Ten Fragments of the Letters of Pope Gelasius.
Fragment I: To Bishop Caelestinus — Concerning the Promotion of the Deacon Julianus at Histonium
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book I, Chapter 144.
In the church of the blessed martyr Eleutherius, which is shown to have been built in the parish of the city of Histonium, you shall honor Julianus the deacon, if there is nothing in him that comes contrary to the institutions of the canons, with the rank of presbyter — he being about to know that you have done so in Our name as visitor, not as a bishop of proper standing.
Fragment II: To Bishop Sabinus — Concerning the Consecration of Quartus, Deacon-Defender of Grumentum
From the same source, ibidem.
The people of the city of Grumentum have asked that Quartus, the deacon-defender, be consecrated for them. You shall therefore promote him, if there is nothing that can be objected against his person, by elevation to the diaconate — but let your beloved person know that you carry this out by the office of visitor, We delegating it to you, and not by the power of your own priesthood.
Fragment III: To Bishops Quinigesius and Constantinus — The Felix and Petrus Affair, and Theodoric’s Referral of the Clerics Back to Roman Examination
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book IV, Chapter 56. “Among other things”:
Felix and Petrus, clerics of the Church of Nola — contumaciously and rebelling against the constitution — thought they ought to hasten to the court of My son the king, alleging that violence had been done to them. With their clerical office concealed and contrary to civic order, having ransomed barbarians for themselves with the authority they had merited, they inflicted grave injuries and losses upon the abovesaid bishop, their own. It was therefore necessary that to that same lord My son, Our brother and fellow-bishop Serenus, the said bishop, should make report; and the fraud being shown forth, according to the beatitude of his times the most excellent man My son King Theodoric sent the contumacious clerics back to Our examination.
Fragment IV: To Bishop Victor — Concerning the Procession at the Basilica of Saint Agatha in the Caelanus Estate
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book III, Chapter 95.
Some time ago, you had suspended under Our consultation the procession of the basilica of Saint Agatha — which is known to have been formerly established in the Caelanus estate — asserting that the lord of the estate was receiving for himself all the things that were being conferred upon that basilica, and applying them to his own uses; and that none of the ministers of God could come there for the procession, since they were receiving no support there. But recently the most distinguished man Our [son] Petrus has reported to Us reasonably that the matter that had come into fault he has so ordered that all the things which by the offerings of various persons have been collected in the abovesaid Church shall pertain to the bishop or to the one to whom he shall assign the basilica — so that, by this provision, the roof and walls of the church may be cared for. And therefore, brother, the most healthful arrangement having been received in profession, it is fitting that you order the procession of the abovesaid church.
Fragment V: To Bishops Respectus and Leoninus — The Appeal of Joannes the Archdeacon of Falerio
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book III, Chapter 99.
Joannes, archdeacon of the city of Falerio, has complained to Us by great supplication of the overturning of the church effected by the one who is called by the name of bishop — to such an extent that, with himself thus cast down from the administration of his place, the [supposed bishop] would open a free path for himself to the despoiling of the resources of the church. For with the ministries and ornaments distracted according to his own will, he claimed even the paternal estate, which his predecessor had left for the support of the clergy, as his own for his own uses; and resisting the abovesaid archdeacon and many others who likewise protested, he believed they should be excluded from their orders. And therefore, dearest brothers, looking to the Divinity, examining the cause of the Church with the utmost attention, all truth being discussed, signify to Our ears in your report what you have ascertained; so that, your diligence in the inquiry being duly examined, We may decree what ought to be done.
Fragment VI: To Bishops Justus and Stephanus — The Case of Brumarius and the Insulted Bishop Proficuus
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book III, Chapter 97.
Our brother and fellow-bishop Proficuus, priest of the Church of Salpia, has by a new petition reported to Us that Brumarius, a man of distinguished rank — when no causes existed for it — had slain a slave of the church by the most grievous violence; and then also, to increase the obstinacy of his violence, inflicted the most grievous insults upon the abovesaid presider. And therefore, dearest brothers, if having been admonished by you he shall come to your judgment and inquiry, the truth being discussed — whence so great a spirit of pride or so great a conception of violence proceeded, and what indeed it was that the bishop should be torn by such insolence — signify it to Our ears in your report. Or if perhaps with like presumption he shall despise [your summons], the abovesaid bishop shall know that the power has been granted to him to seek vengeance for atrocious injuries by formal accusation before the judge of the province.
Fragment VII: To Bishops Majoricus, Serenus, and Joannes — The Exclusion of Dionysius for Damaging the Vibonensian Church, and the Expulsion of the Priest Coelestinus for Defying the Mandates of the Apostolic See
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book III, Chapter 98.
Those who, with uncivil temerity trampling upon human laws also and casting away the reverence of religion, contend either to trample upon ecclesiastical privileges or to leap forth wherever it may be to the loss of the poor — and refuse, when admonished and convicted of these things, even thus to put the wickedness to rest and to make satisfaction for the damages inflicted upon sacred matters — deservedly are to be deprived of the participation of the divine gift; that they may not lack the perception of this, which by sacrilegious daring they had held in contempt.
Wherefore Dionysius — who, as the substance of your report shows, not only [persisted in] disturbing the rights of the Vibonensian Church but also refused to compensate for what he had wickedly committed — let him be barred from the approach to sacred communion, until he learns to render with devout mind those things which befit divine honor. Against him, also, whatever can be done by the public laws should not be neglected at all: that he, who has despised both, being restrained by both, may furnish the example to himself, as also to others, that necessary discipline demands.
Coelestinus, however, the priest of Our brother and fellow-bishop Serenus, who breaking forth contrary to the bishop’s judgment and contrary to the mandates of the Apostolic See presumed to administer sacred communion to the abovesaid persons — since he could not have been ignorant of the sentence of his own priest — let him at once be expelled from ecclesiastical office. So that no minister of the Church may attempt to come against episcopal institutions.
Fragment VIII: To Bishop Joannes of Pisa — Concerning the Restoration of a Chalice Improperly Transferred
From the Collection of Cardinal Deusdedit, Book III, Chapter 90.
Ecclesiastical ministries which the devotion of the faithful has assigned to a particular basilica ought not to be transferred to another church by anyone slipping them away. And therefore, if the petition of the bearer of this letter is upheld in truth, the chalice which your predecessor took away — restore to the church to which it belonged, without delay.
Fragment IX: To Bishop Natalis — That Schism From Apostolic Communion Cannot License the Usurpation of Privileges Antiquity Has Decreed
From the Collection of Anselm of Lucca, Book VI, Chapter 39.
Because some, through illicit ambitions, are not ashamed to disturb the rights of churches, and to invade by rash presumption the privileges which antiquity has decreed for metropolitans or provincial bishops — on which account they also desire to maintain dissension from Apostolic communion, evidently so that, separated from its authority, they may exercise their own usurpations as if with impunity — not considering that they will give an account to the eternal Judge for the injury to Catholic sincerity, as well as for the prejudice against paternal traditions, not without the destruction of perpetual condemnation:
If they remain in this obstinacy, We have determined that your charity should be instructed; and that We have likewise sent a great delegation to the metropolitans of your province, or of any neighboring one, which preserve Catholic unity, that the bishops in that region should be ordained by their own metropolitan; and that this metropolitan himself, if he should pass away by human death, should be ordained only by the comprovincial bishops according to the ancient form: that no one may attempt to usurp for himself, contrary to right, what venerable antiquity has decreed.
Fragment X: To the Clergy, Order, and People of Brindisi — Concerning the Newly Granted Bishop Julianus and the Conduct Required of His Episcopate
From the Collection of Anselm of Lucca, Book VI, Chapter 46.
The bishop you have requested having been granted to you — Our brother and fellow-bishop Julianus — it was necessary that, with him sent back at once to his church, We should send Our writings to you at the same time, by which you may know what has been commanded to him.
Let him never presume illicit ordinations. Let him not permit a bigamist, or one who did not obtain a virgin as wife, or one illiterate or otherwise unworthy, or in any part of the body debilitated, or marked in any way at all, to approach sacred orders. He must also be on guard concerning travelers and unknown persons or applicants, since such persons are forbidden from venerable offices.
And further: let him not dare for any reason to transfer to another any of the ministries and ornaments — ultimately, of any matter that is established to belong to the church.
Let him divide the income and offerings of the faithful into four portions: one of which let him retain for himself, another let him distribute to the clergy according to the diligence of their offices, the third for the buildings — of which he is to render account to the divine examination.
Let him also promote those to be applied to sacred orders by this observance: that he know that priests and deacons are to be ordained on the fast of the fourth, seventh, and tenth months, on the evening of the Sabbath. Let him not presume to give the venerable sacrament of baptism except on the festivity of Easter and Pentecost — except for those laboring under sickness.
Footnotes
- ↩ The ten fragments collected here are preserved in two eleventh-century canonical collections: the Collectio canonum of Cardinal Deusdedit (compiled c. 1083–1087) and the Collectio canonum of Anselm of Lucca (compiled c. 1083). Both were among the principal Gregorian-reform canonical collections, drawing on earlier sources to establish the legal foundations of the eleventh-century reform program. The first eight fragments are from Deusdedit; the last two are from Anselm. The fact that these fragments survive at all is itself evidence of the weight given to Gelasius’s writings in the medieval canonical tradition: passages from his letters were preserved across six centuries because they were judged to articulate principles of permanent ecclesiastical authority. The fragments themselves come from letters most of which are no longer extant in their original full form. Each preserves enough of the original setting — addressees, occasion, ruling — to allow the reader to see Gelasius operating in the daily exercise of Roman jurisdiction over the churches of Italy.
- ↩ Histonium (modern Vasto, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy) lay within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the suburbicarian provinces under direct Roman oversight. The local martyr Eleutherius is the saint at whose church the candidate ministered.
- ↩ Sciturus eum visitatoris te nomine, non cardinalis creasse pontificis. The Latin cardinalis pontifex uses cardinalis in its classical sense — “principal,” “proper,” “established” — not in the later medieval sense of an institutional cardinal. A cardinalis pontifex is a bishop of proper standing, holding his see by his own right of jurisdiction; a visitator is a temporary overseer delegated by Rome. The candidate must know that his promotion derives from Roman delegation, not from local episcopal authority operating in its own right. The principle preserved here is that ordinations performed outside one’s own diocese require explicit Roman delegation, and that the resulting promotion is understood as Rome’s act mediated through the visiting bishop. The fragment is short but the formulation is one of the clearest statements in the Gelasian corpus of the derivative character of inter-diocesan episcopal action.
- ↩ Grumentum (modern Grumento Nova) was a city of Lucania in southern Italy, within the suburbicarian region under direct Roman jurisdiction. The “deacon-defender” (defensor diaconus) was an office combining diaconal ministry with legal advocacy on behalf of the church and its dependents.
- ↩ The same principle as in Fragment I, restated for the case of a different bishop and a different church. The pairing of the two fragments shows that this was Gelasius’s standard formulation in such cases — a recurring administrative form, not a one-off improvisation. The local bishop’s act is valid only as Rome’s delegated act; the local bishop must know this and ensure that the candidate knows it.
- ↩ Filii mei regis. The “son and king” is Theodoric the Great, Ostrogothic king of Italy from 493 to 526. Theodoric’s relationship to the bishops of Rome was complex: he was an Arian, not in communion with the Catholic Church, yet his rule over Italy required cooperation with the Roman see. Gelasius and Theodoric maintained a working relationship in which civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions were treated as distinct but parallel — Theodoric handling civil matters, the bishop of Rome handling ecclesiastical ones, with referrals across the line when matters touched both. The fragment that follows is striking evidence of this arrangement in operation.
- ↩ Ad nostrum contumaces clericos remisit examen. The principle this preserves is significant: an Arian Gothic king, recognizing that ecclesiastical discipline of clerics belonged to Rome, refused to entertain the appeal himself and remitted the case back to Roman ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The reader will note that this is exactly what Gelasius articulates in the Famuli vestrae pietatis (Letter VIII, the so-called Duo Sunt) of 494: that the prince ought to subject his head to the bishops, not judge over their heads. Here the principle is preserved in operational form. Theodoric, despite his Arianism, conducted himself in this case according to the very principle Gelasius had articulated theoretically — precisely because the principle was already received as the established order, not a novel claim.
- ↩ Falerio Picenus, in the province of Picenum (modern Marche), suburbicarian Italy.
- ↩ Ab eo qui praesulis nomine censetur — “by him who is reckoned by the name of bishop.” The phrasing is sharp: Gelasius does not concede the offending bishop’s title without qualification. He is “called” a bishop, but his conduct calls the standing of his episcopate into question.
- ↩ The standard appellate procedure: a complaint reaches Rome, Rome delegates investigation to two suitable bishops, and the matter is to be reported back so that Rome may decree what is to be done. The reader will note that the investigatory phase is delegated, but the deciding act is reserved to Gelasius — quid fieri debeat censeamus, “We may decree what ought to be done.” This is the precise structure of Roman appellate jurisdiction: investigation by delegation, judgment by reservation.
- ↩ Salpia (or Salapia) was a city of Apulia in southern Italy.
- ↩ Two distinct procedural channels are opened by the same Roman ruling: the ecclesiastical channel, in which the offender is summoned for inquiry by the delegated bishops; and, if that fails because of his contumacy, the civil channel, in which the bishop is granted standing to proceed against him before the provincial judge for “atrocious injuries.” The case is significant because it shows how Roman jurisdiction operated in conjunction with the civil legal order: the Apostolic See does not seek to monopolize all jurisdiction, but coordinates the ecclesiastical and civil channels so that each may operate within its proper sphere when the other fails. Note that even the civil recourse is granted by Roman authorization (potestatem sibi supradictus pontifex noverit esse concessam) — the bishop knows the power has been granted to him.
- ↩ Vibo, in Bruttium (modern Calabria), southern Italy. The Latin construction of this sentence is grammatically tangled. The verb respuerunt (“they refused”) at the end of the clause governs repensare (“to compensate”), but the preceding infinitive turbare (“to disturb”) cannot be governed by the same “refused” without producing a non-sensical reading. The natural construction is therefore: they actively persisted in disturbing the rights, AND they refused to make amends for the harm. Both are charges; both warrant the exclusion from communion that follows.
- ↩ Contra pontificale judicium, contraque apostolicae sedis mandata. The Latin pontificale judicium here refers to the judgment of the local bishop Serenus, not to a papal judgment — Coelestinus is Serenus’s own priest, and Serenus had pronounced the sentence the priest defied. Two distinct planes of authority are nevertheless violated in the same act: the local bishop’s judgment (Serenus had judged the matter), and behind that the mandates of the Apostolic See, which are the ultimate source of the local judgment’s authority. The structure preserved here is significant for the question of how Gelasius understood the relationship between local episcopal jurisdiction and Roman jurisdiction. The local bishop’s judgment is not merely his own private judgment, to be set against Rome’s judgment as one alternative against another; it is itself an exercise of authority that derives from and conforms to the mandates of the Apostolic See. To violate the local bishop’s judgment in this case is to violate the Apostolic See itself, of which the local bishop is the local execution.
- ↩ Communionis apostolicae desiderant tenere dissidium, quae scilicet ab eius auctoritate divisi velut impune proprias usurpationes exerceant. The Latin construction is precise: those who usurp ancient privileges desire the schism from Apostolic communion, because the schism is the precondition for their usurpation. So long as they remain in Apostolic communion, the authority of the Apostolic See restrains them from usurpation; once they have separated themselves from that communion, they imagine themselves free of the restraint. The phrase ab eius auctoritate divisi — “separated from its authority” — identifies Apostolic communion with submission to the authority of the Apostolic See: to be in communion with Rome is to be under the authority of Rome, and to seek to escape the latter is to abandon the former. The reader who has followed the chain-of-communion argument from Letter XV will recognize this as its corollary: just as Catholic communion requires being free of any chain-of-communion link to a heretic, so it requires being subject to the authority of the See whose communion is the test of Catholicity.
- ↩ The fragment establishes the working principle: ancient privileges of metropolitans and provincial bishops are defended by the authority of the Apostolic See, and the cooperation of Catholic metropolitans of “your province or of any neighboring one” is enlisted to enforce that defense. The structure is the same Gelasian pattern visible elsewhere: Roman authority does not displace local hierarchy but reinforces it; the Apostolic See defends the canonical rights of metropolitans precisely because those rights are part of the order Rome itself maintains. Schism from Rome therefore does not enable greater local autonomy; it removes the check that prevents usurpation of properly local rights.
- ↩ The fragment is unusual in form: a letter sent directly to the people of a city, informing them of the directives Gelasius has given to their newly granted bishop. The form itself is a piece of jurisdictional evidence — Rome instructs both bishop and people about the bishop’s duties, so that the people may hold the bishop accountable for their fulfillment. The grant of the bishop is itself a Roman act (concesso vobis quem petistis antistite — “the bishop you have requested having been granted to you”).
- ↩ The famous “four portions” rule. The Latin distributes the four parts among (1) the bishop, (2) the clergy according to merit, (3) the buildings (fabricis), and — by implication — (4) the poor. The fourth portion is missing in this excerpt as preserved by Anselm of Lucca, but is attested in the parallel directive given in Letter IX, Canon XXVII, to the bishops of Lucania, Bruttium, and Sicily, where the four portions are specified as: bishop, clergy, fabric of the church, and the poor. The principle is foundational to Western canonical tradition on the disposition of ecclesiastical revenue, and survives in modified form in the present Code of Canon Law. The rendering “of which he is to render account to the divine examination” preserves the Latin’s reflective force: the bishop is reminded that even the portion he retains for himself is held in trust before God.
- ↩ The Ember Days ordination rule, in classic Gelasian form. The fast of the fourth, seventh, and tenth months — combined with the sabbath fast — establishes the four annual occasions for ordination (the four Quatuor Tempora or Ember weeks of the liturgical year). The same rule appears at length in Letter IX (to the bishops of Lucania, Bruttium, and Sicily) and in Letter XIV (the disciplinary letter to the bishops of southern Italy). It is one of Gelasius’s most enduring contributions to the discipline of the Western Church, and remained the standard rule for ordinations until reforms of the twentieth century.
Historical Commentary