Canons of Hippolytus, 15

Canons of Hippolytus, 15

Written 4th century. The work is largely a redaction of the church order document known as the “Apostolic Tradition.” Canon 15 describes professions/lifestyles which would prevent one from being baptised. This uses a large amount of material from Apostolic Tradition 16, but adds a number of vices, including “one who loves swearing.”

Source: Bradshaw, Paul F., Maxwell E. Johnson, L. Edward Phillips, and Harold W. Attridge. The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002. p. 91.

A fornicator or one who lives on the proceeds of fornication, or an effeminate, and especially one who speaks of shameful [things], or an idler, or a profligate, or a magician or an astrologer, or a diviner, or an interpreter of dreams, or a snake charmer, or an agitator who agitates the people, or one who makes phylacteries, or a usurer, or an oppressor, or one who loves the world, or one who loves swearing, that is, oaths, or one who makes reproaches against the people, or one who is a hypocrite, or a slanderer of people, or who decides if the hours and the days are favorable, all these and the like, do not catechize them and baptize them, until they have renounced all occupations of this sort, and three witnesses have testified for them that they really have renounced all these vices, because often a man remains in his passions until his old age, unless he is enabled by a great power. If they are found after baptism in vices of this sort, they are to be excluded from the church until they repent with tears, fasting, and alms.