The Second Canonical Epistle of the Same. Women professing virginity, though they did marry while they were heretics, or catechumens, yet are pardoned by baptism. What is done by persons in the state of catechumens, is never laid to their charge. If the widow be less than sixty, it is the bishop's fault who admitted her deaconess, not the woman's. He that marries a woman that he has corrupted, shall be under penance for corrupting her, but may retain her for his wife.
Fornication is neither marriage, nor the beginning of marriage.
That it is ridiculous to vow not to eat swine's flesh, and to abstain from it is not necessary. That they who steal women, and their accomplices, be not admitted to prayers, or be co-standers for three years. Where no violence is used, there no crime is committed,except there be lewdness in the case. A widow is at her own discretion. We must not mind vain pretences.