Jus novum (c. 1140-1563) Jus novissimum (c. 1563-1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of the faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life The Gelasian Decree (Latin: Decretum Gelasianum) is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496).
In other and more numerous manuscripts the same decree occurs in an enlarged form assigned within the documents in some cases to Pope Gelasius (492-6), in others to Pope Hormisdas (514-23), and in a few cases the documents are simply anonymous.”[6] “The copies of the decree attributed to Damasus are contained in four manuscripts, two dated in the eighth century and two in the ninth.
Each decree is headed 'Incipit concilium urbis Romae sub Damaso Papa de explanatione fidei' [“Here begins the Council of Rome under pope Damasus 'On Explaining the Faith'”].
It is now commonly held that the part of the Gelasian Decree dealing with the accepted canon of Scripture is an authentic work of the Council of Rome of 382 A.D. and that Gelasius edited it again at the end of the fifth century, adding to it the catalog of the rejected books, the apocrypha.
The Damasan catalogue presents the complete and perfect Canon which has been that of the Church Universal ever since.In 1912, Ernst von Dobschütz examined all the manuscripts of the Decretum.
[1] He also argued that all of the shorter versions are derived from the five-chapter recension and concluded that the Decretum was “no genuine decree or letter either of Damasus or Gelasius, but a pseudonymous literary production of the first half of the sixth century (between 519 and 553)”.
However, all versions show signs of being derived from the full five-part text, which contains a quotation from Augustine, writing about 416 after Damasus, which is evidence for the document being later than that.