Letter 13: Simplicius deprives a certain bishop of the power of ordination which he has abused, removes those illicitly...

Simplicius the Pope to Florentius, Equitius, and Severus, bishops. [Summary: He takes away from [Gaudentius] the power of ordaining, which he had abused, and removes those unlawfully ordained from the ecclesiastical ministries. [He charges him] with the administration of the church's revenues, while nevertheless leaving him a part of them, and ordering that what was taken from him be restored.] Simplicius the bishop to Florentius, Equitius, and Severus, bishops. 1. The report of your Charity has informed us, and the series of records has more fully made known, that Gaudentius, priest of the church of [Aufinum], in contravention of the statutes of the canons and our own precepts, has perpetrated unlawful ordinations; and from him we order that all power [of this kind] be utterly taken away. For we have written to Severus, our brother and fellow-bishop, that, if it should be necessary, he himself, having considered the rules of the fathers, may discharge this office in the aforesaid church, in which the other man has been convicted of having committed abuse: so that those who have been unlawfully advanced by the same man may be removed from the ecclesiastical ministries. 2. Likewise also, concerning the revenues of the church and the offerings of the faithful, let him permit nothing to be lawful to one who does not know what is fitting, but let only a fourth portion out of these be remitted to him. Two [portions], destined to benefit the ecclesiastical buildings and the relief of pilgrims and the poor, are to be administered by Bonagrus the presbyter under peril of his order; the last [portion] let the clergy divide among themselves according to the merits of individuals. But as for the ministries of the church, which we have learned have been alienated, [Editorial note: Certainly the same division of ecclesiastical goods is decreed in chapter 4 of the refuted Pseudo-Silvester (Coust., Epistolae Romanorum pontificum, appendix, vol. I, col. 48). This division Gelasius commends both in the cited passage and elsewhere, and very often Gregory the Great does so, but by name in his Epistles, book XI, indiction [...], epistle 64, replying to Augustine's first inquiry: 'It is, moreover, the custom of the apostolic see, when bishops are ordained, to hand down a precept that of every [income] which comes in, four portions ought to be made.' But Theodorus Lector, in the edition of Vales., page 567, wrongly understood this decree of Simplicius and of the other Roman prelates, where he is said to have written: 'The Roman church has this custom, that it does not possess immovable property, but if by chance possessions should accrue, it at once [...] and distributes the price into three parts, of which one is handed to the church, another to the bishop, the third to the clergy; and the same is done in the remaining things.' For Simplicius says not a word about selling immovable property, nor do his successors. On the contrary, the constitution of Hilarius his predecessor about not alienating the church's estates is plain, epistle 8, chapter 5. I pass over [the fact] that the revenues of these estates are ordered to be divided into four, not into three, parts. [Apparatus note: The codices H W H8 read 'ultima inter se clericis' (h* 'inter clericos', W H* 'clerici') 'dividatur'; they are corrected by the aid of other ancient codices. That an equal portion was imparted to presbyters and deacons is gathered from Gelasius, fragment 10, in which he decrees, against deacons refusing to be promoted, that the emoluments of a presbyter should be obtained more amply than those of a deacon, so that, constrained at least by this consideration, they may strive to seek both the honour, which they had shunned, and the gain (cf. the same author's epistle 14, chapter 27).] EPISTLES 1. 2. 177] let the presumer be compelled, by the insistence of the aforesaid brother, to repair them, and let him be forced to restore what he took away. Upon him also in this matter we especially enjoin that pressure be brought, that he restore those three portions which he is said to have claimed for himself alone throughout a three-year period. Given on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of December, after the consulship of Leo Augustus.

Simplicil papae ad Florentium, Eqnitiam et SeYerum episcopos. ••-. ^'^'dinth ordinandi postesiaiemf qua abusus est, SimpHcvis aufeit, et iUicite ordi- ^'^ «6 ecelesiasticiM minisieriis removet. Rediluum ecclesiae udministratione eum f^t pmiam tamen eorum partem ei relinquens et ablata ab eo restitui Jubens. Simplicius episcopus Floreiitio'), Equitio et Se- vero episcopis. 1- Relatio nos vestrae dilectionis instnixit et gestorum series a.475d. 19. Nov. a. 475. pleuius intimayit^ Gaudentium Aufiniensis^) ecdesiae sacerdotem i contra statuta canonum ac nostra praecepta ordinaidones illicitaB j perpetrasse, quarum illi totam penitus auferri praecipimus potestatem. j Scripsimus enim ad Severum fratrem et coepiscopum nostrum, nt, , si necesse fuerit, ipse in supradicta ecclesia consideratis patmm i regulis hoc fungatur officio, quo ille abusus esse. convictus est: ita ut hi, qui illicite ab eodem sunt provecti, ab ecclesiasticis ministe- ' riis sint reraoti^). 2. Simul etiam de reditibus ecclesiae vel oblatione fideliiim quid^) deceat nescienti, nihil licere permittat, sed sola ei ex hiiT quarta^) portio remittatur. Duae ecclesiasticis fabricis et erogatioiii peregrinorum et pauperum profuturae, a Bonagro^) presbyteio sub^ periculo sui ordinis ministrentur; ultimam®) inter se clerici pro sin- j gulorum meritis dividant. At vero ministeria ecclesiae, quae alie- ; -I Certe eadem eccleBiasticorum bonorum divisio Pseudo-Silvestri confltitato^cap. 4 decemitur (Coust. epist. Rom. pontif. append. tom. I col. 4S). Hanc Geladus qnum loeo laudato tum alibi commendat, et saepissime Gregorius Magnus sed nominatiai epist. lib.Xl ind.^ epist. 64 ad Augustini interrogationem I respondens: Mo9 mitem apottoticae sedis est, ordinatis episcopis praeceptum tradere, ut de omtd siipewA^ j guod aceedity guaiuor 'fieri debeant portiones. Hoc autem Simplioii aliortim?9 Komanorum praesulum decretum perperam intellexit Tbeodorus lector edit. Vales. pag. 567, ubi scripsisse dicitur: Romanae ecdesiae hunc esse moret^ mi immobiles non possideat^ sed si forte possessiones obvenerint^ confestim eae et pretium in tres partes distribuat, quarum una tradatur ecclesiae, altera episeapo, tertia clero; idem etiam fit in reliquis rebus, Neque enim ullum verbnm &cit Sim- plicius de rebus immobilibus vendendis , sed nec ejus successores. Cdntra veit) * luculentum est Hilari ejus decessoris de uon alienandis ecdesiae praediis coii- stitutum epist. 8 cap. 5. Mitto, horum praediorum reditus in quatuor non in tres partes dividendas praecipi. •) H« W H8 cc uUima inter se clericis (h* inter clericos, W H* clerid) dtMatMr; corriguntur ope aliorum veterum codicum. Acqualem portionem presbyteris ae diaconis impertitam fuisse, colligitur ex Gelasii frgm. 10, quo decemit adyerMH diaconos promovcri renuentes, ut commoda presbyteri propensius quam diacomi eom- sequantur, ut hac saltem ratione constricti et honorem, quem refugerant, appetert nitanlur et quaestum (cf. ejd. epist. 14 cap. 27). EPISTOLAE 1. 2. 177 nata comperimus, reparare praesumptor praedicti fratris eompellatur a.475. instantia et*) quod abstulit restituere cogatur. Cui etiam ^^) in hoc spe- cialiter praecipimus immineri, ut tres illas portiones, quas per trien- nium dicitur sibi tantummodo vindicasse^ restituat. Data decimo iertio Calendarum Decembrium post coiLsulatum Leonis Augusti.