The apostolic see was asked how ritual systems, especially the system of clerical ordination, should be coordinated with the rules for the reception of repentant heretics. The main ritual system in question was clerical ordination, but baptism was drawn into the discussion. The main heresies in question were the Novatians, the followers of Bonosus and (less prominent) some Arians. The actual content of these theological heresies was hardly discussed in the papal responses. In terms of modern analytical ‘etic’ concepts, the responses are legal rather than theological. The last part of the chapter explains this conceptual distinction – between ‘legal’ and ‘theological’ – as it will be used throughout the book. Medievalists sometimes assume that canon law and theology were indistinguishable before the late twelfth century. It is true that they had constituted a continuum in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. When we look further back to late Antiquity, however, we find that a de facto distinction had emerged, even if around 1100 it would be submerged for a time.

Looking back on the period between the fall of the empire in the West and Charlemagne, the following typology is discernible: The style of jurisprudence developed by Siricius and Innocent I, and in letters of Leo I and Gelasius I that echoed their themes, was carried on by the Dionysiana and (rearranged thematically) the Concordia Cresconius. This tradition remained a major influence. One may call it the legal type. A second type includes the first and also confines itself to conciliar canons and papal letters, but adds a good deal of Christology, through letters of Leo I about the ‘one nature’ theory; in this type, the Christological content makes the collection as a whole less like ‘positive’ law, more like a general collection of all kinds of papal letters, a hybrid of law and theology (as later understood). It could be called the hybrid type. The Hispana is a prime example. In the third type papal law is present but pushed into the background by much material, Patristic and from penitentials, that is neither obviously legal nor papal. The Hibernensis is a prime example. For want of a better formula it may be called the inclusive type.

In the fifth century bishops had brought problems to the apostolic see, which replied by laying down what was lawful and unlawful (leaving the bishops to do what they wanted with these responses). Shortly after the end of the empire in the West, the first decretal age comes to an end and a new phase begins: one of synthesis and compilation. This meant deciding what to leave out and what to include. Two collections, the Frisingensis prima and the Quesnelliana, include debate on the humanity and divinity of Christ, alongside the papal responses. The Dionysiana, however, leaves out these themes, which are in any case absent from the decretals of Siricius and Innocent I. Christological themes are absent also from letters of Leo I selected by Dionysius and from the ‘hold-all’ decretal Necessaria rerum dispositione of Gelasius I, which draws together in a quasi-synthesis the principal issues addressed in the first century of papal jurisprudence. Gelasius’s summative decretal and the Dionysiana anticipate the boundary that would separate canon law from what would be called theology, while the Frisingensis prima and Quesnelliana anticipate collections which recognize no such boundary.

With both the role of professionalization in the second decretal age, and the divergence between canon law and theology, contingency must be given its due, as against an assumption that the separation of theology from a canon law which was professionalized and based on papal decretals was in any way inevitable. Decretals and professionalization were indeed integrated in Western Europe around 1200, and in a different intellectual sphere from university theology, but there was no necessity about it. Without the legacy of the first decretal age, there might never have been a second decretal age, though there would surely have been a system run by academically trained lawyers. Similarly, there was no necessity about the separation of canon law from theology. A change of theological fashion is part of the explanation, but so too is the direction in which the Breviarium of Bernard of Pavia pointed the system. Bernard was the Dionysius Exiguus of his age.

The chapter discusses the transmission of early papal jursprudence, the text-critical procedures followed, and the translation policy.

The aim of the book is twofold: to uncover the content of the legal uncertainties that led bishops to write to popes in the decades around 400 CE, and to establish the texts of their legal rulings as found in the three earliest canon law collections. Data to enable users to track the subsequent reception of these rulings up to the mid-twelfth century is also provided.