The Presbyters Project

GELASIUS ERELEUVAE

Felicem et Petrum Nolanae ecclesiae clericos surripere potuisse sensibus vestrae sublimitatis admiror, ut contra divinas humanasque leges ecclesiastica privilegia respuentes suppresso nomine clericali ad iudicia publica convolarent, quando imperialibus constitutis inter huiusmodi personas quicquid sedes apostolica censuisset, decretum fuerit oportere servari, non solum domno filio meo, magnifico regi illudentes, veluti laici contra proprium praecepta regia deposcerent sacerdotem, sed etiam adhibitis barbaris sub nomine domus vestrae in eiusdem praesulis sui perniciem necemque saevierint, cum iustis ex causis ante convicti, quod ecclesiasticam pecuniam reddere cogerentur, magna sit eis sui humanitate pontificis quantitas relaxata. quia ergo pervidet vestra sublimitas etiam in apostolicae sedis contumeliam eos fuisse progressos, officio meae salutationis accepto precamur, ut privilegia beati apostoli Petri, quae divinis humanisque legibus concessit antiquitas, nulla patiamini subreptione convelli.

(ed. Mommsen 1894: 390-91)

GELASIUS TO ERELEUVA

I am astonished that Felix and Peter, clerics of the church of Nola, managed to furtively get access to Your Sumblimity in order to appeal, hiding the clerical title, to the public courts disregarding - against the divine and human laws - ecclesiastical privileges, since it has been decreed in the imperial statutes that whatever the Apostolic See decided regarding persons of such [i.e. clerical] status, it should be observed. They not only wanted to request, disrespecting the my son, lord, the magnificent king, royal decisions against their own priest, as if they were lay men, but also, having brought in the barbarians in the service of your house, raged [so as to plot] murder and ruin of their own bishop. [They did all that] even though the bishop cancelled the great amount [of the money they owed him], after they had been convicted for just reasons and forced to return some ecclesiastical money. Because Your Sublimity will understand that they went so far that they made insult to the Apostolic See, I ask you, having accepted the duty to pay my respects, not to tolerate any surreptitious suppression of the privileges of the blessed Apostle Peter which had been granted in the ancient times by the means of the divine and human laws.

(trans. M. Szada)

Discussion:

Felix and Peter were in conflict with their bishop, Serenus of Nola (Gelasius mentions his name in another letter concerning the case see [2203]): it probably regarded some ecclesiastical money which the bishop demanded Felix and Peter to return. As they felt harmed by his decision (even though, as Gelasius states, the greater part of the debt had been forgiven), they decided to appeal to King Theoderic and sought access to him through his mother, who in contrast to her son was a Nicene (see Anonymus Valesianus 58; König 1997: 78). They also recruited some support among "barbarians" (which here seems to mean soldiers). Gelasius learned about it and was scandlized that the clerics were seeking justice against their superior in the secular court and he defends ecclesiastical privileges, confirmed in the imperial laws which he treats as binding also to Theoderic, which exempts the church from the secular jurisdiction. See Amory 1997: 82-83.

Place of event:

Region

Rome
Italy north of Rome with Corsica and Sardinia
Italy south of Rome and Sicily

City

Rome
Ravenna
Nola

About the source:

Author: Gelasius
Title: Epistulae, Epistulae Theodoricianae Variae
Origin: Rome (Rome)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

Gelasius I was the bishop of Rome between AD 492 and 496. Several of his letters, among them those directed to Ereleuva, mother of King Theoderic, were preserved only in the early twelfth-century canonical collection commonly known as the Collectio Britannica because its only witness is preserved in the British Library in London (Add MS 8873; the excerpts of the letters of Gelasius are on ff. 27v-38v). The papal letters included in the collection were edited by Paul Ewald, and those which concerned Italy of Theoderic were later printed in the appendix to Theodore Mommsen`s edition of Cassiodorus`s Variae under the title Epistulae Theodoricianae variae (letters to Ereleuva have there numbers 4 and 5).

Edition:

P. Ewald, "Die Papstbriefe der Brittischen Sammlung", Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für Ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde 5 (1880), 503-596

Th. Mommsen (ed.), "Epistulae Theodoricianae variae" in Cassiodori Senatoris Variae, ed. Th. Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Auctres antiquissimi 12, Berlin 1894, 389-92

Bibliography:

P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, Cambridge 1997.

I. König, Aus der Zeit Theoderichs des Grossen: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar einer anonymen Quelle, Darmstadt 1997.

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1831-1835 (London: British Museum, 1835), [Add MS 8873].

Digitised manuscript can be found at the site of the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_8873

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus

Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior

Relation with - Monarch and royal/imperial family

Administration of justice - Secular

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2202, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2202