Collectiones canonum Dionysianae

Collectiones canonum Dionysianae
Folio 2r from Kassel, Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek, MS 4° theol. 1, showing the beginning of the Collectio conciliorum Dionysiana I
Audience	Catholic clergy
Language	early medieval Latin
Date	ca. 500
Genre	canon law collection
Subject	Catholic doctrine; ecclesiastical and lay discipline

The several collections of canons prepared by the Scythian monk Dionysius 'the humble' (exiguus) are of the utmost importance to the development of the canon law tradition in the West. Shortly after the year 500, during the pontificate of Pope Symmachus (498–514), Dionysius collected and translated into Latin the canons of the major eastern councils, including the so-called Canones apostolorum, the decrees of the councils of Nicaea (325), Ancyra (314), Neocaesarea (314×320), Gangra (343/55), Antioch (ca. 328), Laodicaea (343×380), Constantinople (381), Sardica (343), Chalcedon (451), and the so-called Codex Apiarii causae, the last being a collection of dossiers that includes the canons, letters and acts pertaining to the council held in Carthage on 25 May, 419. Dionysius did this at the request of Stephen, bishop of Salona, and a certain 'dearest brother Laurence' (carissimus frater Laurentius) who (as we learn from Dionysius's preface to his collection) had been 'offended by the awkwardness of the older [priscae] translation'. It is not certain, but it may have been within the context of the Symmachan-Laurentian dispute that these requests were made of Dionysius. Eckhard Wirbelauer, reviving several older arguments, has recently argued that Dionysius's collection was meant to stand in direct opposition to the views of Pope Symmachus, and thus it was likely to have won neither the favour nor acceptance of that pope, nor possibly (at least at first) his immediate successor and strong supporter, Pope Hormisdas.

Shortly after preparing his collection of conciliar canons (Collectio conciliorum Dionysiana I) Dionysius prepared a second recension of the same (Collectio conciliorum Dionysiana II), to which he made important changes. He updated his translations, altered rubrics, and, perhaps most importantly, introduced a system of numbering the canons in sequence (whereas the Dionysiana I had numbered the canons of each council separately). In the Dionysiana II the Canones apostolorum were still numbered separately from 1 to 50, but now the canons of Nicaea to Constantinople were numbered in sequence from I to CLXV, 'just' (Dionysius says) 'as is found in the Greek authority [auctoritate]', that is in Dionysius’s Greek exemplar. Dionysius also altered the position of Chalcedon, moving it from after the Codex Apiarii to before Sardica, and removed the versio Attici of the canons of Nicaea from Codex Apiarii (found there in the Dionysiana I appended to the rescript of Atticus of Constantinople). Finally, he added an important collection of African canons to his second recension. Known today as the Registri ecclesiae Carthaginensis excerpta, this 'large body of conciliar legislation from the earlier Aurelian councils' was inserted by Dionysius into the middle of the Codex Apiarii ― that is between the canons and the letters of the 419 Council of Carthage ― with the fabricated prefatory statement: 'and in that very synod [i.e. Carthage 419] were recited the various councils of the African province that had been celebrated in bygone days of Bishop Aurelius' (Recitata sunt etiam in ista Synodo diuersa Concilia vniuersæ prouinciæ Africæ, transactis temporibus Aurelii Carthaginensis Episcopi celebrata). Thus, the 137 'African' canons that make up Registri ecclesiae Carthaginensis excerpta in the Dionysiana II are actually a concoction of Dionysius's, a conflation of two earlier canonical collections of the African church.