The Presbyters Project

I. QUAE GESTA SUNT INTER LIBERIUM ET FELICEM EPISCOPOS.

Paragraph (1) shortly relates the story of expulsion of Liberius of Rome, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Cagliari by Emperor Constantius.

(2) Cum Liberio Damasus diaconus eius se simulat proficisci. Unde fugiens de itinere Romam redit ambitione corruptus. Sed eo die, quo Liberius ad exilium proficiscebatur, clerus omnis id est presbyteri et archidiaconus Felix et ipse Damasus diaconus et cuncta ecclesiae officia omnes pariter praesente populo Romano sub iureiurando firmarunt se uiuente Liberio pontificem alterum nullatenus habituros. Sed clerus contra fas, quod minime decebat, cum summo periurii scelere Felicem archidiaconum ordinatum in loco Liberii episcopum susceperunt. Quod factum uniuerso populo displicuit et se ab eius processione suspendit.

(ed. Guenther 1895: 1)

I. THAT WHICH OCCURRED BETWEEN BISHOPS LIBERIUS AND FELIX

Paragraph (1) shortly relates the story of expulsion of Liberius of Rome, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Cagliari by Emperor Constantius.

2. Damasus, a deacon under Liberius, pretended that he was going to go along with his bishop. But fleeing from that course, he returned to Rome, corrupted by ambition. But on the day when Liberius went off into exile, the entire clergy, that is, the presbyters, and the archdeacon Felix, and Damasus, himself a deacon, and all the church officials, in the presence of the people of Rome, swore assuredly that they would have no other bishop as long as Liberius was alive. But, contrary to sacred duty, the clergy did something that was in no way proper. They perjured themselves most wickedly and supported Felix, who had been ordained as an archdeacon, as bishop in the place of Liberius. What was done displeased the entire population of the city and they boycotted his inaugural procession.

(trans. A.J. West http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/avellana-1-english accessed 17.01.2017)

Place of event:

Region

Rome

About the source:

Title: Collectio Avellana, Quae gesta sunt inter Liberium et Felicem episcopos, Gesta Liberii
Origin: Rome
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

Collectio Avellana is a collection containing 244 letters issued by emperors, imperial magistrates and popes. The earliest item is dated to AD 367, the latest to AD 553. Hence, the compilator worked most probably in the second half of the 6th century. Two hundred documents of the Collectio are not known from any other collection. The editor of the Collectio, Günther noticed that it can be divided into five thematic parts (Gunther 1896: 3-96; Steinacker 1902: 14-15; Blaudeau 2013: 4):

1) no. 1-40 is an independent collection making use of the records of the prefecture of the city of Rome concerning two episcopal elections;

2) no. 41-50 that are derived from the records of the bishopric in Carthage, and consist of the letters of Innocentius I and Zosimus;

3) no. 51-55, the late letters of Leo I not known from any other source, regarding the exile of Bishop Timothy II of Alexandria;

4) no. 56-104 the group of letters from the pontificates of Simplicius, Gelasius, Symmachus, John, Agapet, and Vigilius;

5) no. 105-243 the letters from the records of Hormisdas.

The modern name of the collection derives from the codex Vaticanus Latinus 4961 copied in the monastery Sancti Crucis in fonte Avellana that was considered the oldest by the brothers Ballerini who edited the Collectio in 1787.

The first item of the collection is not a letter but a narrative account of the schisms between Liberius and Felix, and between Ursinus and Damasus (it has a title "Quae gesta sunt inter Liberium et Felicem episcopos", in the literature it is sometimes referred to as Praefatio or Gesta Liberii). The text mentions two churches (basilica in lucinis and basilica Liberii) that almost certainly did not yet exist in the 4th c. and were built in the late 5th or even in the 6th c. Thus the text was composed after the construction of those basilicas (Blair-Dixon 2007: 71-73).

Edition:

O. Guenther ed., Epistolae Imperatorum Pontificum Aliorum Inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque DLIII datae Avellana Quae Dicitur Collectio, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 35/1, 35/2, Prague, Vienna, and Leipzig 1895

Translation:

A.J. West trans., The Collectio Avellana, document 1, The Fourth Century Christianity

Bibliography:

K. Blair-Dixon, "Memory and authority in sixth-century Rome: the Liber Pontificalis and the Collectio Avellana”, [in :] Religion, dynasty, and patronage in early Christian Rome, 300-900, ed. K. Cooper, J. Hillner, Cambridge 2007, 59–76.

P. Blaudeau, "Un point de contact entre collectio Avellana et collectio Thessalonicensis?”, Millennium Yearbook / Millenium Jahrbuch 10 (2013), 1–12.

O. Günther, Avellana-Studien, Wien 1896.

H. Steinacker, "Ueber das älteste päpstliche Registerwesen”, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 23 (1902), 1–49.

Categories:

Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος

Described by a title - Clericus

Ecclesiastical administration - Election of Church authorities

Conflict

Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior

Relation with - Deacon

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1295, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1295