To his most beloved brothers, all the bishops appointed throughout Lucania, Bruttium, and Sicily: Gelasius.
Chapter I: The Necessity of the Times Requires the Apostolic See to Moderate the Ancient Canons, Yet Without Altogether Departing from Them
By necessary disposition of affairs We are bound, and by the moderating authority of the Apostolic See We are compelled, so to weigh the decrees of the paternal canons, and to measure the precepts of the prelates who have preceded Us, that what the necessity of the present times demands be relaxed for the restoration of the Churches, We — having applied diligent consideration — may temper as far as can be done; so that We may neither appear to depart altogether from the form of the ancient rules, and that We may provide for the repair of the offices of the clerical service, which the invasion of war and famine has so consumed through the various parts of Italy, that in many churches (as We have learned by the frequent report of our brother and fellow bishop John, bishop of the Church of Ravenna) the service of ministers is utterly failing on every side. Unless, by relaxing for a little while the intervals formerly prefixed to ecclesiastical promotions (without which those intervals the churches cannot administer [the sacraments]), the sacred orders are in many places utterly destitute; and through want of suitable assistance the saving remedy for the redemption of souls is wanting — We would be held in great guilt, if, when so great a peril constrains us, We should in no way seem to be engaged.
Chapter II: When the Ancient Canons Cannot Be Strictly Observed, Monks May Be Promoted Through Abbreviated Intervals
The ancient ordinances, therefore, remaining intact for their own reverence — which, where no narrow necessity of things or of times presses, it is fitting to keep regularly — nevertheless in the case of those churches which are either entirely deprived of ministers, or so stripped of sufficient services that they are unable to supply the divine gifts for the peoples belonging to them, We grant that the intervals of the clerical service, both for examination and for promotion, be thus dispensed. If anyone, then, instructed in the religious purpose and in the monastic disciplines, approaches the clerical office, first let his life acted in previous times be investigated: whether he is proved to be infected by no grave crime; whether he has not perhaps had a second wife, nor is shown to have taken one rejected by a husband; whether he has not perhaps performed public penance, nor appears vitiated in any part of the body; whether he is not liable to a servile or inherited condition; whether he is proved to be already loosed from the bonds of the civic order; whether he has attained letters, without which scarcely can he fulfill even the ministry of doorkeeper. If he is supported by all these things which have been said, let him, made a lector or notary or certainly a defender, straightway after three months become an acolyte — especially if his age also supports him; in the sixth month let him receive the name of subdeacon; and if he is of modest conversation and honest will, in the ninth month a deacon; and with the year completed, let him be a presbyter. Yet let him be taught that the devotion of the holy purpose voluntarily undertaken has supplied for him what the intervals of years would have conferred.
Chapter III: Laymen Promoted to the Clerical Service Require Still Greater Scrutiny and an Additional Six Months
But if anyone from among the laity is to be joined to the ecclesiastical offices, such a person ought to be examined — with so much the more solicitude in each of the matters comprehended above — as there is acknowledged to be a distinction between the worldly life and the religious life. For the ministries of the Church must be repaired in a fitting manner, not thrust upon unfitting merits; and the more the time by which these qualities must be attained is cut short, the more what is apt for the sacred services must be sought out in their dispositions: so that the probity of his character may be shown to have conferred what longer custom has not — lest, under the occasion of supplying a clerical shortage, We be judged rather to have brought vices into the divine worship than to have procured reliefs for the legitimate family of the Church. To the promotions of such persons We add six months beyond the bounds of the year; since, as has been said, it befits there to be a distinction between a person dedicated to divine worship and one coming from the conversation of the laity. These things, nevertheless, We have believed must be indulged only so far — that in those churches in which, by the disaster of the wars, either none at all or only scanty ministries remain, the ministries may be renewed; to the end that, these churches being restored by God’s favor, the ancient form of the paternal canons may be kept in filling the ecclesiastical grades. Nor let any consideration prevail against those [canons] on the ground that what is provided as a remedy for the accident of a shortage is being proposed as a new law against the decrees of the elders. Let the other churches, which are not laid waste by a like calamity, depart from this occasion, and keep the ancient judgment in making ordinations. So much the more, admonished by this opportunity, do We appoint the observance of the venerable canons with greater care, admonishing the consciences of each grade, lest they attempt to break out into unlawful excesses.
Nor let any of the bishops presume it lawful to apply to the divine mysteries persons who are to serve [them who are] twice-married, or who have taken wives left by others, or any who are under penance, or without letters, or vitiated in body, or of servile condition, or entangled in the bonds of the civic order and of public affairs, or examined without any waiting for a fitting interval of time; nor let them strive to invade the rights of others at their own pleasure, without the just disposition of the Apostolic See commanding it.
Chapter IV: Newly Established Basilicas Are Not to Be Dedicated Without the Apostolic See’s Precept; Bishops Are Not to Claim Clerics of Another’s Authority
Let bishops not dare to dedicate newly established basilicas without the customary precepts having been requested, nor let them seek to claim for themselves clerics of another’s authority.
Chapter V: No Payment May Be Demanded for the Baptism or Confirmation of the Faithful
Let priests fix no prices upon the faithful who are to be baptized and confirmed, nor desire to harass the reborn by any imposed exactions: since what we have freely received, we are commanded freely to give (Matt. 10:8). And therefore let them attempt to demand nothing at all from the aforesaid, lest those being born again, either deterred by the compulsion of poverty or turned back by indignation, should despise to approach the causes of their redemption — holding it certain that those who have been detected in admitting forbidden things, or have not rather corrected of their own will what has been committed, shall face the peril of their own office.
Chapter VI: Priests Are Not to Consecrate Chrism, Confirm, or Presume the Functions Proper to a Bishop; Nor to Make Subdeacons or Acolytes Without the Supreme Pontiff
We forbid priests also, no less, to reach beyond their own measure, and audaciously to take to themselves what is owed to the episcopal summit: let them not seize for themselves the faculty of consecrating chrism, nor of applying the episcopal signing [of confirmation]; nor, with any bishop present, let them presume that they have the license, unless perhaps they are commanded, to supply either the prayer or the sacred action; nor under his gaze let them presume either to sit, unless they are commanded, or to handle the venerable mysteries. Nor let them remember that it is in any way conceded to them, without the supreme pontiff, to have the right of making a subdeacon or an acolyte; nor let them in any way doubt that, if they have thought to carry out anything pertaining specifically to the episcopal ministry by their own motion, they are straightway to be deprived of the dignity of the presbyterate and of sacred communion. This We judge must necessarily be done, if, on the report of their prelate, any such transgression has been proved — and the bishop himself shall not be free from the fault of connivance and from punishment, if he should dissemble to vindicate one who acts without measure.
Chapter VII: Deacons Likewise Are to Keep Their Own Measure and Not Encroach on the Ministry of Higher Orders
We appoint that deacons also are to keep their own measure, nor do We permit them to attempt anything beyond the tenor assigned by the paternal canons (cf. Nic. c. 17); to apply nothing at all to their own ministry of those things which antiquity properly decreed for the first orders. Let them not dare to baptize without a bishop or presbyter, unless perhaps — the aforesaid offices being placed at a distance — extreme necessity compels; which is also conceded for the most part to Christian laymen to do.
Chapter VIII: Deacons Are Not to Sit in the Presbytery, nor to Administer the Sacred Body Except in the Absence of a Bishop or Presbyter
They are not to sit in the presbytery when the divine things are being celebrated, or when any ecclesiastical discourse is held. They have no right to exercise the prerogative of the sacred body under the gaze of the bishop or presbyter, unless these are absent. For since We too strive greatly to keep the decrees of the venerable sanctions, and to believe that without loss to them even those things which seem perhaps to be relaxed for the convenience of some utility [must be kept] —
Chapter IX: The Apostolic See Preserves the Paternal Canons with Pious Devotion; the Roman See Is the Sovereignty of the Whole Church
And since We desire that nothing be lightly permitted to Ourselves against the reverence of the salutary rules, and since the Apostolic See — superior to all those things which have been prefixed by the paternal canons, with the Lord’s favor — strives to keep them by a pious and devoted purpose: it is sufficiently unworthy that any of the bishops or of the orders subordinate to them should refuse this observance, which they see the See of blessed Peter both to follow and to teach. And it is sufficiently fitting that the whole body of the Church should agree with itself in this observance, which it beholds flourishing there where the Lord placed the sovereignty of the whole Church, as Scripture says: Order charity within me (Cant. 2:4). And again: Let all things be done in order (1 Cor. 14:40). And again, with the psalmist proclaiming: Surround Sion, and embrace her; tell in her towers. Set your hearts on her strength, and distribute her grades, that you may declare it to another generation; for this God is our God forever; and He Himself shall rule us for ages (Ps. 47:13–15). He, without doubt, who is proclaimed in the height of the ecclesiastical dignities, and on whose strength the hearts are to be set with good works — the grades being indeed distributed — is our God and ruler to be proclaimed to all Christian peoples: where no one should think anything has been diminished for himself, since nothing is lost from the perfection of each grade, and, by fittingly retaining what has been conferred by heavenly dispensation, He is granted to us alike to be known as God and to be our ruler. For even if something is indulged concerning the quantity of time, it is weighed by the strenuousness gathered to the character; if what would have needed to be attended to by prolonged age is now contained in the purpose of life, provided only that none of those things creep in which are being dissembled — any one of which, if it shall have been shown to be present, would rightly convict the person as reprehensible for clerical insignia. And if sometimes those things are to be allowed which alone cannot harm — if the integrity of the rest stands — yet those things are greatly to be guarded against which cannot be received except with manifest staining. And if those very things which are sometimes believed to be indulged without any detriment are compelled by the circumstances of affairs and of times, or excused by the consideration of hastened provision — how much more are those things in no way to be mutilated which neither any necessity nor any ecclesiastical utility wrenches out!
Chapter X: Baptism Is Not to Be Administered Outside Easter and Pentecost, Except in Grave Illness
Let no one believe that there is any confidence in being baptized anywhere and at any time whatsoever, apart from the paschal feast and the venerable mystery of Pentecost — except only in the case of the onset of a most grave infirmity, in which it is to be feared that, as the peril of the disease increases, the sick person, prevented by death, may depart without the saving remedy.
Chapter XI: Ordinations of Priests and Deacons Are to Be Celebrated Only on the Appointed Days
The ordinations also of priests and deacons must not be performed except at certain times and on certain days — that is, at the fast of the fourth, seventh, and tenth months, and also at the beginning of Lent, and on the middle day of Lent; let them know that the Saturday fast toward evening is to be the time of celebration. Nor is anyone, for the sake of any benefit whatsoever, to be preferred as priest or deacon to those who were ordained before them.
Chapter XII: Virgins Dedicated to God Are to Be Consecrated Only on Appointed Days
Let no bishop impose the sacred veil upon virgins devoted to God except on the day of the Epiphany, or in the paschal Octave, or on the feasts of the apostles — unless perhaps (as has been said concerning baptism) it not be denied to those seized by grave infirmity, begging that they may not depart the world without this gift.
Chapter XIII: Widows Are Not to Be Veiled
Let no bishop attempt to veil widows, which neither divine authority delegates nor the form of the canons appoints. It is therefore not at all to be usurped, and ecclesiastical supports are to be offered to them in such a way that nothing unlawful is committed.
Chapter XIV: Servile and Bound Persons Are Not to Be Admitted to Monasteries or the Clergy Without Their Masters’ Consent
A general complaint is also to be avoided, of which nearly everyone complains: that slaves and inherited bondsmen, fleeing the rights of their masters and of their estates, are indiscriminately admitted under the pretext of religious life — either betaking themselves to monasteries or to ecclesiastical service, with the prelates themselves even conniving at it. This pestilence is to be removed by every means, lest through the institution of the Christian name either others’ property be invaded or public discipline appear to be subverted — especially since neither is it fitting that the dignity of the clerical ministry itself be tarnished by this obligation, nor that it be forced to dispute concerning the status and condition of those who owe military service, or, God forbid, appear to be liable.
These things having been duly forbidden by a solicitous prohibition: whichever bishop, presbyter, or deacon — or of those who are known to preside over monasteries — keeping such persons with them shall have thought that they are not to be restored to their patrons, or that they are henceforth to be applied either to ecclesiastical servitude or to religious congregations (unless by the owners’ will perhaps, with Scripture’s testimony first having absolved them, or granted by a legitimate transaction) — let them not doubt that they will face the peril of their own office and of their communion, if a true complaint concerning this matter should strike Us. For, according to the blessed Apostle, it is to be guarded against with great care that the faith and discipline of the Lord be not blasphemed (1 Tim. 6:1).
Chapter XV: Clerics Are Not to Engage in Dishonest Trades or Pursue Shameful Gains
It followed that those things also which a report recently sent to Us from the regions of Picenum announced We should not think must be passed over: that is, that many of the clerics are giving themselves to dishonest trades and shameful gains, discerning with no shame the Gospel reading in which the Lord Himself is declared to have driven the traders from the temple with scourges (Matt. 21:12; John 2:15); nor recollecting the words of the Apostle, where he says: No man serving as a soldier for God entangles himself in secular affairs (2 Tim. 2:4); and dissembling with a deaf ear the psalmist David also singing: Because I have not known commerce, I will enter into the powers of the Lord (Ps. 70:15–16). Therefore let them know that henceforth they must abstain from such unworthy pursuits, and cease from every artifice and cupidity of any trade whatsoever; or else, in whatever grade they are placed, let them be compelled straightway to abstain from the clerical offices: since the house of God ought both to be and to be called a house of prayer, lest it rather be a workshop of trade and a den of thieves (Luke 19:46; Isa. 56:7).
Chapter XVI: The Illiterate and the Bodily Defective Are Not to Be Promoted to the Clergy
We have also learned that the unlettered, and those diminished in some part of the body, are coming without any regard to ecclesiastical service. This both ancient tradition and the old form of the Apostolic See do not receive; for one lacking letters cannot be apt for the sacred offices, and the legal precepts have decreed that nothing defective at all be offered to God (Lev. 21:17–23; Deut. 17:1). Therefore henceforth let these things be avoided by all means, and let no such person be received into the clergy. But if any have been received before, either by their own rashness or by the neglect of those presiding, let them so persevere in the places in which they have been established, that they receive no advancement whatsoever; and let them hold this very thing to have been granted to them by too great a compassion.
Chapter XVII: Those Who Have Mutilated Themselves Are to Be Removed from the Clerical Office
Concerning those who cut themselves off, the paternal canons have plainly set forth what is to be followed; whose tenor it is sufficient to have inserted. For they say that those who do such things, as soon as they are recognized, ought to be excluded from the clerical office. This We must keep by every means, since it is lawful for no one to decide anything beyond those things which the memorable form has decreed.
Chapter XVIII: The Criminous Are Not to Be Promoted to the Clergy, and Clerics Found in Serious Offenses Are to Be Removed from Office
We have also learned that some, entangled in certain horrendous crimes — with all discretion removed — not only have no necessary repentance for their atrocious deeds, but with no correction at all following, strive for the divine ministry and for the honor. Some, moreover, even established in the orders themselves, committing grave offenses, are not being repelled — though the Apostle cries: Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins (1 Tim. 5:22); and the venerable constitutions of the elders (Nicaea cc. 9, 10) declare that such persons, even if they have crept in, must — both those who sinned before and were later detected, and those who, forgetful of their sacred profession, became transgressors of the holy purpose — without doubt be removed.
Chapter XIX: Those Subject to Demonic and Similar Afflictions Are Not to Handle the Sacred Mysteries
We have learned that illicit things are bursting forth to such a degree that the handling of the most sacred mysteries is being committed to those ensnared by demonic and similar passions. If anything of proper necessity comes upon those placed at this work, who will be confident concerning his own and the faithful’s salvation, when he sees the ministers themselves of human healing so afflicted by such calamity? And therefore these must necessarily be removed, lest a scandal be generated to any weak persons for whom Christ died (Rom. 14:15; 1 Cor. 8:11). Finally: if the divine law in no way permits one perhaps wounded or weak in body to touch the sacred things (Lev. 21:17–23), how much more does it not befit those stricken in mind (which is worse) to be dispensers of the heavenly gift!
Chapter XX: Those Who Consort with Consecrated Virgins Are Excluded from Communion Except Through Public Penance
We have learned that some rashly join themselves to consecrated virgins, and after the purpose dedicated to God, mingle incestuous and sacrilegious bonds. It is fitting that these be drawn forthwith from sacred communion, and not be received at all except through public and proved penance; yet viaticum is not to be denied to those passing from the world, if they have indeed repented.
Chapter XXI: Widows Who Profess Continence and Afterward Break Their Profession Are Answerable to God
Concerning widows who are to be veiled under no blessing, We have more fully set forth above. Those who, by their own will, should with changed mind trample upon the chastity of their former marriage which they professed — it will concern their own peril, by what satisfaction they should appease God, since (according to the Apostle) they have first made their faith void (1 Tim. 5:12). For just as, if they were perhaps unable to contain themselves, according to the Apostle, they were by no means forbidden to marry (1 Cor. 7:9); so, with deliberation had with themselves, they ought to keep the faith of chastity promised to God. We, however, ought to cast no snare upon such persons, but only to set forth exhortations of the eternal reward, and to propose the penalties of the divine judgment — that both Our conscience may be freed, and their intention may render account for themselves to God. For it must be guarded against, as the blessed Apostle testifies concerning their character and conduct (1 Tim. 5:11–15) — which We pass over expounding more fully, lest the unstable sex appear rather admonished than deterred.
Chapter XXII: Second Marriages Are Permitted to the Laity but Bar Admission to the Clergy
Just as second marriages are permitted to be entered into by the laity, so after them no one is allowed to come to the clerical college. For one thing is the license generally conceded to human frailty; another ought to be the life dedicated to the service of divine things.
Chapter XXIII: A Bishop Who Deserts His Own Church and Transfers to Another Is Subject to the Canonical Penalty, as Is the One Who Receives and Promotes Him
Whoever, a deserter of his own church, with no existing causes, shall have thought to pass over to another, and shall have been rashly received and promoted — neither he himself nor his receiver and promoter shall escape the constitutions of the venerable canons, which have prescribed what must be observed concerning such presumers (Nicaea cc. 15 and 16).
Chapter XXIV: Monks and Laymen Unworthily Promoted Through Purchased Dignity Are Bound by the Crime of Simon Magus
Concerning monks and laymen, We have set forth more copiously in the first part of this precept (see above Chapters II and III): in what way and to what extent these concessions have been granted to them according to the necessity of affairs and of times, and in what manner — where no necessity of fact is shown to intervene — nothing but the ancient institution ought to be kept. Those truly who have been proved unworthy in merits, shown to have purchased the sacred dignity by a price, must be shut out once convicted — not without peril to those perpetrating such a crime: since, as the sacred reading testifies (Acts 8:18–24), the [sentence] of Simon Magus involves equally the one giving and the one receiving.
Chapter XXV: No New Church May Be Dedicated Without the Precept of the Apostolic See, nor Under the Name of Deceased Persons Not Certainly of the Faithful
Concerning the consecration of sacred places, although above it was set forth more strictly (see Chapter IV), it has been revealed to Us also that some presume to consecrate churches or oratories that have been built without the precept of the Apostolic See: but We have been still more moved by this more detestable indication: that they are said to set up structures built under the name of any deceased persons whatsoever — and (as is said) persons not certainly of the faithful — for sacred processions. Since these things are so bitter and so hard: if indeed the affection of Christianity in those regions is sure and fixed, let these matters be investigated more strictly, and let those by whom they have been done be disclosed — since, just as while the names are hidden in this atrocity there is no one against whom the due sentence may be pronounced, so when it has been exposed by manifest documents, whom the enormity of so great a crime has set forth shall in no way escape the avenging hand.
Chapter XXVI: Women Are Not to Minister at the Sacred Altars or Perform Any Function Reserved to Men; the Bishops Who Permit These Abuses Are Chiefly to Blame
Nonetheless We have heard impatiently that so great a contempt for divine things has crept in, that women are said to minister at the sacred altars, and to exhibit all those things which are not assigned except to the service of men, to a sex to which they do not belong.
Seeing that the fault of all the offenses which We have touched on one by one, and the crime, looks to those priests who either commit these things themselves, or by not publishing those who commit them, signify that they favor depraved excesses — if indeed they are still to be called by the name of priests, who strive to prostrate the office of religion delegated to them in such a way that, inclining to every perverse and profane thing, they pursue deadly precipices without any regard to the Christian rule. And since it is written: He who despises small things shall fall little by little (Sir. 19:1): what must be thought of such men who, occupied by immense and manifold masses of depravities, have produced a vast ruin by manifold impulses — which would seem not only to overwhelm themselves, but, if they are not healed, to bring deadly destruction upon all the Churches?
Let those who have dared to practice these things, and also those who have hitherto kept silence about what they knew, not doubt that they lie under the peril of their own office, if they do not hasten with all speed they can, that the lethal wounds be cured by suitable medication. For by what custom do they hold the rights of the bishops, who so long dissemble in their episcopal watches with injury that they rather work things contrary to the house of God over which they preside? Who, as much as they would avail with the Lord if they procured only what is fitting, let them look what they deserve when they pursue contrary things with execrable zeal. And as if this were rather the rule by which the Churches ought to be governed — if whatever is hostile to ecclesiastical rules is perpetrated — whereas each of the bishops, if he has the canons known, ought to have kept them with intact custody. And if perhaps he did not know, he ought to have consulted with confidence the one who knows. Wherefore no excuse avails those who err: since he who knows set himself to keep what he knew, and the ignorant did not care to know what he was doing.
Chapter XXVII: The Revenues and Offerings of Each Church Are to Be Divided Into Four Portions — Bishop, Clergy, Poor, and Fabric
Four portions are to be made from both the revenues and the offerings of the faithful — as far as the resources of any given church allow — as was long ago rationally decreed: one portion for the bishop; a second for the clergy; a third for the poor; a fourth to be applied to the fabric. Concerning these, just as it pertains to the priest to pay out the aforesaid quantity in full to the ministers of the church, so let the clergy know that nothing is to be insolently demanded beyond the sum assigned to them. Those things, however, which are attributed to ecclesiastical uses — truly expended upon this work — let the manifest restoration of the holy places show: for it is impious that, when the sacred buildings are destitute, a prelate should convert the funds appointed for these to his own gain. Likewise the portion ascribed to the poor, although he may appear to have shown that he has dispensed it according to divine accountings, yet, according to what is written: That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16), it ought also to be preached by present testimony, and not be kept silent in the proclamations of good reputation.
Chapter XXVIII: Every Cleric Must Report Episcopal Transgressions Directly to Rome, Under Penalty of Loss of His Own Office If He Remains Silent
Wherefore let no one of the clerics trust that he will be free from this offense, if — seeing any bishop, presbyter, or deacon transgressing in those things which We have set forth must be wholesomely followed — he shall not straightway have taken care to bring it to Our ears (with suitable proofs duly exhibited), so that vengeance may be done upon the transgressor, and a prohibition of sinning to others. But in every way each of the bishops will be a crusher of his own order and honor, if he has thought that these things are to be suppressed from the hearing of any cleric, or of the whole Church.
Given on the fifth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Asterius and Praesidius, illustrious men. And in another hand:
May God keep you safe, dearest brothers.
Footnotes
- ↩ Gelasius writes as metropolitan of the suburbicarian provinces to the bishops of the three southern Italian regions most directly under Roman jurisdiction. Lucania (modern Basilicata and southern Campania), Bruttium (modern Calabria), and Sicily had all suffered severely in the Gothic wars and the related famines of the late fifth century, which is the occasion for the prologue’s discussion of restoring the ministry of devastated churches. The letter is dated March 11, 494 — the second year of Gelasius’s pontificate.
- ↩ The Latin is Necessaria rerum dispensatione constringimur, et apostolicae sedis moderamine convenimur. The opening formula establishes the governing premise of the entire letter: it is the Apostolic See that moderates the observance of the paternal canons, weighing them against the necessity of the times. The same word — moderamen — appears in the closing line of Gelasius’s Letter VII to the bishops of Picenum (ad sedis apostolicae moderamina pertinet), where the See’s governance-authority is named as the ground for its exercise of divinely given power against the contumacious and negligent. Here in Letter IX the moderamen is exercised in the opposite direction — not to correct the negligent but to relax the intervals prescribed by the Fathers — but the authority is the same. Only the See that can enforce can dispense; only the See that is bound by the paternal canons can weigh them against present necessity. The reader should note that Gelasius does not assert this authority as a novel claim but states it as a settled premise, which the bishops of Lucania, Bruttium, and Sicily are expected to recognize.
- ↩ John I of Ravenna (bishop c. 477–494) was a frequent correspondent of the Roman see during the Ostrogothic period. Ravenna had been the capital of the Western Empire since 402 and was now the seat of the Ostrogothic kings, which gave its bishop exceptional access to both ecclesiastical and civil administration across northern and central Italy. His testimony to Gelasius about the state of the Italian churches carries evidentiary weight in the letter precisely because of his position: he is reporting what he has seen across the Italian churches, not merely his own.
- ↩ This opening of Chapter II is not merely a disciplinary directive — it is the live exercise of the authority Gelasius articulates theoretically in Chapter IX, where the Apostolic See is declared superior his omnibus… paternis canonibus (“superior to all those things which have been prefixed by the paternal canons”). The paternal canons prescribe specific intervals between the grades of orders — intervals measured in years, sometimes many years. Here, Gelasius dispenses from those canonical intervals for a specific class of cases: churches so devastated by war and famine that they cannot supply the sacraments to their peoples. The dispensation is granted not by any other authority — not a council, not the metropolitan, not the college of bishops — but by the Apostolic See alone. The reader should note one further point that the letter’s language is careful to preserve: the dispensation is granted by the Apostolic See as such, not by Gelasius in his diocesan or patriarchal capacity. The papal We (concedimus, “We grant”) is the voice of the See through its occupant. The grant therefore does not lapse with Gelasius’s death but binds his successors and the Church receives it as continuing law. This is why the very structure of Chapters I–III demonstrates the premise that Chapter IX will state directly: Rome holds the canons, and the Apostolic See alone can moderate them when necessity requires. The first three chapters of the letter are therefore not background to the primacy argument of Chapter IX — they are that primacy argument in operational form.
- ↩ The list of impediments follows the standard pattern of late-antique canonical inquiry, going back to 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1 and developed further by the councils and Roman decretals of the fourth and fifth centuries. The curiae nexus — the bond of the civic order — refers to the obligation of curiales, members of the municipal council, whose property and persons were legally tied to civic service; late-antique legislation repeatedly forbade their escape into the clergy precisely because the empire’s fiscal administration depended on them. Litterae here means basic literacy in the Latin of the liturgy and scripture, not learning in the modern sense — Gelasius sets the minimum at what an ostiarius (doorkeeper, the lowest minor order) would need to fulfill his duties.
- ↩ The closing sentence of Chapter III is one of the letter’s clearest assertions of reserved Roman authority in the ordering of jurisdiction. No bishop may “invade the rights of others” — that is, ordain outside his own territory, or claim clerics from another diocese, or exercise the relaxed intervals of the preceding chapters as if they were a new standing law — absque sedis apostolicae justa dispositione mandante, “without the just disposition of the Apostolic See commanding it.” The concessions of Chapters II and III are not a general license; they are a specific dispensation granted by Rome for a specific emergency, and a bishop who applies them without Rome’s mandate exceeds his authority. The reader should note the structure: Rome grants the relaxation (Chapters II–III), defines its limits (only for devastated churches), and reserves to itself the authority to authorize its further application. The Apostolic See is the source of both the rule and the dispensation from the rule.
- ↩ The Latin is Basilicas noviter institutas non petitis ex more praeceptionibus, dedicare non audeant — literally, “not having requested the customary precepts, let them not dare to dedicate.” The praeceptio is a formal written authorization from the Apostolic See. The reservation to Rome of the authority to authorize the dedication of new basilicas is a significant reach of practical jurisdiction over diocesan life throughout the three provinces addressed, and it reflects what Gelasius treats as established practice (ex more, “according to custom”). The second clause — that bishops are not to claim clerics “of another’s authority” (potestatis alienae) — prohibits poaching clergy from other dioceses and is a standing concern of the fifth-century papal correspondence. Both provisions presuppose that the order of jurisdiction among the Italian churches is maintained by reference to Rome.
- ↩ The Latin is sine summo pontifice, subdiaconum aut acolythum jus habere faciendi. The phrase summus pontifex here is ambiguous: it could refer to the bishop of the diocese as the “supreme pontiff” of his own church (the older fifth-century usage), or it could refer specifically to the Roman bishop (the usage that would become standard in later centuries). In context, since the chapter is about priests transgressing against their own diocesan bishop’s prerogatives, the reference is most naturally to the diocesan bishop. But the phrase summus pontifex in Gelasius’s vocabulary consistently carries a gravitational pull toward Rome — the supreme bishop whose authority stands above all others — and later canonists would read the clause in that stronger sense. Either way, the claim is that ordination to the minor orders of subdeacon and acolyte is a specifically episcopal prerogative, reserved from priests.
- ↩ The penalty structure in Chapter VI’s closing sentence is double: the transgressing presbyter loses his orders and his communion; the bishop who fails to discipline him faces his own penalty for connivance. The Latin is nec ipso eorum episcopo a culpa conniventiae et ultione vacaturo, si immoderata facientem dissimulaverit vindicare — “nor will the bishop himself be free from the fault of connivance and from punishment, if he has dissembled to vindicate one who acts without measure.” This is the same disciplinary logic that governs Chapter XXVIII at the close of the letter: every cleric has a duty to report transgression, and failure to enforce discipline is itself a transgression. The penalty for the bishop is not specified here, but the parallel to Chapter XXVIII (where suppression carries loss of office) suggests the same. The reader should note that the standard of accountability runs upward: a priest who acts on episcopal prerogatives is judged by his bishop; a bishop who dissembles in discipline is judged by Rome, as Gelasius makes explicit in Chapter XXVIII. The whole letter presupposes this graduated accountability with the Apostolic See as its summit.
- ↩ The reference to Nicaea is to canon 18 in the standard Greek numbering (canon 17 in the Latin tradition that the PL follows), which prescribes the proper subordination of deacons to presbyters in liturgical function and seating — a canon Gelasius returns to in the next chapter as well.
- ↩ The Latin is one of the most compressed and significant statements of Roman self-understanding in the entire Gelasian corpus: cumque nobis contra salutarium reverentiam regularum cupiamus temere nihil licere, et cum sedes apostolica superior his omnibus, favente Domino, quae paternis canonibus sunt praefixa, pio devotoque studeat tenere proposito. The sentence establishes two things simultaneously. First, that the Apostolic See does not permit itself to act recklessly against the canons — it binds itself to their reverence. Second, that the Apostolic See is superior to the canons themselves: that is, Rome is not subject to them in the way that other sees are, but stands above them as their custodian and interpreter. The two elements work together — the See is superior to the canons precisely because it keeps them with pious devotion, and it keeps them with pious devotion precisely because it is superior to them and therefore responsible for them. The claim is not that Rome is exempt from the canons; it is that Rome is their ordering principle. The reader familiar with the later theological tradition will recognize here the patristic ground for the doctrine that the Roman see judges the canons and is not judged by them — the fourth of the five canonical prerogatives Gelasius sets out systematically in Letter IV.
- ↩ The Latin is ubi Dominus Ecclesiae totius posuit principatum — “where the Lord placed the sovereignty of the whole Church.” The word principatus is load-bearing: it denotes not merely primacy of honor but governing authority, sovereignty, the position of the princeps or ruling head. The same word appears in Leo’s Letter IX to Dioscorus of Alexandria (apostolicum a Domino acceperit principatum, “received the apostolic sovereignty from the Lord”) and in Leo’s Letter X to the bishops of Vienne. Gelasius’s formulation is precise: it was the Lord who placed (posuit) — the act is divine institution, not ecclesiastical arrangement — and what He placed is the principatus — sovereignty, not honor — and what He placed is Ecclesiae totius — of the whole Church, not of any subset. The whole body of the Church must therefore agree with what is kept at Rome, because Rome is where the Lord Himself established the governing head.
- ↩ The restriction of baptism to Easter and Pentecost — with an emergency exception for grave illness — follows the ancient pattern of Roman and African practice, in which the paschal vigil was the primary occasion for baptism and Pentecost the secondary. The passage reflects Gelasius’s concern to keep sacramental practice tied to its theological meaning: baptism is the sacrament of the paschal mystery, and celebrating it outside the paschal cycle was regarded as severing the sign from the reality it signifies. The emergency exception protects the soul of the dying without overturning the norm.
- ↩ The prohibition on veiling widows is strict in Gelasius’s discipline. A virgin’s consecration by the veil was understood to be a marriage to Christ that could not be entered into by one who had already been married. The canonical tradition therefore reserved the veil to virgins, while offering widows a different form of religious life — continence without the formal consecration. Gelasius returns to the widows question in Chapter XXI, where he addresses what happens if a widow who has professed continence later abandons her resolve.
- ↩ The Latin is servos et originarios. The servus is a chattel slave; the originarius is a peasant bound to the land by birth (a colonus of hereditary status), whose condition was inherited from his parents. Both categories were legally bound in late-antique law — the slave to his master, the originarius to the estate on which he was born — and both could not lawfully leave their condition without formal manumission or transfer. Gelasius’s concern is that the religious life was being used as a cover for escaping these civil obligations, which both defrauded the masters and corrupted the religious life by admitting persons who were there for the wrong reasons.
- ↩ The penalty clause reserves to Rome the hearing of complaints about this offense: si super hac re cujusquam verax nos querela pulsaverit — “if a true complaint concerning this matter should strike Us.” The offending bishop or abbot faces loss of office and of communion, and the complaint is heard at Rome. This is the project’s standard pattern: a disciplinary directive issued by Rome, with Rome reserved as the forum where complaints of violation are adjudicated.
- ↩ The reference back to Picenum connects this canon to Letter VII, the circular letter Gelasius sent to all the bishops of Picenum in November 493 concerning the Pelagian heresy spread by Seneca — and the negligence of the Picene bishops in permitting it. Letter IX is dated March 11, 494, only a few months later, which indicates that Roman oversight of the Picene churches continued on multiple disciplinary fronts. The reader who has worked through Letter VII will recognize that the same bishops whom Gelasius accused of nourishing Seneca’s heresy “by their own consent” are evidently failing also to restrain the secular trading of their clergy. The pattern in both letters is the same: reports reach Rome, Rome issues directives, and the directives are circulated with the expectation of obedience.
- ↩ The Levitical precepts Gelasius cites established that priests of Aaron’s line with bodily defects could not “approach to offer the bread of his God” (Lev. 21:17), and that animals offered in sacrifice must be without blemish (Deut. 17:1). Both commands are read figuratively in the patristic tradition as requiring a corresponding integrity in the ministers of the Christian altar. The footnote to Chapter XVI in Leo’s Letter IV to Anastasius of Thessalonica, on similar grounds, makes the same application: the priest of the new covenant, who offers the body and blood of Christ, must be whole in body as well as in character. Gelasius’s invocation of “ancient tradition and the old form of the Apostolic See” explicitly grounds the rule in established Roman practice, not a novel determination.
- ↩ The canonical tradition against self-castration goes back to the first canon of Nicaea (325), which excluded from the clergy any man who had castrated himself or caused his own castration, while permitting those who had been castrated by others (through illness, medical procedure, or violence) to remain in or be admitted to orders. The rule is a direct response to the Origenist tendency of early Christian asceticism, which had read Matt. 19:12 (“there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven”) as a literal counsel. Gelasius repeats the rule without elaboration because it is already well established.
- ↩ The Latin is post dicatum Deo propositum, incesta foedera sacrilegaque miscere — “after the purpose dedicated to God, to mingle incestuous and sacrilegious bonds.” Incesta here carries the patristic sense of a sexual union that violates the sacred consecration of the other party, not the modern English “incestuous” (consanguineous). A consecrated virgin is a bride of Christ by the formal veiling described in Chapter XII; sexual union with her constitutes a double violation — of her vow and of the consecration sacred to God. The penalty is exclusion from communion, to be lifted only through public and proven penance, with the emergency concession of viaticum to those who die penitent. This is the same disciplinary logic we saw condemned in Letter VII, where Seneca had laid down rules that servants of God should mingle with consecrated virgins in the most shameful assembly, and Gelasius rebuked the Picene bishops for permitting it. Here, in Letter IX, the penalty is specified.
- ↩ The reference is to Chapter XIII above, which prohibits the veiling of widows absolutely. Chapter XXI returns to the question from a different angle: what is the status of a widow who has privately professed continence and then abandons it? Gelasius’s answer is that she is answerable directly to God, not to ecclesiastical discipline, because her profession was not an ecclesiastical consecration (there was no veiling) but a personal commitment. The distinction matters: consecrated virgins who break their vows fall under the disciplinary penalty of Chapter XX (exclusion from communion until public penance); widows who break their profession of continence are left to divine judgment.
- ↩ Nicaea cc. 15 and 16 forbid bishops, presbyters, and deacons from moving from one city to another, decreeing that any such transfer is null and the person must return to his original church. The canons address a recurring problem of the early Church: clergy seeking more prestigious or lucrative sees. Gelasius’s repetition of the Nicene rule makes clear that the penalty falls equally on the transferring cleric and on the bishop who receives and promotes him. The rule would become one of the foundational principles of episcopal governance in the Latin Church, and its violation was a standing concern of the medieval canon law tradition.
- ↩ The reference is to Acts 8:18–24, where Simon Magus offers money to the apostles for the power to bestow the Holy Spirit, and Peter rebukes him: Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money (Acts 8:20). From this passage comes the term “simony” for the purchase of ecclesiastical office. Gelasius’s point is that the penalty falls on both parties — not only on the cleric who pays for his office, but on the bishop who sells it. Both are bound by the apostolic condemnation spoken by Peter himself. The reader should note that this is the first occurrence of the Simon Magus comparison in the Gelasian corpus as a standing principle of discipline; it would become the foundational text for the Gregorian Reform’s campaign against simony five and a half centuries later.
- ↩ The Latin is absque praecepto sedis apostolicae. This is the third occurrence in Letter IX of the Apostolic See reserving to itself the authority to authorize a specific ecclesiastical act — after Chapter III (ordination outside one’s own territory) and Chapter IV (dedication of newly built basilicas). Each occurrence reinforces the same premise: particular bishops may act within their own scope, but certain acts require Rome’s specific authorization. The pattern presupposes an established practice of seeking Roman precepts for these acts and is stated here not as a novel claim but as a settled rule that some have been violating.
- ↩ The concern is the dedication of shrines to persons of doubtful standing as saints or martyrs. Fifth-century popular devotion frequently generated local cults around the tombs of deceased figures whose sanctity had not been established. Gelasius’s rule is that such dedications are illegitimate twice over: they lack Roman authorization, and their object of veneration is not reliably Christian. The problem anticipates the medieval Church’s eventual development of formal canonization procedures, which arose precisely to restrain the kind of uncontrolled local commemoration Gelasius is here attempting to check.
- ↩ The Latin is feminae sacris altaribus ministrare ferantur; et cuncta quae non nisi virorum famulatui deputata sunt, sexum cui non competit exhibere. Gelasius’s prohibition is one of the most significant Roman disciplinary interventions on this question in the patristic era. The ancient Roman tradition had consistently reserved altar service to men, and Gelasius here reinforces that reservation against what he calls a recent rise of its contempt. The reader should note that the rule is stated not as a novel determination but as a standing principle of the religio of the Church — the scandal is that this well-established reservation is now being disregarded. The chapter closes with a sweeping attack not so much on the women who have been admitted to these ministries as on the bishops who have permitted them, and this attack becomes the longest and sharpest disciplinary passage in the entire letter.
- ↩ The Latin here is a single long rhetorical period — the structure of which is difficult to preserve in English. The sense is: the crime of all these transgressions (women at the altar, simony, dedication of shrines to doubtful figures, and the rest) ultimately falls on the bishops who either commit them or, by failing to denounce those who do, show that they approve. Gelasius’s sharpest turn is the conditional si tamen sacerdotum jam sint vocabulo nuncupandi — “if indeed they are still to be called by the name of priests.” The bishops who permit these abuses may not even deserve the title. The language is deliberately reminiscent of Letter VII’s charge against the Picene bishops: there, that they were not only negligent but consented; here, that they not only permit abuses but are indistinguishable from those who commit them.
- ↩ The Latin is consulere fidenter oportuerit scientem — “he ought to have confidently consulted the one who knows.” The phrase is an oblique but unmistakable reference to the Apostolic See as the standing resource for bishops in doubt about canonical questions. The argument is the same as in the prologue of Letter VII: if a bishop does not know, he ought to consult Rome. A bishop who fails to consult cannot plead ignorance as a defense, because the ignorance was itself a failure of duty. This is a premise of Roman governance that runs through the entire letter: the Apostolic See holds the canons, teaches the canons, and dispenses from the canons; bishops who govern well consult it, and bishops who govern badly are corrected by it.
- ↩ The PL text prints nesciens (the one who does not know) but the editors note that the Codex Justinianus and canonical editions read nec sciens or (preferably) sciens — “the one who knows.” The context requires the positive reading: the clause is explaining why ignorance is no excuse. The one who knows set himself to keep what he knew; the one who is ignorant failed to care to know what he was doing. Both are therefore without excuse — the first because he either failed to keep what he knew or knew wrongly, the second because his ignorance was itself a dereliction.
- ↩ The four-part division of ecclesiastical revenues (quadripartitum) was a specifically Roman practice and was already of considerable age when Gelasius promulgated it here. Pope Simplicius (468–483), Gelasius’s recent predecessor, had set out the same division in a letter to the bishops of Italy, and there is evidence of the practice going back at least to the early fifth century. The Eastern Churches followed a different tradition — typically a threefold division without a distinct portion for the poor, the care of the poor being distributed among the other categories. The rule Gelasius is confirming here would become one of the structural principles of Latin ecclesiastical economy throughout the medieval period.
- ↩ The Latin is non protinus ad aures nostras deferre curaverit — “if he shall not straightway have taken care to bring it to Our ears.” This is one of the most striking governance claims in the entire Gelasian corpus. Every cleric — not only bishops, but every presbyter, deacon, and cleric of any rank — is under a standing duty to report episcopal transgressions directly to Rome, not to his metropolitan, not to a provincial synod, but to the Apostolic See. Failure to report carries the same penalty as the transgression itself: loss of office. The practical implication is that Rome stands as the standing supreme tribunal for every cleric in the three provinces, with direct lines of communication from every parish to the Apostolic See. The reader who has followed the Letter VII and Letter IX correspondence will recognize the consistent pattern: Rome issues directives, Rome receives complaints, Rome adjudicates transgressions. The bishop who “suppresses” such reports is described as a ordinis et honoris elisor — a crusher of his own order and honor — because he has used his episcopal position to block the very communication channel by which his office is held accountable.
- ↩ March 11, 494. The consuls Flavius Turcius Rufius Apronianus Asterius and Flavius Praesidius held office jointly in 494, the second year of Gelasius’s pontificate. The date places this letter some four months after Letter VII to the bishops of Picenum (November 1, 493) and within the same period as Letter VIII to the Emperor Anastasius (494), making Letters VII–IX a coordinated series of major Gelasian disciplinary and theological interventions.
Historical Commentary