Bishops of southern Gaul, in a letter to Pope Leo I of 449/450 (Epistolae Arelatenses, 12), justify the primacy in Gaul of the see of Arles (southern Gaul) by reference to its founding by *Trophimus (bishop and confessor of Arles, S00617), supposedly sent by *Peter (the Apostle, S00036). Written in Latin in southern Gaul, probably Arles.
E00957
Literary - Letters
Leo the Great (pope)
Epistolae Arelatenses 12 = Pope Leo I, Letter 65 ('Memores quantum', JH 970)
PRECIS MISSAS AB UNIVERSIS EPISCOPIS AD LEONEM PAPAM
[...] Omnibus etenim Gallicanis regionibus notum est, sed nec sacrosanctae ecclesiae Romanae habetur incognitum, quod prima intra Gallias Arelatensis civitas missum a beatissimo Petro apostolo sanctum Trophymum habere meruit sacerdotem, et exinde aliis paulatim regionibus Galliarum bonum fidei et religionis infusum: priusque alia loca ab hoc rivo fidei, quem ad nos apostolicae institutionis fluenta miserunt, meruisse manifestum est sacerdotes, quam Viennensim civitatem, quae sibi nunc inpudenter ac notabiliter primatus poscit indebetos. Iure enim ac merito ea urbis semper apicem sanctae dignitatis obtinuit, quae in sancto Trophymo primitias nostrae religionis prima suscepit ac postea intra Gallias hoc, quod divino munere fuerat consequuta, studio doctrinae salutaris effudit. Cuius honoris obtentu ecclesiam Arelatensem omnes decessores prodecessoresque nostri velut matrem debito semper honore coluerunt, tenentesque traditionem tutam ab hac sibi civitates nostrae sede episcopos postularunt. Ab huius ecclesiae sacerdotem tam decessores nostros quam nos ipsos constat in summum sacerdotium, donante Domino, consecratos. Quam quidem antiquitatem sequentes prodecessores beatitudines vestrae hoc, quod erga privilegia Arelatensis ecclesiae institutio vetusta tradiderat, promulgatis, sicut et scrinia apostolicae sedis procul dubio continent, auctoritatibus confirmarunt, credentes plenum esse rationis atque iustitiae, ut, sicut per beatissimum Petrum apostolorum principem sacrosancta ecclesia Romana teneret supra omnes totius mundi ecclesias principatum, ita etiam intra Gallias Arelatensis ecclesia, quae sanctum Trophymum ab apostolis missum sacerdotem habere meruisset, ordinandi pontificium vindicaret. His secundum religionem utitur privilegiis ecclesia memorata. [...]
[...] Unde factum est, ut non solum provinciae Viennensis ordinationem, sed etiam trium provinciarum contemplationem sancti Trophymi, sicut et e sanctorum prodecessorum vestrorum patefacto sibi testatur auctoritas, Arelatensis ecclesiae sacerdos ad sollicitudinem semper suam curamque revocarit. Cui id etiam honoris dignitatesque conlatum est, ut non tantum has provincias potestate propria gubernaret, verum etiam omnes Gallias, sibi apostolicae sedis vice mandata, sub omni ecclesiastica regula contineret. [...]
'REQUESTS SENT BY ALL THE BISHOPS TO POPE LEO
The opening paragraph of the letter thanks Leo for his approval of Ravennius as the new bishop of Arles, before raising the issue of Arles' 'privileges of ancient dignity' (privilegia dignitatis antiquae). Then comes the following passage:
For it is known to all Gallic regions, but neither is it held in ignorance by the sacrosanct church of Rome, that first among the Gauls, the city of Arles deserved to have the holy Trophimus as bishop, sent by the most blessed apostle Peter, and from it the goodness of faith and religion was gradually infused to other regions of Gaul: and it is clear that other places merited bishops from this stream of faith, which the rivers of apostolic teaching sent to us, before the city of Vienne, which now impudently and blatantly demands undeserved primacies for itself. For by right and merit this city always obtained for itself the apex of holy dignity, which first received in the holy Trophimus the beginnings of our religion and afterwards, within Gaul, poured out what through God's gift followed, through zeal for the teaching of salvation. Through the spreading of this honour, all our forebears and predecessors venerated the church of Arles like a mother with the honour owed to it, and, holding to safe tradition, our cities requested bishops for themselves from this see. It is well known that it was by the bishop of this church that our forebears as much as we ourselves were consecrated through the gift of God into the highest priesthood. Following this ancient tradition, the predecessors of Your Holiness confirmed what ancient teaching had handed down regarding the privileges of the church of Arles through the authoritative statements they promulgated (as the archives of the apostolic see undoubtedly contain too), believing it was full of reason and justice that, just as through the most blessed Peter, chief of the apostles, the sacrosanct Roman church holds primacy over all the churches of the whole world, so also within Gaul the church of Arles, which deserved to have as bishop the holy Trophimus, sent by the apostles, claims the power of episcopal ordination. The aforementioned church uses these privileges in accordance with religion. [...]'
After a paragraph describing the importance of Arles as a secular political centre:
'Whence it is the case that the bishop of the church of Arles has always called back to his concern and his care [the right of] ordination not only in the province of Viennensis but also the Three Provinces, out of regard for St Trophimus, as the authority of your holy predecessors openly bears witness. This honour and dignity was conferred on him: that not only should he govern these provinces through his own authority, but also hold all the Gallic provinces, entrusted to him as deputy of the apostolic see, under full ecclesiastical governance.'
The final paragraph praises Leo as a worthy successor of St Peter, and repeats the request for the restoration of the 'ancient' privileges of Arles (this time without explicit reference to Trophimus)
Text: Gundlach 1892, 18-19.
Translation: David Lambert.
Place associated with saint's life
Non Liturgical ActivityAwarding privileges to cult centres
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - Popes
Theorising on SanctityUsing saints to assert ecclesiastical/political status
Source
Epistolae Arelatenses 12 (= Leo, Letter 65, 'Memores quantum') is a letter from a group of southern Gallic bishops to Pope Leo I (440-461). It survives among the so-called Epistolae Arelatenses (Arlesian Letters), also known as the Collectio Arelatensis or the Liber auctoritatum ecclesiae Arelatensis, a collection of 56 letters and other documents relating to the see of Arles, dating from 417 to 557. The collection was compiled at some point after 557, presumably from the archives of the see.The letter is not dated, but must have been sent in late 449 or early 450, since Leo's reply (Epistolae Arelatenses 13/Leo, Letter 66) is dated 5 May 450. It was sent by nineteen bishops, who are not named in the letter in its surviving form but are named in Leo's reply; their sees are not given, but all those that can be identified are in south-eastern Gaul. The bishop of Arles, Ravennius, is not one of the signatories, though he may have instigated the letter, which is one of a group exchanged between him (and the bishops allied with him) and Pope Leo, following Ravennius' accession in 449 (Epistolae Arelatenses 9-14 = Leo, Letters 40-42, 65-67). In the wake of the condemnation by Leo of Ravennius' predecessor Hilary in 445 (see E06072), the letters show that Ravennius and Leo wanted to patch up relations between Arles and Rome, but also – as this letter in particular shows – that Ravennius and his allies had not given up hope of establishing Arles as a see with privileged authority over the Gallic church, the issue on which Leo and Hilary had clashed a few years earlier. The support of numerous other bishops for the claims of Arles shows a change from the earlier controversy over the issue, in 417 and subsequent years (see below), in which it was the bishops of neighbouring sees who formed the opposition to Arles. This is probably the legacy of Hilary of Arles, who during his lengthy tenure as bishop had influenced episcopal selections in the sees around Arles to arrange the appointment of his own supporters (one of the things for which he was condemned in 445).
The text is quoted here from the MGH edition by W. Gundlach, which retains the irregularities in grammar and spelling transmitted in the early medieval manuscripts (e.g. precis for preces in the heading). These were almost certainly not in the original.
Discussion
The figure of Trophimus is first attested in letters written by Pope Zosimus in 417 (E00954, E00960, E00988, E01614). There is then no extant reference to him until this letter, written just over thirty years later. The privileges granted by Zosimus to the see of Arles in 417 and justified by reference to Trophimus had been rescinded by his successor Boniface I (Boniface, Letter 12, 'Difficile quidem', dating from 422). Hilary, bishop of Arles from 429/30 to 449, embarked on a new campaign to bring Arles into a position of primacy in the Gallic church corresponding to its political primacy as the seat of the Praetorian Prefecture. This was brought to a halt by Pope Leo in 445, who responded to appeals from Gallic bishops deposed by Hilary by banning him from attempting to exercise any influence outside his own see (see discussion in E06072). This letter, sent to Leo a few months after the accession of Ravennius as Hilary's successor, appealed for the special status of Arles to be restored, and once again cited Trophimus as a justification for that status. The letter was unsuccessful: Leo's reply (which makes no reference to Trophimus) made only very minor concessions. For detailed accounts of these events, see Mathisen 1989, 173-81, and Wessel 2008, 88-96.It is not known whether Trophimus had been cited by Hilary as a justification for the primacy of Arles: there are no surviving documents dealing with Arles' claims to primacy written by him or issued by the church of Arles during his episcopate (material from Hilary's time as bishop is conspicuous by its absence from the Epistolae Arelatenses – given the outcome of his attempt to secure primacy in the Gallic church, this omission may be deliberate). It is evident from this letter, however, that the story of Trophimus had developed in one major respect since its appearance in the letters of Pope Zosimus. In those, Trophimus' mission to Arles took place in an undefined 'antiquity'; here it is claimed that he had been sent to Gaul by St Peter himself, on the basis of which it is argued that Arles should hold a primacy in the Gallic church equivalent to that of Rome in the church as a whole. Though this is not stated in the letter, it is likely that this claim was based on identification of the Arles Trophimus with a Trophimus mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 20:4, 21:29; 2 Tim. 4:20). Another additional claim made in the letter is that evidence of approval for Arles' special status on the part of Leo's 'predecessors' can be found in the papal archives. There is every likelihood that the documents referenced here were simply Zosimus' letters from 417.
This letter is the last surviving evidence for the use of the Trophimus story to support Arles' claims to special status, in spite of the fact that these claims remained a live issue throughout the later 5th and 6th centuries.
Bibliography
Edition:Gundlach, W. (ed.), Epistolae Arelatenses genuinae, in: Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Epistolae 3; Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1892), 5-83.
Further reading:
Mathisen, R.W., Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1989).
Wessel, S., Leo the Great and the Spiritual Rebuilding of a Universal Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
David Lambert
17/11/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00617 | Trophimus, bishop and confessor of Arles | Trophymus | Certain |
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