Hilarius, pope, to the bishops of Tarraconensis. Concerning the synodal decree.
In the consulship of Flavius Basiliscus and Hermericus, most illustrious men.
Chapter I: The Decrees of the Apostolic See, Like the Divine Constitutions, May Not Be Violated; The Fault for Transgressions Falls on the Chief Priest
Since the devout assembly, gathered by the Holy Spirit, urges us to treat with more diligent care whatever is necessary for ecclesiastical discipline: if it please you, brothers, let us so firmly establish — with the Lord’s help — those things that pertain to the order of ordinations, according to the precepts of the divine law and the constitutions of the Nicene canons, to endure for all time, that it be sacrilege for anyone to violate without peril either the divine constitutions or the decrees of the Apostolic See — because the fault for such transgressions will fall upon Us, who administer the office of the chief priest, if We are found negligent in the causes of God — for We remember, as We ought to fear, how the Lord threatens the negligence of priests, since he who enjoys a greater honor sins with a greater guilt, and the loftiness of rank makes the vices of sinners more grievous.
Chapter II: No One Who Has Married a Non-Virgin or Who Has Contracted a Second Marriage May Aspire to Sacred Orders
It must be guarded against above all that no one aspire to the sacred ranks, as was prescribed in earlier proceedings, who has married a woman who was not a virgin. He also is to be rejected who has contracted a second marriage contrary to apostolic precepts.
Chapter III: The Unlettered, the Physically Impaired, and Penitents May Not Aspire to Sacred Orders
Those who are unlettered, and those who have suffered some loss of limbs, and those who were penitents, let them not dare aspire to sacred orders. Whoever consecrates any such person will undo his own act.
Chapter IV: What Has Been Committed Unlawfully Must Be Condemned; Sentences and Subscriptions Are to Be Committed to Synodal Judgment
But whatever anyone has committed unlawfully, or finds to have been admitted by his predecessors, he will condemn it if he wishes to avoid his own peril — for We wish to exercise severity of punishment in no case. But whoever in the causes of God offends either through contumacy or through any excess, and refuses to abolish what he has done wrongly, will find visited upon himself whatever he would not have cut away in another. That this may henceforth be held more firmly, if it please you, let all commend their sentences, cases, and personal subscriptions, so that by synodal judgment access may be closed to the illicit.
Synodal Acclamations
By all the bishops and presbyters it was acclaimed: “Hear, O Christ: life to Hilarus!” — said six times. “These things we both confirm and teach” — said eight times. “These things must be held, these must be observed” — said five times. “We give thanks for your teaching” — said ten times. “We ask that these things be preserved forever” — said fifteen times. “Through Saint Peter, we desire that these things be preserved forever” — said eight times. “Let this presumption never occur” — said fifteen times. “Whoever violates these things will find it upon himself.” And after silence was made, Hilarus the bishop said:
[Added in the Justelli manuscript:] And it was decreed that no such presumption should henceforth be made by priests.
Chapter V: The Episcopate May Not Be Treated as a Hereditary Possession; The Letters of the Spanish Bishops Are to Be Read Before the Synod
Furthermore, brothers, novel and unheard-of seeds of corruption — as has come to Us from letters sent from Spain, by sure report — are continually arising in certain places. For some regard the episcopate — which is given only on the basis of preceding merits — not as a divine gift but as a hereditary possession; and they believe that the priesthood, like perishable and mortal goods, can be disposed of as if by legal or testamentary right. For very many priests, when placed at the boundary of death, are reported to substitute others in their place by designating them by name — so that no legitimate election is awaited, but the favor of the deceased is taken as the consent of the people. Consider how grave this is, and therefore, if it please you, let us take away this license from the churches generally, lest anyone — shameful to say — think that what belongs to God is owed to a man.
But so that what has been brought to Us may also come to your notice, let the writings of Our Spanish brothers and fellow bishops be read. Paulus the notary recited them.
Footnotes
- ↩ Hispania Tarraconensis — the Roman province centered on Tarraco (modern Tarragona), covering the northeastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. It was the largest of the Iberian provinces and included the metropolitan see of Tarragona, whose archbishop Ascanius is the leading figure in the correspondence that follows. By the 460s the province was under increasing Visigothic pressure — Euric would take Tarragona itself within a decade — but the ecclesiastical structure remained intact and the bishops continued to look to Rome for adjudication of disputed cases.
- ↩ The consular date — Basiliscus and Hermericus — is 465 AD, the fourth year of Hilarius’s pontificate. He had succeeded Leo I on November 19, 461. The document is a synodal decree issued at a Roman council and transmitted to the bishops of Tarraconensis as binding law. There is no epistolary greeting: the text begins with the consular date and then the pope’s address to the assembled bishops, consistent with conciliar rather than epistolary form.
- ↩ The Latin is ut nulli fas sit sine periculo vel divinas constitutiones, vel apostolicæ sedis decreta temerare. The construction places the divinas constitutiones and the apostolicæ sedis decreta on the same plane as a single normative standard: to violate either is nefas — sacrilege. This is Hilarius’s most explicit formulation of the inviolability of Apostolic See decrees, and it appears in the opening chapter of his first synodal document. The claim is not unique to Hilarius; it is the same register Leo uses throughout his correspondence, now stated by his immediate successor with particular directness.
- ↩ The Latin is nos, qui potissimi sacerdotis administramus officia — “we, who administer the office of the chief priest.” The superlative potissimi (from potis, “able, powerful”) is unambiguous: this is not a collective reference to bishops in general but Hilarius’s designation of his own office as the highest priestly office in the Church. The claim is the same one Leo expresses through different vocabulary — the principaliter of Letter X, the apostolicum principatum of Letter IX — now stated in Hilarius’s own idiom.
- ↩ The Latin is Ista per sanctum Petrum, ut in perpetuum serventur optamus. The assembled bishops invoke Peter not as a historical authority or patron but as the living guarantor of the decrees just promulgated. The structure is identical to Leo’s formula Deo inspirante et beatissimo Petro apostolo — “with God inspiring and the most blessed Apostle Peter” — in Letter X: Peter is named as a present co-agent of papal acts, not merely a figure being commemorated. The Lucca codex reads per Dominum sanctum Petrum — “through the Lord Saint Peter” — strengthening the invocation further.
Historical Commentary