The Presbyters Project

Canon 10

De discretione penitentium qui possunt ad eglesiasticos ordines prouei uel qui non possunt.

Hi qui in discrimine constituti penitentiam accipiunt nulla manifesta scelera confitentes sed tantum peccatores se predicantes, huiusmodi si reualuerint, possunt etiam per morum probitate ad gradus eglesiasticos peruenire. Qui uero ita penitentiam accipiunt ut aliquod mortale peccatum perpetrasse publice fateantur, ad clerum uel honores eglesiasticos peruenire nullatenus possunt, quia se confessione propria notauerunt.

(eds. Martinez Diez, Rodriguez 1984: 289)

Canon 10

On the distinction between those penitents who can and those who cannot be promoted to the clerical grades

Those who in danger did penance without confessing any manifest crimes, but only calling themselves sinners, and later recovered, can be promoted to the ecclesiastical offices if they are virtuous. Those, however, who did such penance consisting in publicly confessing mortal sin, by no means can be promoted to the clergy and ecclesiastical offices, because they had branded themselves with their own confession.

(trans. M. Szada)

Discussion:

Canon 10 (in the edition of Vives 9b) should be read in the context of the discussion as to whether it is possible to have a clerical career after penance. The fathers of the Council of Gerona decided that the performance of penance itself (in this case the deathbed penance) is not an impediment to ordination in contrast to the public confession of mortal sin (Hillner 2015: 301, n. 83). It was an efficient way to exclude from the clergy perpetrators of the most serious offences. But unmistakably the humiliation of public penance is more important as an impediment than the sins themselves (Uhlede 2008: 109). See also Canon 9 of the Council of Gerona [156].

Place of event:

Region

Iberian Peninsula

City

Gerona

About the source:

Title: Council of Gerona, Concilium Gerundense
Origin: Gerona (Iberian Peninsula)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

The Council of Gerona was a meeting of the provincial Church in June 517 presided over by John, archbishop of Tarragona. It followed the Council of Tarragona in 516. It was an attempt to establish regular provincial councils (Freedman 2013). Both councils are dated by the regnal years of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who acted as a guardian of Amalaric, king of the Visigoths, half-brother of the expelled King Gesalic (Collins 2004: 41).

The present canon is transmitted in only one manuscript of the canonical collection Hispana (E). In the edition of Vives it has number 9bis.

Edition:

G. Martínez Díez, F. Rodríguez, eds., La colección canónica Hispana, v. 4 Concilios Galos. Concilios Hispanos: primera parte, Madrid 1984.

J. Vives, Concilios visigóticos e hispano-romanos, Barcelona-Madrid 1963.

Bibliography:

R. Collins, Visigothic Spain, 409-711, Oxford, OX, UK; Malden, MA, USA 2004.

P. Freedman, "Gerona, Council of," [in:] Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, ed. E.M. Gerli, Hoboken 2013, 360.

J. Hillner, Prison, punishment and penance in late antiquity, New York 2015.

F.S. Paxton, Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe, Ithaca; London 1996, 52-53.

É. Rebillard, "La naissance du viatique: se préparer à mourir en Italie et en Gaule au Ve siècle," Médiévales (1991), 99-108.

K. Uhalde, "Juridical Administration in the Church and Pastoral Care in Late Antiquity", [in :] A New History of Penance, ed. A. Firey, Leiden 2008, 97-120.

Categories:

Impediments or requisits for the office - Improper/Immoral behaviour

Public law - Ecclesiastical

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER175, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=175