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Apiarius of Sicca was an African Christian priest convicted by the Bishops of Africa of numerous unspecified crimes in the early 5th century AD, and excommunicated by Bishop Urbanus of Sicca Veneria.

Appeal to the bishop of Rome

In 418, Apiarius appealed his convictions directly to Pope Zosimus (Term of Office: March 417-December 418), bypassing the African Bishops appeals system. Pope Zosimus, citing what he claimed was a canon of the First Council of Nicaea, sent legates to assess the charges. ^[1]

However, the African bishops cast doubt on the authenticity of the canon used, i.e. "When a bishop thinks he has been unjustly deposed by his colleagues he may appeal to Rome, and the Roman bishop shall have the business decided by judices in partibus". The African bishops were right, since the canon was not one of the Nicene canons, but rather a canon from the Latin version of the Sardica canons.^[1]

"the affair of the priest Apiarius, where the legitimacy of the appeals to Rome was called into question, prompted the need for a collection of oriental canons and the constitution of two dossiers (one, too hastily gathered, at the end of the Council of Carthage in May 419; the other, compiled more at leisure, and therefore more complete, which was transmitted to Rome at the end of 419). This Codex Apiarii causae is in itself a testimony to the importance that Africa, like Rome, attached to the legislative provisions of the past, and therefore in a certain sense to tradition."^[2]

Pope Boniface I (Term of Office: December 418-423) took over the appeal by Apiarius of Sicca in 418 at the death of Pope Zosimus. In 419, the Bishops of Africa sent the copies of the Nicene canons obtained from Alexandria and Constantinople to justify their position that the Nicene canons did not permit Pope Zosimus' actions.^[3]

Jugement

"[O]n the council at Carthage in 425, Apiarius pleaded guilty to all the charges, putting end to the jurisdictional conundrum."^[4]

Legacy

The controversy over the right of a bishop to appeal directly to the bishop of Rome outlasted Pope Boniface and was still the subject of correspondence during the term of Celestine I (Term of Office: 423-432), successor to Boniface.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b "Pope Zosimus cites the canons of Sardica to justify the right of appeal of every cleric to Rome. The canon shows the possibility of sending presbyters as papal legates, as Philip and Asellus are at this occasion. The general rules of clerics` appeals against bishops` decisions are also recalled. Account in the acts of the Council of Carthage (AD 419); edited also as Letter 15 of Zosimus". The Presbyters Project. Archived from the original on 2020-08-08. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
^ Gaudemet, Jean (2019-05-28), "2. La place de la tradition dans les sources canoniques (iie–ve siècles)", Formation du droit canonique et gouvernement de l’Église de l’Antiquité à l’âge classique : Recueil d’articles, Société, droit et religion, Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, pp. 55–68, ISBN 979-10-344-0448-3, retrieved 2021-08-29
^ "The Council of Carthage (AD 419) explains to Pope Boniface the case of the presbyter Apiarius". The Presbyters Project. Archived from the original on 2020-08-08. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
^ "Apiarius, presbyter in Sicca Veneria (North Africa), early 5th c." The Presbyters Project. Archived from the original on 2021-03-02. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
^ "The council of Carthage (North Africa) AD 424/425 responds to the intervention of Pope Celestine I in the case of the presbyter Apiarius. Apiarius pleads guilty to the crimes of which he is accused. African bishops restate that the pope had no right to intervene in this case". The Presbyters Project. Archived from the original on 2020-08-08. Retrieved 2019-09-30.

External links

Schaff, Philip; et al. "The First Ecumenical Council - Canons - Excursus on the Number of the Nicene Canons.". Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. II. Vol. XIV.
"Concilia Africae - Codex Apiarii Causae [0345-0525] Full Text at Documenta Catholica Omnia". www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu. Retrieved 2021-08-29.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Apiarius of Sicca". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.