From the Canons of the Apostles, in the First Three Centuries of the Church

Although they were not written by the Apostles, nevertheless it ought to be certain that the Apostles, and especially Peter, left certain rules to the Church, by which it would be taught in what manner this society was to be governed: for example, how Pastors and ministers were to be chosen and instituted, what were the offices and duties of each, what the subordination of inferiors, and by what things, generally, some certain measure would be established for discipline, although in itself mutable. For these things are not handed down in the Scriptures; yet without them a society cannot stand. Now in the canons which are called those of the Apostles there is contained a certain form of ecclesiastical government and ecclesiastical discipline. Therefore there is no reason why we should doubt that they finally proceeded from the Apostles, and especially from Peter, although, because they were not immediately consigned to writing, others afterward, when they were written, were added, which an Apostolic origin did not commend. These two things seem to have been the cause why both Gelasius, or at least Hormisdas, placed among the apocrypha the book which is inscribed Canons of the Apostles, which had not been written by the Apostles and contained certain things not to be referred to the Apostles; and why, at the same age, as Dionysius testifies in his letter to Stephen the Bishop, very many did not easily give consent to these canons. But the fact that, these things notwithstanding, Dionysius in his earlier Code of Ecclesiastical Canons - for the other, entitled the code of canons of the universal Church, is nothing but a more exact word-for-word translation from the Greek of the canons of the Greek councils, made by Dionysius at the command of Pope Hormisdas after the other; cf. his letter among the letters of Hormisdas, n. 148, ed. Andrea Thiel - reviewed the ecclesiastical rules of the holy Apostles, sufficiently shows that canons of this sort, attributed to the Apostles, obtained no slight authority in the Church.

Yet the question, among the Latins at least, concerned only the fifty canons which Dionysius copied from Clement; for the canons to which he says that very many do not easily give assent are those which he afterwards copies in the number of 50. Others he either did not recognize or held of no worth, although John Scholasticus of Antioch, who in the year 565 was Bishop of Constantinople, reports 85 Apostolic canons from Clement. That Dionysian collection, made at first by private authority, was afterwards received into use by the Roman Church, which cited canons from it, and among these even the canons of the Apostles. Yet Hadrian I, in his Epitome of Canons, reports only forty-five canons of the Apostles from the Dionysian canons, not omitting those which we produce below. From these things it is evident why we judged that the Canons of the Apostles were not to be omitted in our prospectus.

Canon XIX. He who has married two sisters successively, or the daughter of a brother (another reading: a cousin; Ebediesu adds, or the daughter of a sister), cannot be a cleric.

Whether marriages of this sort are held illicit for all, and because of their special malice those who have contracted them are prohibited from the clergy, or whether such men are kept from it only because of the propriety of the clerical order, just as bigamists are kept away, is not evident of itself from this canon. Yet if you consider other canons either of the same or of a very near age, you will easily understand to what this one tends. Cf. Canon LXI of Elvira below.

Canon XLVIII. If any layman, having cast out his wife, has taken another, or has married one dismissed by another, let him be separated.

This canon is cited by Zacharias in his letter to Pepin (see below), who cites this and other canons from the Dionysian collection.

Now if you notice at what time this canon was established, namely when divorces with dissolution of the bond were permitted by Imperial laws for many causes, you will understand that the sentence of the canon, expressed universally, that is, without any limitation, also and indeed principally regards the case in which a wife, for causes approved by earthly law, for example because of adultery, was cast out or dismissed. Already, that is, the Church uses her own right concerning marriage, with no regard had to civil laws.