Distinction LXXV

GRATIAN. Part I. According to what is contained in the Roman Order, no particular time of consecration is chosen for the blessing of a bishop. For they are blessed at every time, provided that they receive the blessing while fasting and at the third hour. Hence Anacletus, Bishop of the city of Rome, writes to all the Bishops, [epistle II, at the beginning]:

By apostolic authority the ordinations of bishops are to be celebrated by all the bishops who are in the same province. Assembling together, let them celebrate the scrutiny with prayers, imposing hands with the holy Gospels, praying on the Lord’s day at the third hour, and anointing them with sacred anointing in the manner of the apostles and Moses, after the example of the prophets who anointed the heads of kings; because all sanctification is established to be in the Holy Spirit, whose invisible power is mingled with the holy chrism. And by this rite let them celebrate the solemn ordination. Part II. GRATIAN. The time of consecration, however, is confined within the space of three months, beyond which, unless necessity compels, the consecrations of bishops may not be deferred after election. Hence it reads in the Council of Chalcedon, [c. 25]:

Since certain metropolitans, as has been reported to us, neglect the flocks entrusted to them and defer making the ordinations of bishops, it has pleased the holy synod that the ordinations of bishops be made within three months, unless perhaps an inexcusable necessity compels the time of ordination to be prolonged further. But if any bishop does not observe this, we judge that he ought to be subject to ecclesiastical condemnation, while the revenues of the same widowed church are to be preserved intact with the steward of that church. Part III. GRATIAN. The ordinations of the others, however, especially of priests and Levites, ought to be made only at certain times and days, namely on Saturday evening or on the morning of the Lord’s day, with the fast continued. Hence Zephyrinus, Archbishop of the city of Rome, writes to all the Bishops, [epistle II]:

Perform the ordinations of priests and Levites solemnly at a suitable time, with many standing by in their presence, and promote approved and learned men to this work, so that you may rejoice greatly in their fellowship and assistance.

Likewise Bishop Leo to Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, [epistle LXXIX, c. 1]. What we know to have been observed by our Fathers with more attentive care, we also wish to be guarded by us: that priestly or Levitical ordination not be celebrated indiscriminately on every day, but that the beginnings of consecration be chosen after the Sabbath day and its night, which dawns upon the first day of the week, in which the sacred blessing is to be conferred upon those to be consecrated while they are fasting and by those who are fasting. It will belong to the same observance if the ordination is celebrated in the morning on the Lord’s day itself, with the Sabbath fast continued, since it does not depart from the beginnings of the preceding night, which without doubt pertain to the day of the resurrection, as is also declared in the Lord’s Pasch.

Likewise, [in the same chapter]. Part IV. That ordinations of priests are celebrated on the Lord’s day, we know to come not only from custom but also from apostolic teaching, Scripture making manifest that, when the apostles sent Paul and Barnabas at the command of the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel to the gentiles, they imposed hands upon them while fasting and praying, so that we may understand with how great a devotion both of those giving and of those receiving care must be taken lest the sacrament of so great a blessing appear to have been fulfilled negligently. And therefore you will have piously and laudably complied with the apostolic institutes if you yourself also preserve this form of ordaining priests throughout the churches over which the Lord willed you to preside, so that the blessing is never granted to those to be consecrated except on the day of the Lord’s resurrection, to which it is established that the beginning is assigned from the evening of the Sabbath, a day consecrated by so many mysteries of the divine dispensations that whatever distinguished thing was instituted by the Lord was accomplished in the dignity of this day. On it the world took its beginning; on it, through the resurrection, both death received its destruction and life its beginning.

[PALEA.

Likewise in the Roman Order, in the chapter concerning the grades of the Church. Clerics are ordained up to the office of the subdiaconate whenever and wherever it pleases, but deacons and priests never except in a public ordination.]

Likewise Gelasius to all the Bishops, [epistle I, c. 13]. Part V. The ordinations of priests and deacons ought not to be performed except at certain times and days, that is, at the fast of the fourth month, the seventh, and the tenth, but also at the beginning of Lent and the middle week, on the Sabbath fast toward evening. Let them know that the ordinations themselves are to be celebrated then, and let them not dare, for the sake of any advantage, to prefer either a priest or a deacon to those who were ordained before them.