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Testament of Our Lord

tr. Cooper and Maclean, 1902

4. Book II, Chapter 4

Let those who are instructed, after the teacher ceaseth, pray apart from the faithful and go out, so that the faithful may learn, when the presbyter or deacon readeth the New [Testament] or Gospels.¹

Let the faithful women stand in the church by themselves and the female catechumens by themselves apart from the faithful [women]. But all the [women] apart from the men; the girls also apart, each according to her order.

The men on the right and the women on the left; the faithful virgins² first, and the [women] who are being instructed to virginity behind them.

After the prayer let the female catechumens give the Peace to one another; also men³ to men; also women to women.

Let every woman⁴ cover her head with her hair also. Let the women becomingly and decorously show their modesty in their adornment,⁵ and let them not be adorned with plaited hair⁵ or with [precious] stones, lest the young men who are in the church be caught, but with modesty and knowledge. But if not, let them be instructed by the widows who sit in front. But if they rebelliously resist, let the bishop reprove them.

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