Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
Search Presbyter Records
Search Evidence Records
Print:
ID
ER 2345
The Emperors Honorius and Arcadius issue a law which orders clerics who have been condemned by their bishops and who belong to the curial class to join the municipal councils. On 27 November 408 in Ravenna (Italy). The Sirmondian Constitution 9.
Constitutiones Sirmondianae 9
 
IMPP. ARCADIVS ET HONORIUS AVGG. THEODORO ITERVM PRAE(FECTO) PRAETORII.
 
Utinam quidem ii tantum clericorum nomen induerent, quorum in deteriorem partem relabi vita non possit. Esset laetitia communis et facile pios ritus cultusque divinos veneratio humana sequeretur. Sed facile vitia subrepunt, ut illuc etiam error irrepat, ubi esse nisi pura non possunt. Et si censura iudicii sacerdotalis in specula provideat, ut inter bonos non sint, qui boni esse non possunt; ne tamen crimina deprehensa luxurient et sit libera peccantibus pertinacia, placet, ut, quemcumque clericum indignum officio suo episcopus iudicarit et ab ecclesiae ministerio segregaverit, aut qui professum sacrae religionis obsequium sponte dereliquerit, continuo eum curia sibi vindicet, ut liber illi ultra ad ecclesiam recursus esse non possit et pro hominum qualitate vel quantitate patrimonii vel ordini suo vel collegio civitatis adiungat, modo ut quibuscumque apti erunt publicis necessitatibus obligentur, ita ut colludio quoque locus non sit: ut per singulos binae librae auri inferendae aerario nostro a decem primis curialibus exigantur, si alicui illicitam coniventiam et colludia foeda praestiterint, omnisque hominibus improbissimis ab omnibus officiis militiae aditus obstruatur. Nusquam enim fidi esse possunt, quos infideles deo summo ecclesia refutaverit, theodore parens carissime adque amantissime. Quod illustris magnificentia tua in omnium notitiam datis ad singularum iudices provinciarum litteris faciet pervenire, ut universis id proposita sollemniter edicta declarent.
 
DATA V KAL. DECEMB. RAVEANNAE BASSO ET FILIPPO VV. CC. CONSS.
 
(Mommsen 1905: 914)
Sirmondian Constitutions 6
 
EMPERORS ARCADIUS AND HONORIUS AUGUSTI TO THEODORUS, PRAETORIAN PREFECT FOR THE SECOND TIME
 
Would that only those persons might assume the name of clerics whose lives could not revert to an inferior state! There would be common rejoicing, and human veneration would easily pursue the pious rites and the divine worship. But vices easily creep in, so that false doctrine also steals into places where there cannot be anything that is not pure. Even if the censure of the priestly court should be on guard and should provide that among the good there shall not be those who cannot be good, nevertheless, in order that crimes which have been apprehended shall not flourish, and that there shall not be unrestrained pertinacity in sinners, it is Our pleasure that if a bishop should judge any cleric unworthy of his office and should separate him from the ministry of the Church, or if any cleric should voluntarily abandon his professed service of the sacred religion, he shall be immediately vindicated to a municipal council, so that he may no longer have free opportunity to return to the Church. According to the legal status of the man and the amount of his patrimony, he shall be joined either to his own municipal senate or to a guild of the municipality, with the provision that he shall be obligated to the performance of the compulsory public services for which he is suitable, and thus there shall be no opportunity for collusion. For each such person, two pounds of gold shall be exacted from each of the ten chief decurions and paid to Our treasury, if these decurions should be guilty of unlawful connivance and foul collusion with any person; and to the aforesaid most wicked men every avenue to all offices of the imperial service shall be barred. For those persons cannot be faithful anywhere if they are rejected by the Church as unfaithful to the Most High God, o Theodorus, dearest and most beloved Father. Your Illustrious Magnificence shall cause this regulation to come to the knowledge of all by means of letters issued to the judge of each province, so that edicts duly posted shall publish this regulation to the whole world.
 
GIVEN ON THE FIFTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF DECEMBER AT RAVENNA IN THE YEAR OF THE CONSULSHIP OF THE MOST NOBLE BASSUS AND PHILIPPUS [= 27 November 408]
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 481)

Place of event:

Region
  • Italy north of Rome with Corsica and Sardinia
City
  • Ravenna

About the source:

Title: Sirmondian Constitutions, Constitutiones Sirmondianae
Origin: Ravenna (Italy north of Rome with Corsica and Sardinia)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The Sirmondian Constitutions are the collection of the eighteen imperial laws from 333 to 425 concerning matters of religion and the church (the bishops` courts, heresies, Easter pardons, privileges of the laity). It was compiled sometime between 438, the publication of the Theodosian Code, and the second half of the 6th century. It is complete only in one manuscript copied in Lyon in the 9th century. It was found by Jacques Sirmond in the library of the cathedral in Lyon and published by him (hence the name of the collection) in 1631 as a sort of appendix to the Theodosian Code. The collection, however, was not officially linked with the Code, it was compiled for a private or ecclesiastical use and did not have the same legal force as the Code.
 
The manuscript discovered by Sirmond was divided later in its history. One part is in Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Phill. 1745, the other in the Rossijskaja Nacional'naja Biblioteka in St. Petersburg, F.v.II.3.
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Bibliography:
Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, vol. 2, ed. O. Nicholson, Oxford 2018, s.v. Sirmondian Constitutions, 1392
M. Vessey, "The Origins of theCollectio Sirmondiana: A NewLook at the Evidence," in J. D. Harries and I. Wood, eds., The Theodosian Code, 1993, 187-99
 
Record by: Marta Szada
last edited: 2020-08-04 20:17:31
Contact
Privacy policy
FAQ
About the project
Team