The Letters of Gelasius I (492–496): Pastor and Micro-Manager of the Church of Rome by Bronwen Neil, Pauline Allen

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Letters of Gelasius I (492–496): Pastor and Micro-Manager of the Church of Rome by Bronwen Neil, Pauline Allen Jacob A. Latham Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen The Letters of Gelasius I (492–496): Pastor and Micro-Manager of the Church of Rome Adnotationes: Commentaries on Early Christian and Patristic Texts Turnhout: Brepols, 2014 Pp. XIII + 252. €65.00. Gelasius is best known for (1) his articulation of a distinction between imperial and ecclesiastical authority, (2) his role in the Acacian Schism, (3) his contributions to canon law, and (4) his Letter Against Andromachus. Most commonly, Gelasius figures in histories of the development of the theory of papal authority. The present volume, an extended introduction and a collection of 41 letters (forty percent of the extant letters), offers a number of Gelasius’s greatest hits in an expanded epistolary playlist that demonstrates his broader and more mundane exercise of power. Neil and Allen characterize these more practical interventions as micro-management, which seemingly casts them as inappropriate or over-bearing, even though, as Neil and Allen acknowledge, hands-on involvement in quotidian and even domestic affairs was essential in the construction of episcopal authority. Bishops developed and extended their power by acting as arbiters, patrons, and emergency caregivers, in addition to their more “pastoral” duties, as this collection makes clear. Like The Early Church Fathers series from Routledge, this volume comprises an informative introduction (Part One) followed by Gelasius’s letters arranged topically (Part Two). Part One begins with a short biography of Gelasius, an elite likely born in Rome to North African parents, about whom little can be gleaned. The introduction then addresses Gelasius’s epistolary corpus, which stood near the beginning of a shift in episcopal letter production and collection. During the fifth century, episcopal letters became more individualized and attuned to social, political, and legal affairs like those of the senatorial elite and were more systematically collected in ecclesiastical, recipient, or special archives. In particular, the development of a scrinium seems to have been linked to the increasing administrative duties of the bishop of Rome as a landowner and a political player. The introduction subsequently treats themes that consistently appear in Gelasius’s letters, beginning with his extensive use of patronage networks, somewhat awkwardly labeled pastoral care, which does not quite capture the variety of his interventions. Much of this activity can be labeled crisis management, another modern concept which does seem to convey the often desperate and haphazard reactions to wars, famines, and other (often related) emergencies. Gelasius also battled internal (and external) religious differentiation: “Arian” or homoean Christianity and the Acacian Schism, both associated with Christology and politics, as well as Pelagianism and Manicheism to a lesser extent, and even the Lupercalia, a traditional Roman ritual and so a species of religious “deviance,” were all, a little strangely, tackled under the term heresy. Unsurprisingly, many letters show Gelasius running the church at Rome, addressing appeals, clerical appointments, ecclesiastical regulations, and approved reading, as well the liturgy to a small [End Page 300] degree. In the end, Neil and Allen rightly conclude that Gelasius’s administration was personal and involved, foreshadowing the kind of “micro-management” that strongly marks the pontificate of Gregory I. Part Two begins with Gelasius’s biography from the Liber Pontificalis, followed by his letters grouped into ten categories prefaced by brief introductions. Despite Gelasius’s “sententious and pompous” style (67), the translations are readable even while maintaining the original intricacy. As most letters address multiple issues, the categories are necessarily porous. For example, sections one, two, and three concern the Acacian schism, though only two does so explicitly. Section one comprises Gelasius’s famous articulation of separate spheres of authority to bolster his position in the midst of the Acacian controversy (Letter 12). Section three on the scrinium includes evidence of a scribe acting as a court reporter at a synod to absolve Misenus, a papal legate who caved to imperial pressure during the Acacian Schism. Much as the categories overlap, the order might likewise have been shuffled—section four collects Gelasius’s most important decretals, which could have been paired with Letter 12, but then Letter...