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This selection gathers laws of the emperor Justinian on ecclesiastical matters from the title of his Code concerning bishops and clerics. The first, addressed to the praetorian prefect Atarbius, decrees that whenever an episcopal see falls vacant, the inhabitants of the city shall nominate three persons of right faith, honest life and good repute, from whom the most suitable is to be made bishop, citing the example of the apostles. Further laws regulate the ordination, conduct and property of bishops and clergy.
The sample from a later law forbids bishops and clerics, whose senses have been consecrated to God at their ordination, to play at dice or any game of chance, or to associate with gamblers. These laws show the extent to which Justinian legislated for the Church as part of his government of the empire, and they were transmitted in the West through the Code and through collections of Roman law used by canonists.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Corpus Corporum, the Latin text repository of the University of Zurich (edition: Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 72, Parisiis 1849), reused with attribution for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA). Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.