The First Canonical Letter of Basil to Amphilochius

Canon 1. On the question about the Cathari, the custom of each country is to be followed, since those who have discussed this point hold different views. The baptism of the Pepuzenes I count as nothing, and I am surprised that Dionysius the canonist thought otherwise. The ancients speak of heresies that break men off entirely and make them strangers to the faith. Such are the Manichaeans, Valentinians, Marcionites and Pepuzenes, who sin against the Holy Spirit and who baptize into the Father, the Son and Montanus, or Priscilla. Schisms arise from church disputes, from causes that are not incurable, and from differences about penance. The Cathari are schismatics of this kind. The ancients, namely Cyprian and Firmilian, put these, along with the Encratites, the Hydroparastatae and the Apotactites, under the same condemnation, because those who have broken the succession no longer have the communication of the Holy Spirit. Those who first made the break had the spiritual gift; but by becoming schismatics they became laymen. And so they ordered that those baptized by them who came over to the church should be cleansed by the true baptism, like people baptized by laymen. Because some in Asia have decided otherwise, let their baptism be allowed; but not that of the Encratites, for they have altered their baptism so as to make themselves incapable of being received by the church. Yet custom, and the fathers, that is, the bishops who have the administration, must be followed. For I am afraid that, while I raise fears in them about their baptism, I may put an obstacle in the way of the saved. We are not to allow their baptism because they allow ours, but are to keep the canons strictly. But let no one be received without anointing. When we received Zois and Saturninus to the bishop’s chair, we made, so to speak, a canon to receive those who were in communion with them. [a]

Canon 2. Let a woman who procures an abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo was fully formed or not. Canon 3. A deacon guilty of fornication is deposed, not excommunicated; for the ancient canon forbids a single crime to be punished twice. Moreover, an excommunicated layman may be restored to the rank from which he fell, but a deposed clergyman cannot. Yet it is better to cure men of their sins by self-discipline, and to carry out the canon only in cases where we cannot reach what is more perfect. [e] Canon 4. Those who married a second time used to be under penance for a year or two; those who married a third time, three or four years. But we have a custom that one who marries a third time is under penance for five years, not by canon but by tradition. For half of this time they are to be hearers, and afterward co-standers, but they are to abstain from the communion of the Good Thing, when they have shown some fruit of repentance. [f] Canon 5. Heretics on their deathbed who give good signs of their conversion are to be received. Canon 6. When one who belongs to the canon commits fornication, let it not be counted a marriage, but let them be forced to separate. [g]

Canon 7. Those who have committed sodomy with men or with animals, murderers, sorcerers, adulterers and idolaters have been judged worthy of the same punishment; so follow the same method with these as you do with the others. We ought not to hesitate to receive those who have repented for thirty years of the uncleanness they committed in ignorance. For their ignorance pleads for their pardon, and so does their willingness to confess it. So order them to be received at once, especially if they have tears to move your tenderness, and have, since their fall, lived such a life as to deserve your compassion. Canon 8. One who kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder. Not so one who throws a stone at a dog and kills a man without meaning to, or who corrects someone with a rod or a whip in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense when he meant only to hurt him. But the man or woman who gives a love potion is a murderer, if the one who takes it dies of it. So are those who take drugs to cause an abortion; and so are those who kill on the highway, and bandits. [h] Canon 9. Our Lord’s ruling applies equally to the man and to the woman, forbidding divorce except for fornication. But custom requires wives to keep their husbands even if the husbands are guilty of fornication. A man deserted by his wife may take another; and even though he was deserted for adultery, Saint Basil holds firmly that the other woman who afterward takes him is guilty of adultery. But the wife is not allowed this liberty. And the man who deserts an innocent wife is not allowed to marry. [i]

Canon 10. Those who have sworn that they will not be ordained are not to be forced to break their oath. Severus, bishop of Masada, had ordained Cyriacus a priest for a country church subject to the bishop of Mesthia; and since he pleads that he did it unawares, he is left to the judgment of God. When Cyriacus was ordained, he had been forced, against the canon, to swear that he would stay in that country church; but the bishop of Mesthia, to whom that church properly belonged, forced him out. Saint Basil advises Amphilochius to attach the country church to Masada and make it subject to Severus, and to allow Cyriacus to return to it and so keep his oath. By this means, he supposes, Longinus, the lord of that district, would be persuaded to change his resolve to leave that church desolate, as he had declared he would do once Cyriacus was expelled. [j]

Canon 11. One who is guilty of involuntary murder is to do eleven years’ penance; that is, if the murdered person, after receiving the wound here, went out and about again, and yet afterward died of it. Canon 12. The canon excludes from the ministry those who are guilty of a second marriage. [k] Canon 13. Our fathers did not count killing in war as murder; yet I think it advisable that those who have been guilty of it should keep away from communion for three years. Canon 14. A man who has lent at interest, if he gives his unjust gain to the poor and renounces his love of money, may be admitted into the clergy. Canons 15 and 16. These are not properly canons but explanations of Scripture, and so neither Balsamon nor Aristenus treats them as canons. [l]