Innocent I's Letter to Lawrence: Photinians, Bonosians, and the Defensores Ecclesiae

Abstract

Innocent I’s Epistula 41 to Bishop Lawrence advises him about how to remove Photinians from his diocese. Interestingly, Dionysius Exiguus, who preserved this letter at the end of the sixth century in his collection of papal letters and synodal canons, attached a heading indicating that the letter dealt with Bonosians. This essay considers the possibility of connections between these two heretical groups in the early years of the fifth century. Innocent’s advice was to use the agency of the newly established defensores ecclesiae. However, unlike Caroline Humfress, who thinks Innocent offered to loan the Roman defensores to Lawrence, it is argued here that Innocent was suggesting merely that Lawrence appropriate the successful procedure used by the Roman church by having the application of that ruling extended. Finally, this essay examines the possible dioceses over which Lawrence presided, as presented by manuscript variation, and suggests that Siena in Tuscany remains the favourite candidate, despite recent scholarly opinion to the contrary.