PRECEPT. — I. **Notion.** — It is a command given by the competent authority for a determinate period of time, or even in perpetuity, to individual persons—even if in fact numerous and constituting the entirety of a community—or, but only for a determinate period of time, to a community as such; and its essential purpose is the private good of those same persons or of the community or of the authority, but not the perfect public and social good.
Jurisprudence has never been, nor is it yet, unanimous in determining the essential elements common and specific to every kind of precept. The conflicting opinions of past times were not at all resolved by the CIC, which, without defining it, speaks in can. 24 of only one kind of precept. In a certain sense, under the name of precept there may well be included, as in fact happened in the past and still happens today, any imperative command that the competent superior imposes on a capable subject. Jurisprudence has sought to identify elements that not only pertain to the precept but are exclusively its own. In the first place, the precept was distinguished from the law, although it is not always possible to identify all the formal reasons for this; in any case, it is certain that the law can be issued only by a power of dominion or jurisdiction and exclusively to perfect communities, and to imperfect ones only if recognized as subjects of law; it is also required that the law be issued for an indeterminate time or in perpetuity, whereas the precept can be given even to individual persons for a determinate time and by private power (dominative, domestic, contractual, etc.). Moreover, unlike the law, the precept is presumed to be not territorial but personal. Finally, and this also has a particular reflection for morality and the determination of sin in whoever violates the command of the superior, a precept issued solely by private authority (that is, without the use of jurisdiction) does not create in society a norm constitutive of law.
II. **Divisions.** — The precept can be: 1) a precept issued by the holder of a jurisdictional power, i.e., public, and a precept given by dominative power, i.e., private, according as the author of the precept is vested with jurisdiction and intends to use it in giving the precept, or instead is not vested with it or does not intend to use II. Therefore, not only those who are endowed with legislative or public power can give precepts, but also whoever has dominion over the will of the subject; among the latter are to be numbered religious superiors in religions that are not at the same time clerical and exempt from the local Ordinary; likewise parents, the husband, the employer, the master, with regard to children, wife, workers, servants; and generally all those who by private pact have lawfully constituted power over others. For moral purposes, however, it must be remembered that since the jurisdictional precept is a source of law and creates constitutive norms, its observance is owed by virtue of the obligation inherent in the virtue that constitutes the matter of the precept, and therefore, to give an example: by virtue of justice, if the matter concerns justice; of charity if charity; of chastity if chastity; of mortification if fasting or abstinence; whereas a precept deriving from dominative power creates the obligation by virtue of the title for which the superior imposes it, regardless of the object of the virtue to which the imposed act belongs; therefore, again by way of example: by virtue of religion if it is a matter of a precept proceeding from an authority to which obedience was promised; by virtue of piety if from paternal or maternal authority, even if the imposed act belongs to the virtues of justice, charity, chastity, etc. Consequently, whoever, for example, has eaten meat contrary to the precept of a superior invested only with dominative power, or of his parents, will have sinned against obedience and against piety, but will have sinned against mortification if the precept proceeded from jurisdictional power; 2) territorial precept and personal precept. The precept is presumed to be personal and consequently obliges the subject wherever he may be; however, there is also the territorial precept, which obliges exclusively within the territory for which it was imposed by the relevant superior; 3) temporary precept and perpetual precept. Whereas the former ceases by its nature at the foreseen moment, the latter, even if given for an indeterminate time, can cease only through the direct intervention of the competent authority (revocation, dispensation) or through the cessation of the end for which it was imposed or through impossibility of observance or also, however, with the exception of certain cases, with the cessation of the power of the superior; 4) precept given to a physical person and precept given to a community. It must be noted that from the fact that the precept is given to all and each of the persons that constitute a determinate community, it does not necessarily follow that it must be said to be imposed on the community. Consequently, a precept given to individuals (even if to all the subjects of the community) must be observed by those to whom it was given even if outside the territory, but not by others who begin to be part of it at a later time, nor by those who are in the community internally; 5) precept of the internal forum and precept of the external forum, according as it emanates from a power and the superior’s will to impose acts referred either to conscience alone or also to external life. Not all, however, admit the possibility of a precept of the internal forum, nor does the CIC speak of it in can. 24; 6) precept endowed with penal sanction and precept endowed with disciplinary sanction. The nature and origin of the different sanction are not to be taken exclusively from the power of the superior who gives the precept, according as he enjoys jurisdiction or not, but also according to what he will have actually intended to dispose if he is capable of either kind of precept. However, by positive law and by the express norm of can. 24 CIC, in order that observance of it may be claimed in judgment and be endowed with a properly ecclesiastical penalty for its violation, the precept must be given in solemn form, that is, either with a legitimate document, even if private (all the more so if public), or before two witnesses who are qualified to serve as witnesses in ecclesiastical tribunals according to cans. 1756–58. Superiors not vested with jurisdiction cannot impose precepts endowed with penalties in the strict sense, but only penances (even grave and external ones) or disciplinary measures or corrections or extra-judicial admonitions. These norms have capital importance in certain cases foreseen by the CIC and therefore must be carefully weighed. Even a superior vested with jurisdiction can, if he so wishes, make use only of penances and other disciplinary measures, excluding true penalties. Generally, canonists admit that precepts, even if jurisdictional but given only for the internal forum, cannot be endowed with a true penal sanction. From the precept endowed with penal or disciplinary sanction there must be distinguished the so-called purely penal precept or law: both canonists and moralists use these latter terms to indicate a command that produces in the subject only the legal and moral obligation to undergo a determinate penalty attached to the violation of the precept, without, however, inducing in him a formal sin, whether grave or venial, in the event that the precept is violated.
III. **Doctrine of the CIC.** — What the CIC has on the precept is referred to in can. 24. The precept is here considered from a single aspect: “precepts given to individuals oblige those to whom they are given wherever they may be, but cannot be enforced in judgment and cease with the cessation of the right of the one who gives them, unless they have been imposed by a legitimate document or before two witnesses.” After what has been said above, for the correct interpretation of the canon it will suffice to note the following: it is a matter of precepts
It is granted to individual natural persons, even if these in fact correspond to an entire community; this privilege is personal and therefore follows the subject even outside the territory of him who imposed II. This applies equally to the privilege of the internal forum. However, no superior can impose it beyond the actual time envisaged or accidentally extended by his governance; consequently the privilege ceases with his death, with his deposition from office, with his resignation legally accepted by the competent authority, or with his translation to another office even if a higher one; and it remains suspended for as long as, for any reason, he is legally (not merely factually) suspended from his power and office. The privilege, however, granted in canonical form, that is, with a legitimate document or before two witnesses, not only continues to bind the subject wherever he may be, but equally may be enforced in court wherever the subject may be; nor does it cease or remain suspended because the power in the superior who granted it ceases or is suspended. In this case, in fact, every right over the subject to whom the privilege was given passes ipso iure to the successor in governance.
It is not, however, yet beyond dispute which privilege the Code intends to speak of in can. 24. It is generally held that it refers to a privilege emanating from the power of jurisdiction, excluding all privileges imposed by dominative and private power. In any case, until the precise scope of the norm is authoritatively declared, can. 24 cannot be applied except to privileges arising from the power of jurisdiction. As regards the stricter interpretation, which restricts can. 24 to jurisdictional privileges only, the following two principal arguments may be adduced: first, the principle that privileges not granted by jurisdictional power cannot in any case be enforced in court, whereas this is precisely what can. 24 affirms if the conditions there set forth are met; and secondly, because this is required by the placement of the same canon under the title *De legibus*, and it is known that laws by their nature emanate exclusively from the power of jurisdiction. The final observation regarding can. 24 concerns the extension of the privilege; canonists generally hold that it refers only to the privilege of the external forum.
As regards the privilege not granted to individuals but to a community, of which the Code says nothing at all, nothing is expressly determined; therefore the pre-existing conflicting opinions remain free. Above all it is disputed whether a privilege granted by a superior possessing jurisdictional power but lacking legislative power to a community as such survives or instead ceases or is suspended at the moment when the superior himself ceases or is suspended from office.