Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 239
Canon 15 of the Council of Carthage (North Africa, AD 419) deals with clerics who prefer civil courts to ecclesiastical ones.
Canon 15  
 
Quisquis episcoporum, presbyterorum et diaconorum seu clericorum, cum in ecclesia ei fuerit crimen institutum uel ciuilis causa fuerit commota, si relicto ecclesiastico iudicio publicis iudiciis purgari uoluerit, etiamsi pro ipso fuerit prolata sententia, locum suum amittat et hoc in criminali; in ciuili perdat quod euicit, si locum suum obtinere maluerit. [...]
 
(ed. Munier 1974: 105)
Canon 15
 
If there is a criminal or civil case introduced in the Church against a bishop, a presbyter, a deacon or a cleric, and he preferred to transfer it to civil judges, even if he obtained a sentence favourable to him he should not be restored to his office [he should lose his office], if this is a criminal case. If this is a civil case, and he wants to retain his office, he will forfeit what he has won. [...]
 
(trans. S. Adamiak)
 
 
 

Discussion:

The canon is the repetition of Canon 9 of the Breviarium Hipponense [191].
 

Place of event:

Region
  • Latin North Africa
City
  • Carthage

About the source:

Title: Canones in causa Apiarii
Origin: Carthage (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
Apiarius, a presbyter of Sicca Veneria in North Africa, was excommunicated for some unspecified crimes by his bishop, Urbanus. In 418 he appealed directly to Pope Zosimus, who sent legates to Africa to assess the charges. The council of African bishops gathered in Carthage in May 419 to address the question. On the 25 May they approved several disciplinary canons, mainly repeated from previous councils, which are known collectively in scholarship as `Canones in causa Apiarii`. They were also sometimes transmitted as the part of the `Codex Apiarii causae`, together with other acts of the council of 419.
We follow the edition of Munier, who followed Turner, who established the text according to three codices: Vindobonensis 2141, fol. 106, Monacensis (olim Frisingensis), fol. 64`, and Wirceburgensis Univ. mp. th. f. 146, fol. 66. We ignore the later textual traditions, namely Italian collections (which were the basis of the edition of brothers Ballerini in PL 56), and the redaction of Dionysius Exiguus; both of them have been included in the Corpus Christianorum edition, and they contain only minor changes, which we ignore, with the exception of two canons not transmitted in the first recension.
Edition:
C. Munier ed., Concilia Africae a. 345-a. 525, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 149, Turnhoult 1974, 79-165.  
 
Bibliography:
J. Gaudemet, Les Sources du droit de l'Église en Occident du IIe au VIIe siècle, Paris, 1985.
C.H. Turner, Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima, vol. 1-2, Oxford 1889-1939.

Categories:

Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος
    Public law - Ecclesiastical
      Public law - Secular
        Further ecclesiastical career - Lay status
          Administration of justice - Demotion
            Administration of justice - Suspension
              Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER239, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=239