and remain pure. If this does not happen, they are alienated from the church" (Canon 41). Canon 60 says "If someone smashes an idol and is then punished by death, he or she may not be placed in the list of martyrs, since such action is not sanctioned by the Scriptures or by the apostles." Canon 34 says "Candles are not to be burned in a cemetery during the day. This practice is related to paganism and is harmful to Christians. Those who do this are to be denied the communion of the church". Other canons imposed "the rigorous form of fasting" every Saturday (Canon 26), forbade the baptism of chariot racers or stage performers (Canon 62), and many tightly control the reception of former pagan priests into the Christian church and clergy (Canons, 2,3,4,55). Several canons relate only to the behaviour of women, such as Canon 67: "A woman who is baptized or is a catechumen must not associate with hairdressers or men with long hair..." Canon 81 reads: "A woman may not write to other lay Christians without her husband's consent. A woman may not receive letters of friendship addressed to her only and not to her husband as well." However married former prostitutes are not to suffer delays in baptism on that account (Canon 44). Date of the synod The solution of the question of the date hinges upon the interpretation of the canons, that is, upon whether they are to be taken as reflecting a recent persecution, or as redacted in a time of peace, that is either after or before the persecution under Diocletian. Thus the earliest investigators, Louis Duchesne and Victor De Clercq, argue for a date between 300 and 303, i.e. before the persecution under Diocletian; others for a date between 303 and 314, after the persecution, but before the Synod of Arles (314); a few others argue for a date between the synod of Arles and the Council of Nicaea, (325). Karl Josef von Hefele and Robert William Dale follow early compilers of the canons Giovanni Domenico Mansi and Jean Hardouin in agreement upon 305 or 306, while Hennecke concludes that "the whole attitude points to a time of peace, not to one immediately following a persecution; the complete absence of any provisions as to the case of the lapsed is enough to preclude the modern theory as to the date". Documentation