TheGelasian Decree (Latin:Decretum Gelasianum) is a Latin text traditionally thought to be adecretal of the prolificPope Gelasius I (492–496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapter is a list of books of Scripture defined as part of thebiblical canon by aCouncil of Rome, traditionally dated toPope Damasus I (366–383) and thus known as theDamasine List.[1] The fifth chapter of the work includes a list of rejected works not encouraged for church use.
InThe Carolingians and the Written Word, Mckitterick Rosamond wrote:
It appears to have had nothing to do with Gelasius, but instead may be a product of Frankish Gaul. Certainly its earliest manuscript witness, Brussels 9850-2, was produced c. 700 in the Corbie region, possibly in Soissons itself, and given to the abbey of St Medard at Soissons by Abbot Nomedius. The earliest survivng manuscript copy of the full text is Fulda, Bonifatianus 2, written either at Luxeuil itself or by a Luxeuil-trained scribe elsewhere. It should be remembered that both Abbot Nomedius and Corbie itslef were connected with the monastic zeal of Queen Balthild, and that Corbie’s first community included monks from Luxeuil.[2]
TheDecretum exists in a number ofrecensions of varying lengths. The longest has five chapters, another recension has the last four of these chapters, another the last three, and another the first three.[1]
The various recensions of theDecretum appear in multiple surviving manuscripts. It is "attributed in many manuscripts to Pope Damasus (366–384). In other and more numerous manuscripts the same decree occurs in an enlarged form assigned within the documents in some cases to Pope Gelasius (492–496), in others toPope Hormisdas (514-23), and in a few cases the documents are simply anonymous."[7]
The copies of the decree attributed to Damasus are contained in four manuscripts, two dated in the eighth century and two in the ninth. Each decree is headed 'Incipit concilium urbis Romae sub Damaso Papa de explanatione fidei' ["Here begins the Council of Rome under pope Damasus 'On Explaining the Faith'"]. Each consists of three short chapters, the second of which treated 'de scripturis divinis agendis est quid universalis catholica recipiat ecclesia et quid vitare debeat' ["Now indeed the Divine Scriptures must be discussed: what the universal Catholic Church receives and what it should avoid"]. There follows a catalogue of the Old and New Testament books.[7]
In the Damasine recension, there is no mention of pope Gelasius. Though the date of the Roman Council is not mentioned in theDecretum, the view that came to prevail was that it was the council held in 382: "In 1794 F. Arevalo, the editor of Sedulius, started the theory that the first three of these five chapters were really the decrees of a Roman Council held a century earlier than Gelasius, under Damasus, in 382 A.D.".[1]
Another recension contains only the last three chapters and is prefaced by the sentence: "Here begins the decretal 'On books to be received and not to be received' which was written by Pope Gelasius and seventy most erudite bishops at the apostolic seat in the city of Rome". Here the focus is on the books and theDecretum is considered to be adecretal of Pope Gelasius.[1] In the Gelasian recension there is no mention of Pope Damasus and the Council of Rome.
For years, the commonly accepted view was that theDecretum Gelasianum was adecretal of pope Gelasius, containing the text of a canon of Scripture originally produced by the Council of Rome under Damasus a century earlier, and that this canon was identical with theCatholic canon issued by theCouncil of Trent.
For instance, theOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, states:[8]
A council probably held at Rome in 382 underSt. Damasus gave a complete list of the canonical books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament (also known as the 'Gelasian Decree' because it was reproduced byGelasius in 495), which is identical with the list given atTrent.
Likewise, Catholic historianWilliam Jurgens writes:[9]
The first part of this decree has long been known as the Decree of Damasus, and concerns the Holy Spirit and the seven-fold gifts. The second part of the decree is more familiarly known as the opening part of the Gelasian Decree, in regard to the canon of Scripture:De libris recipiendis vel non recipiendis. It is now commonly held that the part of the Gelasian Decree dealing with the accepted canon of Scripture is an authentic work of the Council of Rome of 382 A.D. and that Gelasius edited it again at the end of the fifth century, adding to it the catalog of the rejected books, theapocrypha. It is now almost universally accepted that these parts one and two of the Decree of Damasus are authentic parts of the Acts of the Council of Rome of 382 A.D.
Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia links the Decree to the Council of Rome of 382 and its definition of the canon:[10]
St. Jerome, a rising light in the Church, though but a simple priest, was summoned by Pope Damasus from the East, where he was pursuing sacred lore, to assist at an eclectic, but not ecumenical, synod at Rome in the year 382. Neither the general council at Constantinople of the preceding year nor that of Nice (365) had considered the question of the Canon. This Roman synod must have devoted itself specially to the matter. The result of its deliberations, presided over, no doubt, by the energetic Damasus himself, has been preserved in the document called "Decretum Gelasii de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris", a compilation partly of the sixth century, but containing much material dating from the two preceding ones. The Damasan catalogue presents the complete and perfect Canon which has been that of the Church Universal ever since.
In 1912,Ernst von Dobschütz examined all the manuscripts of theDecretum.[11] Dobschütz showed that the first chapter of the five-chapter recension contains a quotation from a work of Augustine (in Joh. ix 7, Migne, xxxv 146l) written in 416 and therefore the Damasine recension of theDecretum could not be a decree of the Council of Rome held in 382.[1] He also argued that all of the shorter versions are derived from the five-chapter recension and concluded that theDecretum was "no genuine decree or letter either of Damasus or Gelasius, but a pseudonymous literary production of the first half of the sixth century (between 519 and 553)".[1][8]
In the course of examining the place of theMuratorian fragment in the development of the canon, Geoffrey Mark Hahnemann examined the Decretum Gelasianum and came to similar conclusions.[7] Hahnemann argues against theDecretum originating in Pope Damasus's time based on two arguments:
Hahnemann also points out that the later writers of the 9th century who refer to the document under the name of Gelasius or Hormisdas never credit it to Damasus. He also argues thatDionysius Exiguus beginning his collection of Latin canons and decretals with Damasus's successor,Siricius, implies that no pope before Siricius issued decretals.[7]
The complete text is preserved in the mid-eighth-centuryRagyndrudis Codex, fols. 57r-61v,[12] which is the earliest manuscript copy containing the complete text. The earliest manuscript copy was producedc. 700,Brussels 9850-2.[13]
Versions of the work appear in multiple surviving manuscripts, some of which are titled as a Decretal of Pope Gelasius, others as a work of a Roman Council under the earlier Pope Damasus. However, all versions show signs of being derived from the full five-part text, which contains a quotation fromAugustine, writing about 416 after Damasus, which is evidence for the document being later than that.[1]
Little is known of the compiler of the decree, other than perhaps he was ofSouthern Gallic (modernSouthern France) origin.[5]
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