From the earliest to the apocryphal collections
In the primitive Christian ages there were apocryphal collections attributed to the Apostles, which belong to the genre of the Church Orders. The near important of these are the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the Apostolic Canons.
The Apostolic Constitutions, though originally accepted throughout the Orient, were declared apocryphal in the Trullan Council of 692; they were never accepted as ecclesiastical law in the West. The Apostolic Canons eighty-five were, on the other hand, approved by the Trullan Council.
Dionysius Exiguus, a Western canonist of the first half of the sixth century, planned that "many accept with difficulty the invited canons of the Apostles". Nevertheless, he admitted into his collection the number one fifty of these canons. The requested Decretum Gelasianum, de libris non recipiendis approximately the sixth century, puts them among the apocrypha.
From the collection of Dionysius Exiguus they passed into many Western collections, though their leadership was never on one level. They were admitted at Rome in the ninth century in ecclesiastical decisions but in the eleventh century Cardinal Humbert accepts only the first fifty. Only two of them 20, 29 found their way into the Decretals of Gregory IX.
In primitive Christian centuries, the popes carried on ecclesiastical government by means of an active and extensive correspondence. We memorize from a synod of the year 370, under Pope Damasus, that the minutes of their letters or decretals were kept in the papal archives; these Vatican Archives pull in perished up to the time of pope John VIII died 882. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries attempts were delivered to undergo a change them. During the period under discussion i. e. to the middle of the eleventh century there was a constant use of the papal decretals by the compilers of canonical collections from the sixth century on.
In 451 there was forwarded at the Council of Chalcedon a collection of councils no longer extant, nor has the pretend of the compiler ever transpired. At the beginning of the collection were then placed the decrees of Nicæa 325; subsequently the canons of Antioch 341 were included, in which kind it was known to the Fathers of Chalcedon. In the latter factor of the fifth century the canons of Laodicæa 343-81, Constantinople 381, Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451, were incorporated with this ecclesiastical code, and finally after the canons of Neo-Cæsarea the decrees of Sardica 343-44, in which form the collection was in ownership during the sixth century. Though unofficial in character, it represents inclusive of sixty-eight canons taken from the "Canonical Epistles" of St. Basil, I, III the conciliar discipline of the Greek Church between 500 and 600.
This collection was chronological in order. Towards 535 an unknown compiler classified its materials in a methodical way under sixty titles, and added to the canons twenty-one imperial constitutions relative to ecclesiastical matters taken from the script of Justinian. This collection has been lost.
Some years later 540-550 Johannes Scholasticus, Patriarch of Constantinople, made use of this script to compile a new methodical collection, which he divided up into fifty books. After the emperor's death 565, the patriarch extracted from ten of the former's constitutions, known as "Novellæ", some eighty-seven chapters and added them to the aforesaid collection.
In this way arose the mixed collections known as Nomocanons Greek nomoi "laws", kanones "canons", containing not only ecclesiastical laws but also imperial laws pertaining to the same matters. The first of these was published under Emperor Maurice 582-602; under each title were given, after the canons, the corresponding civil laws.
The Quinisext Council 695 of Constantinople, called Trullan from the hall of the palace in trullo where it was held, issued 102 disciplinary canons; it included also the canons of the former councils andpatristic regulations, all of which it considered constitutive elements of the ecclesiastical law of the East. This collection contains, therefore, an official enumeration of the canons which then governed the Eastern Church, but no official approbation of a assumption collection or particular text of these canons. The Apostolic See never fully approved this council. In 787 a similar recapitulation of the ancient canons was made by the Second Council of Nicæa.
The former council 325 was held in repute throughout the West, where its canons were in vigour together with those of Sardica, the complement of the anti-Arian legislation of Nicæa, and whose decrees had been drawn up originally in both Latin and Greek. The canons of the two councils were numbered in running order, as though they were the work of but one council a trait met with in divers Latin collections, which explains why the Council of Sardica is sometimes called œcumenical by earlier writers, and its canons attributed to the Council of Nicæa. The oldest versions of these canons quoted in the papal decretals are no longer extant.
Towards the middle of the fifth century, perhaps earlier, there appeared a Latin representation of the aforesaid canons of Laodicæa and Constantinople; the canons of Sardica were inserted about the same time after those of Gangra. Bickell considers it possible that this representation was made in Northern Africa, while Walter inclines to Spain; it is now generally believed that the version was made in Italy. It was long believed, however, that it came from Spain, hence the name of "Hispana" or "Isidoriana", the latter term derived from its insertion in the collection attributed to St. Isidore of Seville see below, Spanish Collections, in which it was edited, of course according to the text followed by the Spanish compiler.
This too seems to have grown up gradually in the course of the fifth century, and in its present shape exhibits the aforementioned canons of Ancyra, Neo-Cæsarea, Nicæa, Sardica, Gangra, Antioch, Chalcedon and Constantinople. It came to be known as "Itala" from the place of its origin, and as "Prisca" because of an overhasty conclusion that Dionysius Exiguus referred to it in the preface of his first collection when he wrote: "Laurentius offended by the confusion that reigned in the ancient version [priscœ versionis]".
At the beginning of the sixth century there arose in Italy an extensive collection, based apparently on the "Antiqua Isidoriana" and the African collections, and which, besides the earliest Eastern and the African councils, includes papal decretals especially Leonine, letters of Gallican bishops and other documents. Older scholarship, beginning with the Ballerinis, argued that the "Quesnelliana" was a Gallic collection, though one with an admittedly "Roman colour". More recent scholarship has argued for an Italian, possibly even Roman origin. Its name is derived from the Oratorian P. Quesnel, its first editor. With its focus on Chalcedon and the letters of Leo, the "Quesnelliana" is quite obviously meant as a manifesto against the Acacian schism, in which eastern Bishops led by Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, challenged the decisions of the council of Chalcedon and the Christology set down in Pope Leo's "Tomus". The compiler's principal of option thus seems to have been any and all documents that support doctrinal unity in general and Leonine Christology in particular. Of the large chronological canon collections to have come out of the early Middle Ages, the "Quesnelliana" is perhaps the oldest surviving collection and, after the "Collectio Dionysiana" and "Collectio Hispana", probably the nearly influential. It remained a popular work alive into the ninth century, particularly in Francia. Most likely this was because of the numerous papal letters it contained that dealt with disciplinary matters that retained ecclesiastical importance throughout the Middle Ages. The Quesnelliana played a particularly important role in the spread of Leo's letters in Western canonistic literature, and was notably instrumental in the compilations of pseudo-Isidore for just this reason. Manuscript evidence alone indicates that the Quesnelliana had a fairly wide dissemination in Gaul during the eighth and ninth centuries; though it had perhaps already found a welcome audience with Gallo-Frankish bishops in the sixth century, when it may have been used as a character along with the "Sanblasiana" for the "Collectio Colbertina" and the "Collectio Sancti Mauri". By the mid-eighth century, the "Quesnelliana" had secured its place as an important lawbook within the Frankish episcopate, for whom it served as the primary module of reference during the influential council of Verneuil in 755.
Further collections were called for by the increasing canonical fabric of the Latin West in the course of the fifth century. They were far from satisfactory.
Towards 500 a Scythian monk, known as Dionysius Exiguus, who had come to Rome after the death of Pope Gelasius 496, and who was alive skilled in both Latin and Greek, undertook to bring out a more exact translation of the canons of the Greek councils. In a second try he collected papal decretals from Siricius 384-89 to Anastasius II 496-98, inclusive, anterior therefore, to Pope Symmachus 514-23. By profile of Pope Hormisdas 514-23, Dionysius made a third collection, in which he included the original text of all the canons of the Greek councils, together with a Latin version of the same; but the preface alone has survived. Finally, he combined the first andin one collection, which thus united the canons of the councils and the papal decretals; this is the in this shape that the work of Dionysius has reached us. This collection opens with a table or list of titles, used to refer to every one of two or more people or things of which is afterwards repeated ago the respective canons; then come the first fifty canons of the Apostles, the canons of the Greek councils, the canons of Carthage 419, and the canons of previous African synods under Aurelius, which had been read and inserted in the Council of Carthage. This first element of the collection is closed by a letter of Pope Boniface I, read at the same council, letters of Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople to the African Fathers, and a letter of Pope Celestine I. Thepart of the collection opens likewise with a preface, in the shape of a letter to the priest Julian, and a table of titles; then undertake one decretal of Siricius, twenty-one of Innocent I, one of Zozimus, four of Boniface I, three of Celestine I, seven of pope Leo I, one of Gelasius I and one of Anastasius II. The additions met with in Voel and Justel are taken from inferior manuscripts.
It is so called because its oldest known manuscript was bought for the abbey of Santa Croce Avellana by St. Peter Damian died 1073, probably dates from the middle of the sixth century. It follows neither chronological nor logical order, and seems to have grown to its present shape according as the compiler met with the materials that he has transmitted to us. Nevertheless, Girolamo Ballerini and Pietro Ballerini pronounce it a valuable collection because of the great number of early canonical documents nearly 200 that are found in no other collection.
All its texts are authentic, save eight letters from divers persons to Peter, Bishop of Antioch. The best edition is Otto Günther: Epistvlae imperatorvm pontificvm aliorvm inde ab a. CCCLXVII vsqve advertisement a. DLIII datae Avellana qvae dicitvr collectio. Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol. 35. Vindobonae: F. Tempsky, 1895.
Despite the popularity of Dionysius Exiguus, which caused the preceding compilations to be disused, several of them were preserved, as also were some other sophisticated collections. Suffice it to mention the collection known as the "Chieti" or "Vaticana Reginæ", through which a very old and distinct version of the decrees of the Council of Nicæa has reached us.
From the Eastern Church Northern Africa received only the decrees of Nicæa 325, which it owed to Cæcilianus of Carthage, one of the Nicene Fathers. The African Church created its domestic code of discipline in its own councils. It was customary to read and confirm in each council the canons of preceding councils, in which way there grew up collections of conciliar decrees, but purely local in authority. Their moral authority, however, was great, and from the Latin collections they eventually made their way into the Greek collections. The best-known are: a the Canons of the Council of Carthage August, 397 which confirmed the "Breviarium" of the canons of Hippo 393, one of the chief sources of African ecclesiastical discipline; b the Canons of the Council of Carthage 419, at which were present 217 bishops and among whose decrees were inserted 105 canons of previous councils.
In the moment part of the Hispana see below and in other collections are found, together with other African councils, 104 canons which the compiler of the Hispana attributes to a Pseudo-Fourth Council of Carthage of 398. These canons are often known as Statuta Ecclesiæ Antiqua, and in some manuscripts are entitled Statuta antiqua Orientis.
Arthur Malnory believe them a compilation made at Arles in the first part of the sixth century; Malnory specifies Caesarius of Arles as their author.
Compiled c. 546 by Fulgentius Ferrandus, it is a methodical collection and under its seven titles disposes 230 abridged canons of Greek "Hispana" text and African councils. Fulgentius was a deacon of Carthage and disciple of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe.
Cresconius Africanus, apparently a bishop, compiled his collection about 690. It is based on that of Dionysius Exiguus; only, in place of reproducing in full each canon, it cuts it up to suit the demands of the titles used; hence its name of "Concordia". Between the preface and the text of the collection the writer inserted a resume of his work.
These comprise the collections that arose in the lands once under Visigothic rule — Spain, Portugal, and Southern Gaul. In this territory councils were very frequent, especially after the conversion of King Reccared 587, and they paid much attention to ecclesiastical discipline.
Such collections contain, besides the decrees of Spanish synods, the canons also of Nicæa and Sardica accepted in the Spanish Church from the beginning, those of the Greek councils known through the "Itala", and those of the Gallican and African Councils, quite influential in the appearance of Spanish ecclesiastical discipline. Three of these collections are important.
It is divided up into two parts, one dealing with the bishop and his clergy, the other relative to the laity; in both the author classifies methodically the canons of the councils in eighty-four chapters. He says himself in the preface that he does not pretend to reproduce the text literally, but with set aim breaks up, abridges, or glosses the same, in order to make it more intelligible to "simple people"; possibly he has occasionally modified it to suit the Spanish discipline of his time. Though much has been borrowed from Latin, Gallican and African Councils, the Greek Councils furnish the greater part of the canons. The "Capitula" were read and approved at the Second Council of Braga in 572. Some writers, misled by the name, attributed them to Pope Martin I; they are in reality the work of Martin of Pannonia, better known as Martin of Braga, of which place he was archbishop in the sixth century. Their text was incorporated with the "Isidoriana", from which they were taken and edited apart by Merlin and by Gaspar Loaisa, and in the first volume of the oft-quoted work by Voel and Justel, after collation of the variants in the best manuscripts.
This is the name of the collection edited by the Ballerini from two manuscripts Verona and Lucca. It has two parts: one includes the canons of Greek, African, Gallican and Spanish councils; the other divers papal decretals from Siricius to Pope Vigilius 384-555, with two apocryphal texts of St. Clement and an extract from St. Jerome. The compiler designedly abridged his texts, and mentions only three sources, a Braga collection the "Capitula Martini", his first chapter being a resume of that work, an Alcalá Complutum collection, and one of Cabra Agrabensis. Though characterized by lack of order and exactness, the "Epitome" interests us because of the antiquity of its sources. Maassen thinks it connected with the "Codex Canonum", the nucleus of the companies of collections whence eventually issued the "Hispana", and of which we shall treat apropos of the latter.
This must not be confused with the above-described "Versio Hispanica" or "Isidoriana", among the earlier Latin collections, and which contained only canons of Greek councils.
The collection in question, like that of Dionysius Exiguus on which it is based, contains two parts: the first includes canons of Greek, African, Gallican and Spanish councils, with some letters of St. Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople, while the second has the papal decretals as found in Dionysius, together with some others, most of the latter addressed to Spanish bishops. This is the chronological "Hispana". Somewhat later, towards the end of the seventh century, it was reorganize in logical order, by some unknown writer, and divided into ten books, which were again subdivided into titles and chapters. This is the methodical "Hispana". Finally, the copyists were wont to place at the beginning of the chronological "Hispana" a table of contents of the methodical collection, but with references to the text of the chronological: in this shape it was known as the "Excerpta Canonum". The chronological "Hispana" seems to have been originally the "Codex Canonum" mentioned at the Fourth Council of Toledo 633, with later additions. In the ninth century it was attributed, with insufficient evidence, to St. Isidore of Seville.
In spite of this erroneous attribution, the "Hispana" contains very few documents of doubtful authenticity. Later on, additions were made to it, the latest being taken from the seventeenth council of Toledo 694. In this enlarged form, i. e. the "Codex Canonum, the "Hispana" was approved by Pope Alexander III as authentic.