Councils of Carthage

[1] Two synods, in 255 and 256, held under Cyprian, pronounced against the validity of heretical baptism, thus taking direct issue with Stephen I, bishop of Rome, who promptly repudiated them.

[2] Around 345–348 under Gratus a synod of orthodox bishops, who had met to record their gratitude for the effective official repression of the Circumcelliones (Donatists), declared against the rebaptism of any one who had been baptized in the name of the Trinity, and adopted twelve canons of clerical discipline.

[6] 16 [Placuit] ut praeter Scripturas canonicas nihil in Ecclesia legatur sub nomine divinarum Scripturarum.

Sunt autem canonicae Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuterenomium, Iesu Nave, Iudicum, Ruth, Regnorum libri quatour, Paralipomenon libri duo, Iob, Psalterium Davidicum, Salomonis libre quinque, Duodecim libri prophetarum, Esaias, Ieremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Iudith, Hester, Hesdrae libre duo, Machabaeorum libre duo.

Liceat etiam legi passiones Martyrum, cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur 20 Hoc etiam fratri et consacerdoti nostro Bonifacio, vel aliis earum partium episcopis, pro confirmando isto canone innotescas, quia ita a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda.

The Conference of Carthage, held by the command of the Emperor Honorius in 411 with a view to terminating the Donatist schism, while not strictly a synod, was one of the most important assemblies in the history of the African sees, and of the whole Catholic Church.

It was presided over by Marcellinus of Carthage who found in favour of the orthodox party, which led to the violent suppression of the Donatists.

It denounced the Pelagian doctrines of human nature, original sin, grace, and perfectibility; and it fully approved the contrary views of Augustine.

Vexed, perhaps, at the unworthy priest's success, a general synod of Carthage in May 418 forbade appeal "beyond the seas" of clerics inferior to bishops.

Recognizing in what was virtually a restatement of previous African legislation an expression of displeasure on the part of the African bishops, Pope Zosimus sent a delegation to defend his right to receive certain appeals, citing decrees believed by him to have been enacted at the Council of Nicaea, but which in fact were canons of the council of Sardica.

The African bishops who met the legates, while not recognizing these decrees as Nicene, accepted them pending verification.

The sixteenth Council of Carthage was held in May 419 and there again the representations of Zosimus were accepted, awaiting the result of a comparison of the Nicene canons as they existed in Africa, in which the decrees cited by the Pope had not been found, with those of the churches of Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople.

By the end of the year 419, Pope Boniface, who had succeeded Zosimus in December 418, was informed that the eastern codices did not contain the alleged decrees; but, as the now repentant Apiarius had meantime been assigned to a new field of labour, interest in the affair subsided.