The Presbyters Project

I. QUAE GESTA SUNT INTER LIBERIUM ET FELICEM EPISCOPOS.

The events were preceded by the schism between Liberius and Felix, see [1295] and [1296]. After the death of Liberius in AD 366 there is the schism between Ursinus and Damasus, see [1297].

(12) Sed populus timens deum multisque persecutionibus fatigatus non imperatorem, non iudices nec ipsum auctorem scelerum et homicidam Damasum timuit sed per coemeteria martyrum stationes sine clericis celebrabat. Unde cum ad sanctam Agnem multi fidelium conuenissent, armatus cum satellitibus suis Damasus irruit et plurimos uastationis suae strage deiecit.

(13) Quod factum crudelissimum nimis episcopis Italiae displicebat. Quos etiam cum ad natale suum sollemniter inuitasset et nonnulli conuenissent ex eis, precibus apud eos molitur et pretio, ut sententiam in sanctum Ursinum proferant. Qui responderunt nos ad natale conuenimus, non ut inauditum damnemus.

(14) Ita praua eius intentio caruit quo nitebatur effectu.

(ed. Guenther 1895: 4)

I. THAT WHICH OCCURRED BETWEEN BISHOPS LIBERIUS AND FELIX

The events were preceded by the schism between Liberius and Felix, see [1295] and [1296]. After the death of Liberius in AD 366 there is the schism between Ursinus and Damasus, see [1297].

12. But those who feared God, though they were harassed by many persecutions, did not fear the emperor, or judges, nor even that wicked and homicidal leader himself, Damasus. No, they stood firm, conducting services throughout the cemeteries of the martyrs without clergy. It was at such a gathering, when many of the faithful had come together at the tomb of St. Agnes, that Damasus rushed in with his followers and killed many in a devastating massacre.

13. That immeasurably cruel action displeased all the bishops of Italy. After some of them gathered when invited to the solemn celebration of his accession, he used both entreaties and bribes, to try to gain their condemnation against the holy Ursinus. They responded, "We are convening for your accession celebration, we are not here to condemn a man in absentia."

14. And so he failed to accomplish the depraved intention for which he had hoped.

(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
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 piece 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:

Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior

Conflict - Violence

Devotion - Veneration of saints and relics

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1298, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1298