Fifth Part of the Works

PHOTIUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, FIFTH PART OF HIS WORKS: CANONICAL. EDITORS' NOTE

Photius elaborated three principal canonical works. First, he collected the canons of the ecumenical councils into a single compilation, arranging them in chronological order. To these he added the canons of provincial councils which, on account of their distinguished teaching and sound jurisprudence, held the force of law throughout the Church, as well as the canonical epistles of the holy Fathers that referred to the general discipline of the Church. This compilation, which Zonaras, Balsamon, and Aristenus adorned with learned commentaries, was edited in his *Pandects of the Canons* by Beveridge, and we shall edit it among the works of the writers who flourished at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Next, Photius described the same canons according to the order of their subject matter, combining canons of the same topic even if they had been issued at different times, and dividing the entire body of law into fourteen titles. This collection, under the name of the *Syntagma of Canons*, was first edited by Cardinal A. Mai—a man who can never be sufficiently praised for bringing to light the writings of the ancient Fathers—in his *Spicilegium Romanum*, vol. VII, and we shall edit it here.

Finally, Photius noted the canons of the *Syntagma*, omitting the text, according to the order of the *Syntagma*, and in the appended commentaries he described the laws, especially the civil ones, which corresponded to them. He inscribed this collection the *Nomocanon*, because it exhibited a catalog and, as it were, a harmony of both ecclesiastical and civil laws. After others, Voel and Justel edited it in Greek and Latin at Paris in the year 1661, in their *Bibliotheca Juris*, vol. II, p. 785 et seq. It is to be edited by us here.

Photius wrote various epistles regarding canonical matters, which we have edited in their proper place. Outstanding among the others is the epistle to Leo, Archbishop of Calabria, which is the seventeenth of Book I. The series of these works shall be closed by a short work of Photius which is inscribed: *Ten Interrogations with as many Responses*. This little book does indeed reek with schismatic hatred; but it was not therefore to be omitted, provided it indicates what manner of spirit Photius was of.

ON THE SYNTAGMA OF PHOTIUS

That I had in my hands the *Syntagma of Canons* of Photius (which the learned are accustomed to confuse with his *Synagogue of Canons*), and that it would one day be delivered to the press, I said several years ago in the prolegomena of the repeated edition of volume I of the *Scriptores veterum*, p. xxviii. Wishing now to fulfill this promise, it is necessary to distinguish and explain in advance the triple efforts of Photius concerning canon law. Photius narrates his first endeavor thus, before the *Nomocanon*, in the Preface which Justel edited from the Oxford codex, *Bibl. can.*, vol. II, p. 789: "I undertook to gather into one place those befitting canons set forth by the holy ten synods held at different times for the confirmation of the saving dogma and the edifying instruction of all men, placing the canons of each one immediately under the name of its own synod." As many sacred canons as were issued by the ten holy synods, held at different times for the confirmation of saving doctrine and the good instruction of all men, those I undertook to gather all into one body, so that the canons of each might be subject immediately to the appellation and title of its own synod. Photius then continues by saying that he also included the canons of the Apostles, the Council of Carthage (under primate Aurelius), and the other canons or decrees of certain holy Fathers. ^A