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Letters and Decretals
Epistola ad Episcopos per Byzacenam et Arzugytanam Provinciam Constitutos et Synodica
2 chapters · ~2 min read · by Aurelius of Carthage
About Letters and Decretals
This short work preserves two letters from Aurelius, bishop of Carthage. The first, dated to the Kalends of August in the consulship of Monaxius and Plinta, 419 AD, circulates to the bishops of Byzacena and Arzugytana the recent condemnation of Coelestius and Pelagius and their teaching, forwarding the rescripts of the Christian emperors so that every bishop might add his subscription. The second, a synodical letter, recalls a provincial council of a hundred and twenty-seven bishops gathered at Carthage under Aurelius's presidency, convened after the accessions of Arcadius and Honorius, which acted against the Donatists and other errors, its canons remaining authoritative into the reign of Theodosius the younger.
By Aurelius of Carthage. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 20.
In this work
Letter to All the Bishops Appointed Throughout the Province of Byzacena and Arzugytana
To his most beloved and longed-for brothers and fellow-priests, DONATIAN of the first see, JANUARIANUS, FELIX, PALATINUS, PRIMIANUS, CAJANUS, and another CAJANUS, JANUARIUS, VICTORINUS, and the rest appointed throughout the tract of the province of Byzacena and Arzugitana, AURELIUS the bishop.
Concerning the condemnation of Coelestius and Pelagius, and of their doctrine, your holy charity remembers that it was a participant in the plenary council, most beloved and longed-for Brothers. But since, for the honor of God, in whose hand the heart of the king is placed, the authority of the most glorious Christian princes who keep the right and catholic faith has come forward, which they wished, through my humility, to be made known to all my fellow-bishops: therefore I have hastened to instruct your honorable fraternity, by sending copies, lest anything evil should perhaps creep in, in any part of the province, from the sudden persuasion of the aforesaid men, who are excluded from the universal Church of the whole world.
On this account, therefore, this so necessary decree of the Christian princes ought not to escape your charity's notice, nor the letters given to me by them: which, when the copies have been read together, your charity will know how each one of you ought to subscribe, whether those whose subscription is already held in the synodal acts, or those who could not be present at the same plenary council of all Africa; so that, since in the condemnation of the aforesaid heretics the subscription of all of you shall have been complete, there may be absolutely nothing from which any suspicion of dissimulation, or negligence, or perhaps of some hidden depravity might seem justly to remain.
I wish you well, Brothers, and that you live mindful of me. Given on the Kalends of August, at Carthage, in the consulship of Monaxius and Plinta.
Synodical Letter of Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage
Theodosius and Nectarius having therefore been translated to the heavens, his son Arcadius succeeded to his empire, just as Honorius, Arcadius's brother, succeeded to that of Gratian. At which time a provincial Synod and sacred assembly was gathered at Carthage, presenting before it a gathering of a hundred and twenty-seven fathers, which instituted proceedings against the idolatrous Donatists, and against whatever other heresy, and against other errors of those regions: over which Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, presided. The sacred and divine canons which it published remained in force up to the times of Theodosius the younger.
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