They Disgrace Their Holiness

We have heard that Christian people in this place, after they receive the holy mysteries and leave the church on the days of the Eucharist, rush to the shops of Jews to drink wine, and they disgrace in their madness the holiness that they have received by mixing with Jews, who deny grace. And this [happens even] when they do not lack shops of Christians by which to fulfill their desire of drinking wine according to their custom. We hereby ban and abolish this practice so that it does not again happen among Christians. If someone violates this and dares to do it, let him be repressed by the bishop through ecclesiastical judgement.

Translated by Simcha Gross and Aaron Michael Butts.

Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

Church of the East Synod of 676, Canon 17, trans. Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross, in Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross, The History of the ‘Slave of Christ’: From Jewish Child to Christian Martyr (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2016), p. 72. Used with permission of Gorgias Press LLC.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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