At a time when young persons desiring to live an irregular life, attracted by the elegance of the manners of wicked persons, seek their company, and measures are taken to prevent them from following their inclinations to pursue a vicious and corrupt career, it is a matter of surprise that the ancient law permitted those who had embraced a monastic life, and had ventured to abandon it to accomplish their wishes, and, having resumed their secular habits, in the language of the Holy Scriptures, like dogs returning to their vomit, again tread the filthy paths of their former existence. A law provided that anyone who renounced the monastic life should be compelled to return to it the first time that this happened, but if it was repeated he could not return, but must be enrolled in the provincial cohorts of the army. But if it was decided to be proper that a monk who abandoned his monastery could again assume a profane habit, why should he not have been permitted to do so the first time that he fled, and, instead of this, be compelled, even against his will, to resume the profession which he had renounced? And if, on the other hand, the decision in a case of this kind appeared to be just, why was it not adhered to, and why was it established that, after his second desertion, the unfortunate monk should be compelled to adopt a military life? This regulation appears to Us absolutely void of propriety, and as We do not approve that anyone who has been enrolled in the legions or the divine soldiery should become one of the military force of Our Empire, We hereby enact as a law the canon of the ecclesiastical order that anyone who, disgusted with religious life, abandons his monastery several times, shall not be permitted to resume the secular habit, for even though he is compelled to return the first time that he leaves it, why should he not be tempted again to depart, if he knows that by doing so he can regain his profane status, and, under no circumstances, be forced to return to monastic life?