16.2.44 = Brev. 1.6 = C.J. 1.3.19
THE SAME AUGUSTI TO PALLADIUS, PRAETORIAN PREFECT.
It is not seemly that a man who lives a commendable life of stern discipline in this world should be tarnished by the association of a so-called "sister." If any person, therefore, relies upon any rank whatever in the priesthood, or is distinguished by the honor of the clergy, he shall know that consorting with non-related women is forbidden to him. This concession alone is granted to him, that he may have within the bounds of his own home his mother, daughters, and sisters german; for in connection with these, the natural bond permits no perverse crime to be considered.
1. Chaste affection, moreover, demands that those women who obtained lawful marriage before their husbands assumed the priesthood should not be deserted; for those women who have made their husbands worthy of the priesthood by their association are not unsuitably joined to clerics.
GIVEN ON THE EIGHTH DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF MAY AT RAVENNA IN THE YEAR OF THE NINTH CONSULSHIP OF OUR LORD THEODOSIUS AUGUSTUS AND THE THIRD CONSULSHIP OF THE MOST NOBLE CONSTANTIUS (=8 May 420).
INTERPRETATION
Those persons who hold clerical office are forbidden to have intimate association with non-related women. They shall know that within their homes the consolation of mothers, sisters, and daughters alone is granted to them, since the law of nature allows nothing shameful to be committed or contemplated in the case of such persons. Those women, moreover, who were wedded before the assumption of clerical office by their husbands shall be kept as a solace.
(trans. Pharr 1952: 448; lightly adapted)