Local / regional synod · Carthage · A.D. 419
The Code of Canons of the African Church, gathering the canons of the earlier African synods.
Translated by Henry Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14 (1900). Source: New Advent. Public domain.
Commonly Called The Code of Canons of the African Church.
Introductory Note
Councils were nowhere more frequently called in the Primitive Times than in Africa. In the year 418-19, all canons formerly made in sixteen councils held at Carthage, one at Milevis, one at Hippo, that were approved of, were read, and received a new sanction from a great number of bishops, then met in synod at Carthage. This Collection is the Code of the African Church, which was always in greatest repute in all Churches next after the Code of the Universal Church. This code was of very great authority in the old English Churches, for many of the Excerptions of Egbert were transcribed from it. And though the Code of the Universal Church ends with the canons of Chalcedon, yet these African Canons are inserted into the Ancient Code both of the Eastern and Western Churches. These canons though ratified and approved by a synod, yet seem to have been divided or numbered by some private and unlearned hand, and have probably met with very unskilful transcribers, by which means some of them are much confounded and obscured, as to their sense and coherence. They are by Dionysius Exiguus and others entitled The Canons of the Synod of Africa. And though all were not originally made at one time, yet they were all confirmed by one synod of African bishops, who, after they had recited the Creed and the twenty canons of the Council of Nicaea, proceeded to make new canons, and re-enforce old ones.
Carthage was formerly the head of the whole of Africa, as St. Augustine tells us in his Epistle CLXII. From this cause it happened that a great number of councils were held there, gathered from all the provinces of Africa. Especially while Aurelius as Archbishop was occupying the throne were these meetings of bishops frequently holden; and by these, for the establishing of ecclesiastical discipline in Africa, many canons were enacted. At last, after the consulate of Honorius (XII.) and Theodosius (VIII.), Augustuses, on the eighth day before the Calends of June, that is to say, on May 25, in the year of our Lord 419, another Council was held in the same city at which all the canons previously adopted were considered, and the greater part of them were again confirmed by the authority of the synod. These canons, thus confirmed by this council, merited to be called from that day to this The Code of Canons of the African Church. These canons were not at first adopted in Greek but in Latin, and they were confirmed in the same language. This Dionysius Exiguus distinctly testifies to in his preface to the Code of Ecclesiastical Canons, in which they are included. It is uncertain when the canons of this Carthaginian synod were done into Greek. This only is certain, that they had been translated into Greek before the Council in Trullo by which, in its Second Canon, they were received into the Greek Nomocanon, and were confirmed by the authority of this synod; so that from that time these canons stand in the Eastern Church on an equality with all the rest.
An extremely interesting point arises as to what was the authority of the collection as a collection, and how this collection was made? There seems no doubt that the collection substantially as we know it was the code accepted by the Council of Trullo, the canons of which received a quasi-ecumenical authority from the subsequent general imprimatur given them by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second of Nice.
Here is a list of the various councils which made the enactments, with their dates.
- Carthage (under Gratus)— 345-348 a.d.
- (under Genethlius)— 387 or 390
- Hippo — 393
- Carthage— 394
The numbering of the African councils differs very widely between the different writers, and Cave reckons nine between 401 and 608, and thirty-five Carthaginian between 215 and 533. Very useful tables, showing the conclusions of Fuchs, are found at the end of Bruns, Canones Apostolorum et Conciliorum Veterum Selecti.
An Ancient Introduction
(Found in Dionysius Exiguus, Codex Can. Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. lxvii., col. 182.)
After the consulate of the most glorious emperors, Honorus for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth time, Augustuses, on the VIII. before the Calends of June at Carthage, in the Secretarium of the basilica of Faustus, when Pope Aurelius had sat down, together with Valentine of the primatial see of the province of Numidia, and Faustinus of the Potentine Church, of the Italian province Picenum, a legate of the Roman Church, and also with legates of the different African provinces, that is to say, of the two Numidias, of Byzacena, of Mauritania Cæsariensis, as well as of Tripoli, and with Vincent Colositanus, Fortunatian, and other bishops of the proconsular province, in all two hundred and seventeen, also with Philip and Asellus, presbyters and legates of the Roman Church, and while the deacons were standing by, Aurelius the bishop said, etc., ut infra.