Synod of Elvira

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Synod of Elvira (Latin: Concilium Eliberritanum, Spanish: Concilio de Elvira) was an ecclesiastical synod held in Hispania Baetica, the date of which cannot be determined with exactness, but is believed to be in the first quarter of the fourth century. It was one of three councils, together with the Synod of Arles and the Synod of Ancyra, that first approached the character of general councils and prepared the way for the first ecumenical council. It was attended by nineteen bishops, and twenty-six presbyters, mostly from Hispania Baetica. Deacons and laymen were also present.^[1]

The solution of the question of the date hinges upon the interpretation of the canons, that is, upon whether they are to be taken as reflecting a recent persecution, or as pointing to an imminent one. Thus some^{[citation needed]} argue for a date between 300 and 303, i.e. before the persecution under Diocletian; others for a date between 303 and 314, after the persecution, but before the Synod of Arles; still others for a date between the synod of Arles and the Council of Nicaea, (325). J. D. Mansi, Hardouin, Hefele and Dale are in substantial agreement upon 305 or 306, and this is probably the closest approximation possible in the present state of the evidence.

The place of meeting, Elvira, was not far from the modern Granada, if not, as Dale thinks, actually identical with it. There the nineteen bishops and twenty-four presbyters, from all parts of Spain, but chiefly from the south, assembled, probably at the instigation of Hosius of Córdoba, but under the presidency of Felix of Accitum (Guadix) in Baetica, probably by virtue of his being the oldest bishop present^[2], with a view to restoring order and discipline in the church. The canons which were adopted reflect with considerable fulness the internal life and external relations of the Spanish Church of the fourth century. The reputation of this council drew to its canons further canons that came to be associated with the Synod of Elvira.

The social environment of Christians may be inferred from the canons prohibiting marriage and other intercourse with Jews, pagans and heretics, closing the offices of flamen and duumvir to Christians, forbidding all contact with idolatry and likewise participation in pagan festivals and public games. The state of morals is mirrored in the canons denouncing prevalent vices. The canons respecting the clergy exhibit the clergy as already a special class with particular privileges, as acting under a more exacting moral standard, with heavier penalties for delinquency. The bishop has acquired control of the sacraments, presbyters and deacons acting only under his orders; the episcopate appears as a unit, bishops being bound to respect one anothers' disciplinary decrees.

Maurice Meigne^[3] considers that only the first twenty-one canons in the list that has been transmitted^[4] were promulgated at Elvira; the remainder having been added to the collection.

By the terms of canon 1, lapsed Christians were forbidden the holy communion even in articulo mortis, an unusually severe application of Novatianist principles, which had divided the church since the recovery from mid third-century persecutions: compare the severity of Cyprian of Carthage. The subject of this leading canon is a major indication for a date following recent persecution.

Among the later canons, of especial note are canon 33, enjoining celibacy upon all clerics and all who minister at the altar (the most ancient canon of clerical celibacy; canon 36,^[5] forbidding pictures in churches (compare the Iconoclastic Controversy in the East); canon 38, permitting lay baptism under certain conditions; and canon 53, forbidding one bishop to restore a person excommunicated by another.

The scanty documentation of the Synod of Elvira was first assembled by Ferdinand de Mendoza, De confirmando Concilio IIIiberitano ad Clementem VIII, 1593 (reprinted

[edit] Notes

^ Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church.
^ [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.html?term=Hosius%20(1),%20a%20confessor%20under%20Maximian Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature sv "Hosius (1)".
^ "Concile ou collection d'Elvire," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 70 (1975) pp 361-387
^ Problems of the textual transmission of the canons are discussed in Hamilton Hess, The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica (Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford: 2002) pp 40-42.
^ Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur."There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls."

[edit] References

J. D. Mansi ii. pp. 1-406. Reprints the account of Ferdinand de Mendoza, pp. 57-397.
Hardouin i. pp. 247-258
Karl Josef von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte I, pp. 148-192 (2nd ed. 1873) (English translation, i. pp. 131 sqq.)
Alfred W. Dale, The Synod of Elvira and Christian Life in the Fourth Century (London, 1882)
Hennecke, in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed), sv. "Elvira", especially bibliography.