Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/Additional Canons 2/Canons/Canon LXVIII

Canon LXVIII.

is unlawful for anyone to corrupt or cut up a book of the Old or New Testament or of our holy and approved preachers and teachers, or to give them up to the traders in books or to those who are called perfumers, or to hand it over for destruction to any other like persons:&#160; unless to be sure it has been rendered useless either by bookworms, or by water, or in some other way.&#160; He who henceforth shall be observed to do such a thing shall be cut off for one year.&#160; Likewise also he who buys such books (unless he keeps them for his own use, or gives them to another for his benefit to be preserved) and has attempted to corrupt them, let him be cut off.

Notes.

Thou shalt not destroy nor hand over copies of the Divine Scriptures to be destroyed unless they are absolutely useless.

(Foot-note.)

I think that this canon was directed against certain Nestorian and Eutychian heretics, who, that they might find some patronage of their errors from the Holy Scriptures, dared in the sixth century most infamously to corrupt certain passages of the New Testament.