Tizaz
Statute 65
Overview
This statute sets conditions for receiving converts, regulates marriage involving concubines or handmaids, requires the rejection of pagan practices, and gives standards for those seeking a life of devotion or the role of teacher.
1If a woman is the concubine of an unbeliever, she shall be received if she has kept herself to him alone; but if she has taken another man, she shall be repudiated.
2If a man becomes one of us and enters our law while having a concubine or a handmaid, he shall exercise self-control and abstain from her, because he is a Christian. He shall marry according to the law, as we have commanded. If he loves her, he shall first give her a written act of manumission and afterward marry her. If she is free, he shall marry her according to the law. If he does not do this, he shall be rejected.
3If there is a man among us who acts wickedly, promotes the fables of the heathen, or behaves as they do, let him cease and turn back; otherwise, he shall be rejected.
4Anyone who asks the believers in Christ to admit him among those who practice virtue and devote themselves to quietness and purity shall prove himself in virtue for three years. If he is a man who possesses spiritual gifts, goodness, and purity, he shall be received sooner, because this matter is not determined by a shorter or longer period of time, but by a good disposition, devotion, and prudence.
5If a layman teaches people rightly, he shall be restrained in speech and virtuous in his body. He shall not boast, but shall speak correctly. Then he shall teach people, and afterward, through God, he shall become a teacher of them all. The prophet says, “They shall all be taught by God.”