{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/214/2140726.htm","path":"chr/ecf/214/2140726.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/214/2140726.htm","text":"p. 601 II.\nThe Canons of the Blessed Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, and Martyr, 585 which are found in his Sermon on Penitence.\nThe fourth Easter from the beginning of the persecution was now come; and orders, that they who did not fall till after they had endured severe torments, and have already been \u201cMourners\u201d three years, after forty days\u2019 fast, are to be admitted to communion, although they have not been before received [to penance]. 586\nBut if they endured imprisonment only, without torments, let a year be added to their former penance.\nIf they fell voluntarily, without torments or imprisonments, but are come to repentance, four years are added to their former penance.\nThe case of them who do not repent pronounced desperate.\nThey that used evasion, and did not right down subscribe the abnegation, or with their own hands incense the idols, but sent a heathen to do it for them, are enjoined six months\u2019 penance, though they have been pardoned by some of the Confessors.\nSlaves forced by their masters to incense idols, and doing it in their master\u2019s stead, are enjoined a year\u2019s penance.\nThe masters who forced them to it, are enjoined three years\u2019 penance, as being hypocrites, and as forcing their slaves to sacrifice.\nThey who first fell, and afterwards recovered themselves, by professing themselves Christians, and endured torments, are forthwith admitted to communion.\nThat they who provoked the magistrates to persecute themselves and others are to be blamed, yet not to be denied communion.\nThat clergymen, who run themselves into persecution, and fell, though they did afterward recover themselves, and suffer torments, yet are not to be admitted to perform the sacred offices.\nThat they who prayed for them who fell after long torments, be connived at, and we pray together with them, since they lament for what they have done, with anguish and mortification. 587\nThat they who with money purchased their ease and freedom, are to be commended.\nNor should we accuse those who ran away, and left all, though others left behind might fare the worse for it. 588\nThat they who endured tortures, and afterwards, when they were deprived of speech and motion, had their hands forced into the fire, to offer unholy sacrifice, be placed in the Liturgy [i.e., in the diptychs] among the Confessors.\nWednesday is to be fasted, because then the Jews conspired to betray Jesus; Friday, because he then suffered for us. We keep the Lord\u2019s Day as a day of joy, because then our Lord rose. Our tradition is, not to kneel on that day.\nAccording to Johnson, St. Peter of Alexandria was martyred a.d. 311 in the persecution in the time of Diocletian, carried on by Maximian.\n601:586\nIn Beveridge will be found Balsamon\u2019s and Zonaras\u2019s notes.\n601:587\nJohnson remarks, \u201cThe truth is, there is occasion for a critic, for the Greek is certainly corrupted.\u201d\n601:588\nThis canon contains the legend, refuted by St. Jerome, that St. John the Baptist was taken by St. Elizabeth away from the danger of Herod\u2019s edicts against the Innocents and escaped by flight, his father, Zacharias, the meanwhile, being slain between the temple and the altar.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XIV: Appendix containing Canons and Rulings not having Conciliar Origin but Approved by Name in Canon II. of the Synod in Trullo.: The Canons of the Blessed Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, and Martyr, which are found in his Sermon on Penitence.","type":"page"}