The members of the Church are not allowed to meet in the cemeteries, nor attend the so-called martyries of any of the heretics, for prayer or service; but such as so do, if they be communicants, shall be excommunicated for a time; but if they repent and confess that they have sinned they shall be received.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon IX.
Whoso prayeth in the cemeteries and martyries of heretics is to be excommunicated.
Zonaras.
By the word "service" ( qerapei/aj ) in this canon is to be understood the healing of sickness. The canon wishes that the faithful should under no pretence betake themselves to the prayers of heretical pseudo-martyrs nor pay them honour in the hope of obtaining the healing of sickness or the cure of their various temptations. And if any do so, they are to be cut off, that is for a time forbidden communion (and this refers to the faithful who are only laymen), but when they have done penance and made confession of their fault, the canon orders that they are to be received back again.
Balsamon.
As canon vi. forbids heretics to enter the house of God, so this canon forbids the faithful to go to the cemeteries of heretics, which are called by them "Martyries." ... For in the days of the persecution, certain of the heretics, calling themselves Christians, suffered even to death, and hence those who shared their opinions called them "martyrs."
Van Espen.
As Catholics had their martyrs, so too had the heretics, and especially the Montanists or Phrygians, who greatly boasted of them. Apollinaris writes of these as may be seen in Eusebius ( H. E. , Lib. v., cap. xvj.)
The places or cemeteries in which rested the bodies of those they boasted of as martyrs, they styled "Martyries" (martyria) as similar places among Catholics were wont to be called by the same name, from the bones of the martyrs that rested there.
From the Greek text, as also from Isidore's version it is clear that this canon refers to all the faithful generally, and that "the members of the Church" (Lat. Ecclesiastici, the word Dionysius uses) must be taken in this wide signification.
Canon X.
The members of the Church shall not indiscriminately marry their children to heretics.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon X.
Thou shalt not marry a heretic.
Fuchs.
(Bib. der Kirchenvers., pt. ii., p. 324.) "Indiscriminately" means not that they might be given in marriage to some heretics and not to others; but that it should not be considered a matter of indifference whether they were married to heretics or orthodox.
Zonaras and Balsamon, led astray by the similar canon enacted at Chalcedon (number xiv.), suppose this restriction only to apply to the children of the clergy, but Van Espen has shewn that the rule is of general application. He adds, however, the following:
Van Espen.
Since by the custom of the Greeks, ecclesiastics are allowed to have wives, there is no doubt that the marriage of their children with heretics would be indecent in a very special degree, although there are many things which go to shew that marriage with heretics was universally deemed a thing to be avoided by Catholics, and was rightly forbidden.
Canon XI.
Presbytides, as they are called, or female presidents, are not to be appointed in the Church.
Notes.