Decreta Ex Epistolis Excerpta

Decrees Excerpted from the Letters of Saint Innocent I. (From the Collection of Councils, Mansi, Volume III.) In that ancient Lucca collection, which I have mentioned more than once, there occurs, in an epitome of many councils and of certain decretal letters, an excerpt from a letter of Pope Innocent taken from the Council of Nicaea. No prudent person will doubt that this letter is of Pope Innocent I, since the age of this codex, at least nine hundred years, surpasses every other pontiff named Innocent. But what this letter of Innocent actually is, from what codex it was copied, whether Innocent gave a singular letter on the Nicene canons, or whether he adduced and inculcated them on occasion in his various letters, which the author of this epitome then continued into a single series of canons, I am entirely ignorant. Although nothing new is presented here, it is nevertheless worthwhile to give this, whatever it is, since this is the most ancient Latin edition of the Nicene canons. For the edition which claims Dionysius Exiguus as its author is certainly later than Innocent I. And as for the one presented in the collection of Isidore Mercator, whether it is older or more recent has not yet been determined. Finally, the edition of Rufinus is of nearly the same antiquity as Innocent.

From the Letter of Pope Innocent I, from the Council of Nicaea. I. He who has castrated himself shall not be admitted into the clergy. II. A Gentile who has been converted and baptized shall not be promoted hastily into the clergy. III. A bishop or other clerics shall not live with foreign women. IV. A bishop shall be ordained by all the bishops, or by three with the consent of the metropolitan. V. A bishop shall not accept another bishop’s cleric, or an excommunicated person. Councils shall be held twice a year on account of the complaints of various persons. VI. The bishops of Alexandria and Rome shall have primacy. VII. Presbyters (though perhaps it is written “bishops”) shall be chosen with the consent of the majority of bishops, especially of the metropolitan. VIII. The bishop of Jerusalem shall have primacy, saving the privilege of the metropolitan. IX. Converted Cathari, that is, Novatians, who are clerics shall be received into the clergy. A bishop, however, shall be received in the place of a presbyter.

X. There shall not be two bishops in one city. XI. If after ordination to the priesthood one has been convicted, he shall be deposed; the same applies to the lapsed. XII. The lapsed who were not under torture shall do penance for seven years. XIII. If after military service one has been converted, and has again served as a soldier, he shall do penance for thirteen years. XIV. If one has received communion in necessity and has survived, he shall continue penance. XV. If catechumens have lapsed, they shall do penance for three years. XVI. A bishop, or the other orders, shall not go from one city to another. XVII. A wandering cleric shall not be received into communion by another. XVIII. No one shall promote another’s cleric to a higher rank. XIX. Clerics shall not lend at usury nor give at interest. XX. Deacons shall not be preferred to presbyters, nor sit before them, nor shall they give the Eucharist to presbyters; in the absence of presbyters, however, they shall distribute it. XXI. Paulianists shall be baptized. XXII. Deaconesses shall be counted among the laity.

XXIII. Easter shall be observed on one day by the bishops. DISSERTATION On the following epitome of a letter of Innocentius. Although I have no new letters of Innocentius I to bring forth, I nevertheless think it not irrelevant that I ought to share with my readers those things which our breviary of canons in the Lucca manuscript of nine hundred years exhibits. In it there are canons extracted from several letters of Innocentius and reduced into an epitome. In that epitome which is expressed from the letter to Exsuperius, canon 3 is missing, concerning those who, after baptism, acting as magistrates, have pronounced sentence in a capital case. I can devise no other reason for this omission than that the Pontiff decrees nothing to be decided in that matter. The following canon 4, which in our epitome is 3, is poorly expressed; for married men are not deprived of communion if they have committed adultery, but the innocent party is separated from the adulterer. The rest agrees with the letter. That addition concerning the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which is supplied by one of our manuscripts and is not read in the printed editions, is not to be neglected.

After this epitome follows another letter of Innocentius to the bishops of Toledo. Several things in it are clearly worthy of note. First, in our breviary, as in all ancient codices, according to Harduin, it reads "Tolosanos," not "Toletanos." Next follows a synopsis of the letter of Innocentius to Victricius (our codex has "Victorius"), in which everything is clear and agrees with the published editions, except for one part of the second canon, in which the published letter indeed decrees that the cases of ecclesiastics are to be heard in their own individual provinces, without prejudice, however, to the appeal to the Roman church, or unless the gravity of the case refers the judgment to the apostolic see. Thus the published version. The manuscript codex, however, does not read thus, but: "Roman clerics shall not dare to plead their cases before other bishops." These two versions are certainly far apart, so that they seem to have been taken from one codex and another. But no one will rightly doubt that what is read in the published editions belongs to Pope Innocentius I, since it is cited as from Innocentius by Nicholas I in a twin letter in the seventh Roman council, in Labbe, volume X, to be read.

But since Nicolaus does not claim to have taken those things from the letter to Victricius, and since our abbreviator is not always so fortunate in rendering the sense of the canons, one of two things must follow: either this canon, as it appears in the printed editions, has been wrongly stitched together from some other letter of Innocentius with this one to Victricius, as is known to have happened with other letters of the ancient Pontiffs; or our anonymous author has by no means grasped the mind of the Pontiff. In the epitome of canon 8, it is decreed that monks are not to be admitted into the clergy; but Innocentius does not command this, but rather warns that those promoted to a higher rank should not cast aside the modesty and the other virtues which they cultivated in the monastery. Therefore, the carelessness of our abbreviator is to be corrected. The synopsis of Innocentius’s letter to Decentius is plainly barbarous, but its first chapter expresses a certain ancient liturgical rite, which the printed editions do not touch, although it agrees with them in sense. The Pontiff forbids in canon 1 that peace be given before the end. Our anonymous author, however, expressed it thus: “The order of the Mass to give peace after the fourth prayer.” By the name “fourth prayer” I here judge that prayer to be designated which the old Roman order in Mabillon’s *Museum Italicum*, vol. II, calls the prayer at the completion. For in the Mass, the first prayer was that which was read before the Apostle, that is, before the epistle. The second followed over the offerings. Then the Lord’s Prayer was in third place; finally, the fourth prayer was held at the completion.

Therefore our abbreviator is reconciled with Innocentius. Why the fifth canon of this letter is divided into two, especially when both of them come back into one and the same, I would assign no other reason than the carelessness of our abbreviator. The rest are clear. Last of all is read the epitome of the letters of Innocentius to Aurelius (surely of Carthage) the bishop. There exists in the Labbe collection number 12, a letter of Innocentius to Aurelius, to which those things that are contained in this synopsis can be referred. I. FROM THE LETTER OF INNOCENTIUS TO EXSUPERIUS. I. A presbyter and deacon who are incontinent are to be deposed. II. Those who are continent are to receive viaticum at all times, and communion through mercy. III. Married persons, if they have committed adultery, are to be excommunicated. IV. It is permitted to accuse a murderer. V. Whoever has dismissed his wife and married another is to be excommunicated; likewise also the woman. VI. The books which are to be received: the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy; Joshua one; Judges one; Kings four; Ruth one; Prophets sixteen; Solomon five; Psalter one; Job one; Tobit one; Esther one; Judith one; Maccabees two; Ezra two; Chenib, that is, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Chronicles two; of the New Testament: Gospels four; of the apostle Paul fourteen; of John four; of Peter two; of James one; Acts of the Apostles, Apocalypse of John.

II. From a letter of Innocentius to all the bishops in Tolosa: A bishop shall not ordain bishops in another’s church. They reproach the Spaniards who, not ordaining those drawn from secular military service quickly to the priesthood, nor curiales who ought not to be clerics, find fault with the Spaniards—those who have been engaged in forensic practice or in some military service, or from the curiales, unless they come to the priesthood or to the lesser offices. III. From Innocentius to Victorius, bishop: I. A bishop shall not be ordained without the consent of the metropolitan. II. One who has worn the belt of secular military service shall not come to the office of the clergy. III. The bishop shall hear cases among clerics. Roman clerics shall not dare to plead their own cases before other bishops. IV. A cleric shall not marry a widow as his wife. V. No one shall receive another’s cleric. VI. Novatians or Montanists shall be received through the imposition of hands. Those of our people who went over to them and are recalled shall do penance for a long time.

VII. Deacons shall not have intercourse with their wives. VIII. A monk shall not enter the clergy, nor shall he take a wife. IX. Curiales shall not be ordained as clerics. X. If a veiled woman has erred, she shall not receive penance. XI. Consecrated women of the Lord who are not veiled, if they have married, shall do penance. IV. From Innocentius to a Bishop. I. No bigamous cleric shall be ordained. II. He who had a wife before baptism and took another after baptism is a bigamist. V. From Innocentius to Decentius. I. The order of the mass: to give the peace after the fourth prayer. II. The names shall be recited after the commendation of the offerers. III. Infamous presbyters shall not consecrate unless bishops do. IV. Fast every Sabbath. V. Presbyters shall hold mass in the city in the presence of the bishop. VI. Without the command of the bishop, a presbyter shall hold mass in the city in the presence of the bishop. VII. Without the command of the bishop, no one else shall lay hands on an energumen. VIII. All penitents shall be reconciled on the fifth day of the week of Easter.

IX. A presbyter is permitted to visit the sick and to anoint with chrism; he is not permitted to anoint a penitent who is sick with chrism. VI. OF INNOCENTIUS TO AURELIUS, BISHOP. The hand shall not be easily imposed upon a bishop; he shall not be ordained from the laity. OBSERVATION OF PHILIPPE Labbe, S.J. The following canons, sent long ago from some Roman synod to the Gallic bishops, were first brought to light from several manuscript codices by the Reverend Father Sirmond in the appendix to the first volume of the Councils of Gaul. The royal collector placed them, not in their proper place, at the end of the thirty-seventh volume after the indices, with a treatise on the ancient promotions of bishops. We, however, following the not improbable conjecture of that same most distinguished editor, have subjoined them to the letters of Innocent I, since neither the form of the decrees nor of the writing is inconsistent with them. In what year they were published is not at all certain, even though they bear the greatest antiquity, as no one fails to see.