the completed octave of Pentecost. Moreover, on all Saturdays until Monday, and on the vigil of Saint Mary, and of Saint John, and of the Apostles, and on the appointed vigils of other saints, and on their feasts, give blessings to the people after Mass on Sundays. Let no priest walk on a journey without an orarium, that is, a stole. Let none of you be clothed in lay garments and in various colors. Let no one presume to sell, or exchange, or by any device alienate from the church any thing, possession, or slave of the church.

Teach them to celebrate the Lord's Day and other feasts from vespers to vespers without servile work. Forbid singing, women's dances, buffoonish games, and songs in the church and in the churchyard. Forbid, under the invocation of Almighty God, the diabolical songs which the common people are accustomed to perform over the dead in the night hours, and the laughter which they engage in. Do not communicate with the excommunicated: let no one presume to sing Mass with them, but announce this to the peoples commended to you. Let none of you go to weddings: announce to all that no one is to take a wife except in publicly celebrated nuptials; let no one take another's betrothed, and forbid weddings from the Advent of the Lord until the completed Octave of the Epiphany, and from Septuagesima until the completed Octave of Easter, and from the Rogations until the completed Octave of Pentecost. Forbid abduction in every way, and anathematize that no one approach a woman of his own blood or his consanguineous relatives up to the seventh generation. Admonish all shepherds and their other servants to cause each one to come to church on the Lord's Day or feast days. Let godparents impart to their spiritual godchildren the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, or have them taught. Let the chrism be under seal, or under lock, on account of certain unfaithful persons.

We take care to admonish you concerning the mystery entrusted to you, so that each one of you, if it can be done, may have the exposition of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer written down with him according to the tradition of the orthodox fathers, and may fully understand it, and from it diligently instruct the people committed to him by preaching, and, if he does not know it, at least keep it with him and believe it. Also, let him well understand the prayers of the Masses, the Prefaces, and the Canon, and if not, at least be able to recite them distinctly and from memory, be able to read the Epistle and Gospel well, and would that he could explain the literal sense! Let him know how to recite the verses and divisions of the Psalms regularly from memory, along with the customary canticles. Let him hold by heart the sermon of Bishop Athanasius, whose beginning is “Quicumque vult,” and chant it every day. Let him be able and know how to pronounce distinctly the exorcisms and prayers for making a catechumen, and for consecrating the baptismal font, or the other prayers over a male and a female, in the singular and plural, and let each one have and prudently know the order of baptizing for assisting the sick, and the order of reconciling according to the authority of the canons, and the order of anointing the sick. Also, for visiting the sick and for reconciling them, when invited, let him run spontaneously, and assist 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.

Similarly, let him hold in memory the order for conducting the funerals of the dead, the prayers, and also the exorcisms of salt and water: let him know the night chant and the 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 possible, the rest. Let him have knowledge of the Martyrology and the Penitential. Let each one have this little book and read it frequently, lest he consign to oblivion those things which are to be observed by him. May almighty God, whose kingdom and dominion endure without end unto the ages of ages, deign to grant, dearest brothers, that we may be able to retain these things in memory and to perform them salutarily. Amen.