Collectio Dionysiana I

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 (Rumania). 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. The translation is now called the Dionysiana. Dionysius placed at the beginning of his collection 50 of the 85 texts of the Canones Apostolorum. They are followed by a capitulation 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 [S. 30] that manuscript. The present analysis of the Dionysiana (DW) is based on that edition. 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).

Dionysius soon afterwards felt the need to improve on his first translation. He apparently also had access to additional sources. In the copy of this second version of the Dionysiana in the Ms Oxford, Bodleian Library e Mus. 103 (9th century, northeastern France) and in separate copies of the prologue in the Mss Paris, BN lat. 1451 and 3846 and Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek 212 the introductory letter is directed to a bishop Stephan of Salona on the Dalmatian coast. In the Bodleian copy the letter is followed by a capitulation with rubrics for all of the canons in the collection. The Greek canons from the councils of Nicaea through Constantinople are numbered without interruption from 1 to 165. Dionysius says that the collection he was using as his source also numbered them so. The canons of Chalcedon are numbered separately and so are the canons of Sardica. Following Sardica is a group of canons from three brief African collections: the Brevarium Hipponense of 397, the Codex Apiarii Causae of 419 and the Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta. Dionysius entitled this group of canons Synodus apud Carthaginem Africanorum quae constituit canones CXXXVIII and numbered the individual canons accordingly from 1 to 138. The compilers of the Hispana would take these texts from the Dionysiana. The conciliar canons of the version of the Dionysiana in the Bodleian manuscript are reproduced in Migne PL 67.137–230. The numbering of the Greek councils in this version is found in the location column of the database with the key DY. The „African canons“ are listed separately with the same key. Copies similar to that in the Bodleian manuscript are found in the Mss Paris, BN lat. 1536 (10th century) and 3848 (13th century) and in the Ms St. Petersburg, Publičnaja Biblioteka im. M. E. Saltykova-Ščedrina, F.v.II.3 (7th century, Burgundy). [S. 31]

Decretal letters of popes Siricius, Innocent I, Zosimus, Bonifacius I, Celestinus I, Leo I, Gelasius I and Anastasius II were later added to the second version of the Dionysiana. The introductory letter to the decretals is adressed to a priest named Julian in the monastery of Saint Anastasius. The letters were not taken from the papal archives. The present analysis of these decretals (DX) is based on the edition in Migne PL 67.230–316. The decretals of each pope are divided into paragraphs and these are numbered separately for each pope, not separately for each letter.

Pope Hormisdas (514–523) requested a further revision of the Dionysiana in which the Greek and Latin texts would be presented in parallel columns. Only a preface to this version survives and perhaps Dionysius never completed more than that. In the preface Dionysius said he would leave out all those texts which were not universally accepted: the Canones apostolorum, the canons of Sardica and the „African canons“. The revisions of the Dionysiana made in the 8th and 9th centuries will be described below.

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 Vetus Gallica. The papal decretals of the Dionysiana were all received into the chronological Collectio Hispana.

Literature:

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. – The Dionysiana is edited by Adolf Strewe, Die Canonessammlung des Dionysius Exiguus in der ersten Redaktion (Leipzig 1931) using the Ms Vat. Pal. lat. 577. The copy in the Ms Oxford, Bodleian Library e Mus. 103 was used by Christophe Justel, Codex canonum ecclesiasticorum Dionysii Exigui (Paris 1628 and 1643). 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. – For a detailed description of the Dionysiana see Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, pp. 422–440. Idem, Biblioteca Latina iuris canonici manuscripta 1. Die Canonessammlungen [S. 32] vor Pseudoisidor, SB Vienna 53 (1866), pp. 373–427; 54 (1867), pp. 157–288; 56 (1867), pp. 157–212. Also H. Mordek, „Dionysius Exiguus“, Lex.MA 3 (1984/86), pp. 1088–1092. – The Brevarium Hipponense of 397, the Codex Apiarii Causae of 419 and the Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta after 419 were edited by Charles Munier, Concilia Africae A. 345 – A. 525 (CCL 149, Turnhout 1974), pp. 22–53, 98–148 and 173–247 respectively. For a description of these texts see F. L. Cross, History and Fiction in the African Canons, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 12 (1961), pp. 227–247. – For the source of the decretals used by Dionysius Exiguus see Wurm, Studien und Texte, pp. 108 ff. Also Jasper, The Beginning of the Decretal Tradition, pp. 28 n. 111, 35 f, 50 f, 53 and 60 n. 249. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 11–21; for the Quesnelliana pp. 27–29.