Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 243
Canon 16 of the Council of Carthage (North Africa, AD 419) prohibits clerics to earn money by administration of goods or secular business.
Canon 16
 
Vt episcopi, prebyteri et diaconi non sint conductores aut procuratores neque ullo turpi negotio et inhonesto uictum quaerant, quia respicere debent scriptum esse: Nullus militans Deo implicat se negotiis saecularibus.
 
(ed. Munier 1974: 105)
Canon 16
 
Bishops, presbyters and deacons should not be contractors or administrators, nor should they seek to earn money in indecent ways, because they should consider what has been written: Nobody who fights for God should get involved with secular business.
 
(trans. S. Adamiak)
 
 
 

Discussion:

 The canon follows Canon 15 of the Breviarium Hipponense [211].

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 “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
    Economic status and activity
      Public functions and offices after ordination - Administering secular property
        Livelihood/income
          Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER243, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=243