Statute 64

1Concerning trades and occupations. They shall examine the candidates firmly concerning their occupations and manner of life, whether they are slaves or free. If anyone is a slave, they shall ask whether his master can bear testimony concerning his conduct. If the master can bear good testimony, the slave shall be received. If the master cannot bear testimony concerning him, he shall be sent away so that he may make himself worthy of his master’s testimony. If testimony is then borne concerning him, he shall be received.

2Male and female slaves shall be taught to live according to the will of their masters, so that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Anyone who has a wife or husband shall be taught not to commit adultery and to abstain from others. Anyone who is unmarried shall be taught not to commit adultery, but to marry according to the law.

3If a master is a believer and knows that his male or female slave commits adultery, he shall give them in marriage according to the law. If he does not give that male or female slave in marriage according to the law, the slaveholder shall be rejected from the church because he has made them impure.

4If anyone has a demon, he shall be taught that he must be healed and that he must not enter the church to partake of the Mystery until he is purified. If he is at the point of death, he may be brought to receive the Offering.

5If anyone eats in the houses of heretics and adulterers and drinks with them, he shall cease and remove himself from the place of the unclean and wicked; otherwise, he shall be rejected.

6If a prostitute wishes to enter, she shall abandon this practice or be rejected. If an idol-maker wishes to enter, he shall abandon his former work or be rejected. If a man or woman comes from another people and wishes to enter our law, that person shall abandon the former work or be rejected.

7If a man or woman belongs to the people of the games, provides the games, is a painter or a drunkard, or practices divination with earth and ashes, with the fruit of trees, or with anything else used by pagan sorcerers, that person shall not continue doing it.

8Anyone who plays the harp, sings to an instrument, teaches singing, or guides people to fornication and the games shall abandon that work or be rejected.

9The same applies to circus performers who perform in the circus. Likewise, if there is a witch, a woman who guides people to fornication or makes sport, a piper, a dancer, a singer, or a teacher of such things, she shall cease or be rejected.

10Anyone who incites people to wickedness and hatred, any slanderer, and anyone who does anything like these practices shall cease, repudiate these things, turn back, and repent. They shall walk in the way of the believers, or they shall not be accepted.

11If a man of the army wishes to enter and know the Faith, and if he enters our law, he shall abandon robbery, violence, slander, transgression, and folly, and shall be content with his pay. If he leaves that occupation, he shall be received; otherwise, he shall be rejected.

12If a man has married a believing woman and acts wickedly with his body or commits adultery; or if he is a soothsayer and an interpreter of unlucky hours and good days, wishing by this to turn people’s hearts, corrupt their thoughts and hearts, and lead them away from the way of God; or if he is shameless, a magician, a charmer, one who calls spirits together, a stargazer, a bewitcher, lustful, a drunkard, evil in deed and word, one who speaks by a sign and with his face in order to lead others astray, or one who practices divination by a bird, he shall not be received.

13The same applies to one who marks his hands and feet with a needle, making small marks in black and red and writing nonsense upon himself; one who practices divination with beans; one who divines from a noise he hears or from people’s words, taking them as signs for himself; one who divines from what he sees or hears; or one who, because of suspicion, refuses to do what is known to be good.

14All of this belongs to what is profane, fraudulent, and impious. Such people possess writings and are like those who know about life and death. They shall not be received into our law until they have been examined and tested concerning their occupations and whether they have repented of their conduct. If they turn back and abandon those occupations, they shall be accepted; otherwise, they shall be rejected.