Category:Canonic

Ca*non"ic, Can*non"ic*al, a Etym: [L. cannonicus, LL. canonicalis, fr. L. canon: cf. F. canonique. See canon.]

Defn: Of or pertaining to a canon; established by, or according to a, canon or canons. "The oath of canonical obedience." Hallam. Canonical books, or Canonical Scriptures, those books which are declared by the canons of the church to be of divine inspiration; -- called collectively the canon. The Roman Catolic Church holds as canonical several books which Protestants reject as apocryphal. -- Canonical epistles, an appellation given to the epistles called also general or catholic. See Catholic epistles, under Canholic. -- Canonical form (Math.), the simples or most symmetrical form to which all functions of the same class can be reduced without lose of generality. -- Canonical hours, certain stated times of the day, fixed by ecclesiastical laws, and appropriated to the offices of prayer and devotion; also, certain portions of the Breviary, to be used at stated hours of the day. In England, this name is also given to the hours from 8 a. m. to 3 p. m. (formerly 8 a. m. to 12 m.) before and after which marriage can not be legally performed in any parish church. -- Canonical letters, letters of several kinds, formerly given by a dishop to traveling clergymam or laymen, to show that they were entitled to receive the cammunion, and to distinguish them from heretics. -- Canonical life, the method or rule of living prescribed by the ancient cleargy who lived in community; a course of living prescribed for the clergy, less rigid that the monastic, and more restrained that the secular. -- Canonical obedience, submission to the canons of a canons of a church, especially the submission of the inferior cleargy to their bishops, and of other religious orders to their supriors. -- Canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as excommunication, degradation, penance, etc. -- Canonical sins (Anc. Church.), those for which capital punishment or puplic penance decreed by the canon was inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.