Collectio Dionysiana I

Title	Collectio Dionysiana I
Key	DW
Alternative title	Erste Redaction der Conciliensammlung (Maassen)
Alternative title	Sammlungen des Dionysius Exiguus (Maassen)
Wikidata Item no.	Q25196725
Size	Small (100 to 500 canons)
Terminus post quem	496
Terminus ante quem	523
Century	saec. VI
Place of origin	Rome
European region of origin	Central Italy
General region of origin	Southern Europe and Mediterranean
Main author	Fowler-Magerl, Linda

Dionysius Exiguus and the genesis of the Dionysiana

Dionysius Exiguus, Scytha natione sed moribus omnino romano according to Cassiodorus, arrived at Rome toward the end of 496 or beginning of 497. The epithet exiguus expressed humility, perhaps also membership in a monastic community. According to Hubert Mordek, Cassiodorus will have meant by Scytha natione the Romanized population of Scythia Minor (modern Romania). At Rome Dionysius encountered translations of the canons of the Greek councils, which he refers to as the regulas ecclesiasticas, and which he considers inept. With the papacy of Gelasius I (492–496), who had died just before the arrival of Dionysius, a period of intense interest in the earliest sources of canon law had begun in Rome. It was to last until the death of Hormisdas (514–523) and is now known as the Gelasian Renaissance. This was the period in which the papal decretals were added to the Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum. The Collectio Quesnelliana may have been compiled at Rome in this period. The collection is an accumulation of disparate parts particularly valued for the transmission of decretals of pope Leo I. Dionysius undertook a translation of the Greek councils of his own, beginning with a letter which, in the copy in the Ms Vat. Pal. lat. 577 (8th/9th century, near Hersfeld), is directed to a bishop Petronius, perhaps a bishop in Scythia Minor. All other manuscripts of the preface (which was transmitted not only with Dionysiana I) read domino Stephano (Firey). The translation is now called the Dionysiana I (Maassen's "erste Redaction der Conciliensammlung") Dionysius placed at the beginning of his collection 50 of the 85 texts of the Canones Apostolorum. They are followed by a capitulatio containing rubrics for the remaining texts in the collection and by Dionysius’ translation of the canons of the councils of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, Constantinople and Sardica. The canons of each council are numbered separately in the Vat. Pal. lat. 577 and in the edition of Adolf Strewe, who used [30] that manuscript. After the canons of Sardica come the canons of the first session of the council of Carthage in 419, the letter of that council to pope Bonifacius, the letters of bishops Cyrillus of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople to the African council together with the symbol and canons of Nicaea in the version of Atticus, the letter of the Africans to pope Celestine and the canons of the council of Chalcedon. A fragment of a copy similar to that in the Palatine manuscript is found in Kassel, Landes- und Murhardsche Bibliothek, 4o theol. 1, fol. 2r–9v (9th century, near the river Main).

The analysis of the Dionysiana in the Clavis database (DW) is based on Strewe's edition based on Vat. Pal. lat. 577.

Manuscripts, versions, and influence

Manuscripts

Kéry pp. 9-10 lists the following manuscripts of the first version:

• Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Memb. I.75, saec. VIIin, probably from Chelles, by the fifteenth century at Murbach (fragment).
• Kassel, Universitätsbibliothek, 4° Ms. theol. 1, fol. 2r-94v, saec. IXin, Main river region, Prov. Fulda. Cf. Bischoff, ‘Panorama der Handschriftenüberlieferung’ 248 n. 117, cf. Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium pp. 190-191
• Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. lat. 577, saec. VIII-IX, Main river region (used by Turner in EOMIA 1, cf. p. 562), cf. CLA 1.29 no. 97 (with facsimile); German-Insular scriptorium (Hersfeld or Mainz) according to Mordek, Prov. Mainz, fol. 11-69”, cf. Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium p. 777

See Category:Manuscript of DW (currently 2 manuscripts).

The second and third versions

Dionysius soon afterwards felt the need to improve on his first translation. See the article on the resulting second version, the Collectio Dionysiana II. Some scholars assume that the decretal collection (Liber decretorum Dionysii) was part of this version; others assume it originated as a separate work (but not before the second version of the conciliar collection). It comes with its on dedicatory letter. Another preface suggests that Pope Hormisdas (514–523) requested a further revision of the Dionysiana; see the description of the Collectio Dionysiana III.

Later versions and influence

The revisions of the Dionysiana made in the 8th and 9th centuries have separate entries. See Category:Collection belonging to Dionysiana group for an overview.

The conciliar canons of the Dionysiana were used for several chronologically arranged early 6th century Italian collections. The version including decretals was used for the major pre-Carolingian systematic collections including the Concordia canonum of Cresconius and the Collectio Vetus Gallica. The papal decretals of the Dionysiana were all received into the chronological Collectio Hispana.

Primary Sources and Literature

Cassiodorus

Cassiodorus (490–583), the minister of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic, gives information about the life of Dionysius in his Institutiones 1, 23, 2 f., ed. by. R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford 1937, pp. 62–64. A translation into French was made by Florian Duta, Des précisions sur la biographie de Denys le Petit, RDC 49 (1999), pp. 281–282.

Editions and Translations

The Dionysiana I was edited by Adolf Strewe, Die Canonessammlung des Dionysius Exiguus in der ersten Redaktion (Leipzig 1931) mainly based on Vat. Pal. lat. 577. The prefaces are edited by Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, pp. 960–965. They are more recently edited by François Glorie, Dionisii Exigui praefationes latinae genuinae in variis suis translationibus ex Graeco, in: Scriptores „Illyrici“ Minores (CCL 85, Turnhout 1972), pp. 27–81, esp. 35–42, 43–47 and 49–51. The prefaces of the recension with both conciliar canons and papal decretals are translated into English by Somerville and Brasington, Prefaces, pp. 46–49.

Secondary Literature

In general, see Kéry pp. 11-12 for the older literature. Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, pp. 422–440 and Idem, Biblioteca Latina iuris canonici manuscripta 1. Die Canonessammlungen [32] vor Pseudoisidor, SB Vienna 53 (1866), pp. 373–427; 54 (1867), pp. 157–288; 56 (1867), pp. 157–212 provide a detailed analysis. For a modern analysis (with special regard to the different versions), see Firey https://ccl.rch.uky.edu/dionysiana-article. - For a stemma, see most recently Aäron Vanspauwen, [Review of:] Matthew J. J. Hoskin: The Manuscripts of Leo the Great’s Letters. The Transmission and Reception of Papal Documents in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, in: Plekos 24 (2023), pp. 587–599 https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/5836/