Augustine, Episcopal Interests, and the Papacy in Late Roman Africa

Abstract

The bishops of Roman Africa vacillated in their relations with the papacy in the three decades preceding the Vandal invasion and, more specifically, during the papacies of Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Coelestine. Theyseemed grossly inconsistent, first praising papal authority, then curbing its ability to influence African jurisdiction. In synodal letters of 416 associated with the Pelagian controversy, the bishops exalted Roman authority, even ascribing to the pope a ‘greate dignity’ and a ‘special gift of grace’. An additional private letter of five African bishops contrasted the African ‘brook’ with the Roman ‘spring’. Augustine also acknowledged the special authority of Rome. These were no mere effusions of polite speech. The Africans intended to sway a papal hand in their campaign against Pelagius and his supporters by seeking papal approbation of their condemnations of Pelagianism. The Council of Sardica and Roman law had earlier granted the papacy the authority to function as a ‘court of appeals’ in the Western Church. Accordingly, Innocent responded to the African bishops with a condemnation of the heresy, however equivocal in points of doctrine, dramatically clothed in the style of imperial rescript. Boniface and Coelestine soon provided official approbation of African canons issued in 418 at the Council of Carthage, and Augustine and subsequent popes regarded this as the proof of a consistent papal position in support of African doctrine, leaving Zosimus' temporary exoneration of Pelagius and Caelestius the unsuccessful exception to the rule.

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