Race and Ethnicity: Canon 70

After the past few entries concerning the anti-Jewish Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, we come finally to Canon 70, dealing with Jews who convert to Christianity but might change their minds at a later date:Some, we understand, who voluntarily approached the waters of holy baptism, do not entirely cast off the old man that they may more perfectly put on the new one, because, retaining remnants of the former rite, they obscure by such a mixture the beauty of the Christian religion. But since it is written: "Accursed is the man that goeth on the two ways" (Ecclesiastes 2:14), and "a garment that is woven together of woolen and linen" (Deuteronomy 22:2) ought not to be put on, we decree that such persons be in every way restrained by the prelates from the observance of the former rite, that, having given themselves of their own free will to the Christian religion, salutary coercive action may preserve them in its observance, since not to know the way of the Lord is a lesser…