Boniface I and the Apiarius Affair

Abstract

An otherwise unremarkable letter of the fifth-century Roman bishop Boniface I (418-422) (Dilectionis uestrae), preserved in the two manuscripts of the Collectio Frisingensis prima but omitted from Coustant’s 1721 edition of early papal letters, acknowledging a report he had received from Bishop Faustinus and two presbyters, when seen in the context in which the manuscript compiler of Clm. 6243 inserted it, actually extends our knowledge of the Apiarius affair. This ultimately concerned the rights of the church of Rome to hear judicial appeals from African lower clergy, which is part of the broader question of the primacy of the Roman church. While it is well known to scholarship that the African churches sometimes had issues with what they considered to be Zosimus’ (417-418) Roman overreach into African ecclesiastical affairs, this letter is evidence that Rome under Boniface held to the same position and that the Africans objections were not personal but in response to Rome’s mistaken conflation of canons from the synod of Serdica with those from Nicaea. This was a matter the Africans believed they had every right to settle within Africa, as much as the Roman bishops believed they themselves were acting in good faith. The importance of the letter lies in it offering something of Rome’s own perspective on the Apiarius affair apart from the information filtered through the African synodal canons.