Ancient Epitome of Canon XV.
Whosoever they be that desert their children and do not instruct them in the fear of God let them be anathema.
Van Espen.
The fathers of this Synod here teach that it is the office and duty of parents to provide for the bodily care of their children, and also, as far as in them lies. to mould them to the practice of piety. And this care for their children is to be preferred by parents to any private exercises of religion. In this connexion should be read the letter of St. Francis de Sales. (Ep. xxxii, Lib. 4.)
It may perhaps be noted that this canon has not infrequently been violated by those who are accepted as Saints in the Church.
This canon is found, in Isidore's version, in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars I., Dist. xxx., c. xiv.
Canon XVI.
IF, under any pretence of piety, any children shall forsake their parents, particularly [if the parents are] believers, and shall withhold becoming reverence from their parents, on the plea that they honour piety more than them, let them be anathema.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XVI.
If children leave their parents who are of the faithful let them be anathema.
Zonaras notes that the use of the word "particularly" shews that the obligation is universal. The commentators all refer here to St. Matthew xv., where our Lord speaks of the subterfuge by which the Jews under pretext of piety defrauded their parents and made the law of God of none effect.
Van Espen.
Of the last clause this is the meaning; that according to the Eustathians "piety towards God" or "divine worship," or rather its pretence, should be preferred to the honour and reverence due to parents.
This canon, in Isidore's version, is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars I., Dist. xxx., c.i. The Roman correctors advertize the reader that the version of Dionysius Exiguus "is much nearer to the original Greek, although not altogether so."
Canon XVII.
IF any woman from pretended asceticism shall cut off her hair, which God gave her as the reminder of her subjection, thus annulling as it were the ordinance of subjection, let her be anathema.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XVII.
Whatever women shave their hair off, pretending to do so out of reverence for God, let them be anathema.
Hefele.
The apostle Paul, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, xi. 10, represents the long hair of women, which is given them as a natural veil, as a token of their subjection to man. We learn from the Synod of Gangra, that as many Eustathian women renounced this subjection, and left their husbands, so, as this canon says, they also did away with their long hair, which was the outward token of this subjection. An old proverb says: duo si faciunt idem, non est idem. In the Catholic Church also, when women and girls enter the cloister, they have their hair cut off, but from quite other reasons than those of the Eustathian women. The former give up their hair, because it has gradually become the custom to consider the long hair of women as a special beauty, as their greatest ornament; but the Eustathians, like the ancient Church in general, regarded long hair as the token of subjection to the husband, and, because they renounced marriage and forsook their husbands, they cut it off.
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars I., Dist. xxx., c. ij.
Canon XVIII.
IF any one, under pretence of asceticism, shall fast on Sunday, let him be anathema.