Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 1784
Perigenes, new bishop of Corinth, is praised by Pope Boniface I for having served many years as presbyter. Letter 5 of Pope Boniface I, "Credebamus post", Rome, AD 419.
Letter 5
 
4. [...] Melius enim nosse dignaris, eos in hanc precem sola, ut arbitror, erga religionem devotione fervere: maxime cum irreprehensibiliter eum asserant per annos innumeros in presbyterii honore durasse, et non indebito saltu, sed ad summum gradatim venisse fastigium [...]
 
(ed. Coustant 1845: 763)
Letter 5
 
 4. [...] I think that you should recognise that they [other bishops] are directed in their pleas only by fervent religious devotion; especially because they assert that he [Perigenes] served as presbyter many years in an irreprehensible way, and came to the highest summit by grades, not by an undue leap. [...]
 
(trans. S. Adamiak)

Discussion:

This letter of Boniface I to Bishop Rufus, his vicar in Illyricum, was preserved only in the Collectio Thessalonicensis with the date of 18 September 419, but with the salutation from Pope Leo I (440-461) to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica. Therefore Coustant attributed the whole letter to Boniface, whereas Silva-Tarouca broke it in two parts, attributing the first one to Leo, and the second to Boniface (this is Letter 27 in his edition of Collectio Thessalonicensis). The passage that is of interest to us is anyway in this second part. It regards Perigenes, a presbyter of Corinth, who after many years of service in his city was ordained as the bishop of Patras, but not accepted by the people there, and in 419 elected the bishop of Corinth. His case is also presented in Letters 4 and 15 of Boniface I, and his transfer from Patras to Corinth is confirmed by Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 7, 36.

Place of event:

Region
  • Danubian provinces and Illyricum
  • Danubian provinces and Illyricum
City
  • Corinth
  • Patras

About the source:

Author: Boniface I
Title: Letters, Epistulae
Origin: Rome (Rome)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
Edition:
P. Coustant ed., S. Bonifatii I Papae Epistolae et Decreta, Patrologia Latina 20, Paris 1845, 750-784.
C.Silva-Tarouca ed., Collectio Thessalonicensis : epistularum Romanorum Pontificum ad vicarios per Illyricum aliosque episcopo, Textus et Documenta. Series Theologica 23, Roma 1937.
Bibliography:
G.D. Dunn, "Boniface I and the Illyrian Churches on the Translation of Perigenes to Corinth: The Evidence and Problems of «Beatus apostolus»(JK 350)”, Sacris Erudiri 53 (2014), 131–146.

Categories:

Further ecclesiastical career - Bishop
    Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος
    Impediments or requisits for the office - Ecclesiastical career
    Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1784, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1784