DIONYSIANA COLLECTIO

The Dionysiana is a canonical collection, written in the first half of the sixth century. Of the eight extant manuscripts, the earliest dates from the seventh century. It is believed that three versions existed. The first, dedicated to Petronius episcopus, is found in the single manuscript of the Vatican (Pal. lat. 577) and includes the Canons of the Apostles and the Councils of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, Constantinople, Sardica, Carthage, and Chalcedon. The second, which is most widely disseminated, is dedicated to Stephanus episcopus and includes the same Councils, but Chalcedon is placed between Constantinople and Sardica instead of being relegated to the end. Two MSS contain an additional series of decretals from Pope Siricius (384–399) to Pope Anastasius II (496–498) that are dedicated to Julian, Cardinal-priest of St. Anastasius. All that remains of the third version, in the MSS Novara XXX (66), is the dedicatory epistle to Hormisdas that announces a juxtalinear translation of the Greek Councils.

It is not impossible that Petronius and Stephanus were one and the same person. The texts of the two letters addressed to them differ only in that the one to Stephanus enumerates the texts included in the collection. Both texts announce, in the same terms, the same reasons that induced Dionysius to compile his collection. He was asked to translate the Greek ecclesiastical regulations by his beloved brother Lawrence, who was particularly disturbed by the "ignorance" of the ancient translations. In the Dionysiana, therefore, we find only rigorously authentic texts, with the exception of the Canons of the Apostles; Dionysius always considered them suspect, but retained them because they had been widely used in the dioceses to draw up local discipline. The Dionysiana is a work adapted to the needs of the time. It prepared the way for that reconciliation of the Churches of the Orient and of the West, the goal always pursued by Dionysius.

Concerning dogma, Dionysius stressed the inviolability of the Canons of Nicaea that all succeeding Councils affirmed. He took care not to reproduce the four professions of faith of the Council of Antioch that accused the doctrine of Nicaea of Sabellianism. Concerning discipline, he strove to establish definitively the supremacy of Rome. He reproduced the sixth canon of Nicaea confirming the primacy of Alexandria and Antioch in the Church of the Orient modeled after the Church of Rome. He also gave the third canon of Constantinople that instituted the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Pontus, and Thrace, while granting a primacy of honor to Constantinople immediately after Rome. However, he carefully refrained from translating canon 28 of Chalcedon that gave the bishop of Constantinople powers equal to those of the bishop of Rome.

It is probable that the Dionysiana was prepared at Rome under the pontificate of Pope Hormisdas (514–523). From the time of the pontificate of John II (533–535), the Dionysiana became the preferred collection of the Roman Church. At the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century, many additions were made to it, and it served as the point of departure for new collections, such as the Dionysiana of Bobbio, continued until the pontificate of Boniface IV (608–615). Above all, it served as the basis for the hadriana collectio.

Bibliography: dionysius exiguus, Die Canonessammlung des Dionysius Exiguus in der ersten Redaktion, ed. a. strewe (Berlin 1931); "Codex canonum ecclesiasticorum," and "Collectio decretorum Pontificarum romanorum," ed. c. justel, Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1878–90) 67:93–316. f. maassen Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des canonischen Rechts im Abendlande bis dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (Graz 1870) 425–436. h. wurm, Studien und Texte zur Dekretalensammlung des Dionysius Exiguus (Bonn 1939); "Decretales selectae ex antiquissimis romanorum Pontificum epistulis decretalibus," Appollinaris 12 (1939) 40–93. m. cappuyns, "L'Origine des Capitula pseudocélestiniens contre le semi-pélagianisme," Revue Bénédictine 41 (1929) 156–170. j. rambaud-buhot, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz (Paris 1935–65) 4:1131–52.

[j. rambaud-buhot]