Canon
XVI.
those who have been or who
are guilty of bestial lusts, if they have sinned while under twenty
years of age, be prostrators fifteen years, and afterwards communicate
in prayers; then, having passed five years in this communion, let them
have a share in the oblation. But let their life as prostrators
be examined, and so let them receive indulgence; and if any have been
insatiable in their crimes, then let their time of prostration be
prolonged. And if any who have passed this age and had wives, have fallen into this sin, let them be prostrators twenty-five years, and then communicate in prayers; and, after they have been five years in the communion of prayers, let them share the oblation. And if any married men of more than fifty years of age have so sinned, let them be admitted to communion only at the point of death.
Notes.
Whoever shall have commerce with animals devoid of
reason being younger than twenty, shall be a prostrator for fifteen
years. If he is over that age and has a wife when he falls into
this wickedness he shall be a prostrator for twenty-five years. But the married man who shall do so when over fifty years of age, shall be a prostrator to his life’s end.
It is interesting to compare with this, as Van Espen
does, the canon of the Church of England set forth in the tenth century
under King Edgar, where, Part II., canon xvi., we read—
“If any one twenty years of age shall defile
himself with a beast, or shall commit sodomy let him fast fifteen
years; and if he have a wife and be forty years of age, and shall do
such a deed let him abstain now and fast all the rest of his life, neither shall he presume until he is dying to receive the Lord’s body. Youths and fools who shall do any such thing shall be soundly trounced.”