Canon X.
members of the Church shall
not indiscriminately marry their children to heretics.
Notes.
Thou shalt not marry a heretic.
(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:
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.