Delatores
Delatores
(Lat. for DENOUNCERS)
A term used by the Synod of Elvira (c. 306) to stigmatize those Christians who appeared as accusers of their brethren. This synod decided (can. lxxiii, Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2d ed., I, 188) that if any Christian was proscribed or put to death through the denunciation (delatio) of another Christian, such a delator was to suffer perpetual excommunication. No distinction is made between true and false accusation, but the synod probably meant only the accusation of Christianity before the heathen judge, or at most a false accusation. Any false accusation against a bishop, priest, or deacon was visited with a similar punishment by the same synod (can. lxxv, op. cit., 189). The punishment for false witness in general was proportioned by can. lxxiv to the gravity of the accusation. The Council of Arles of 314 issued a similar decree (can. xiv, op. cit., p. 213), when it decided that Christians who accused falsely their brethren were to be forever excluded from communion with the faithful. During the persecutions of the early Christians it sometimes happened that apostates denounced their fellow-Christians. The younger Pliny relates in a letter to Trajan (Apostolic Fathers ed. Lightfoot, 2d ed., I. i, 50 sqq.), that an anonymous bill of indictment was presented to him on which were many names of Christians; we do not know, however, that the author of this libellus was a Christian. According to can. xiii of the Council of Arles (op. cit., 211 sqq.), during the persecution of Diocletian Christians were denounced by their own brethren to the heathen judges. If it appeared from the public acts that an ecclesiastic had done this, he was punished by the synod with perpetual deposition; however, his ordinations were considered valid. In general, false accusation is visited with severe punishments in later synods, e. g. Second Council of Arles (443 or 453, can. xxiv), the Council of Agde (506, can. viii) and others. These decrees appear in the later medieval collections of canons (q. v.). New punitive decrees against calumny were issued by Gregory IX in his Decretals (de calumniatoribus, V, 3 in Corp. Jur. Can). KRÜLL in KRAUS, Real-Encyk. (Freiburg im Br., 1882), I, 361; HINSCHIUS, Kirchenrecht, IV (Berlin, 1888), 699, 770; IV (Berlin, 1893), 20 sqq.
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J. P. KIRSCH. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Delatores
(Informers, sometimes called Calumniatores) were those unfaithful brethren in the early Church, who, for money or favor from the civil authorities, betrayed the Christians into the hands of their persecutors. Titus issued an edict forbidding slaves to inform against their masters, or freedmen against their patrons It is not wonderful that during and immediately after the days of persecution the informer was regarded with horror. Thus the Council of Elvira, A.D. 305, excommunicated, even on his deathbed, any informer who had caused the proscription or death of the person informed against; for informing in less important cases, the informer might be readmitted to communion after five years; or, if a catechumen, he might be admitted to baptism after five years. The first council of Aries, A.D. 314, reckons among ” traditores ” not only those who gave up to the persecutors the Holy Scriptures and sacred vessels, but also those who handed in lists of the brethren; and respecting these the council decrees that whoever shall be discovered, from the public records to have committed such offences shall be solemnly degraded from the clerical order. The capitularies of the Frank kings cite the canon of Elvira. The same capitularies enjoin bishops to excommunicate “accusers of the brethren;” and, even after amendment, not to admit them to holy orders, though they may be admitted to communion. There is attributed to pope Hadrian I a decree: “Let the tongue of an informer be cut out, or let his head be cut off.” Precisely the same is found in the Frank capitularies, and nearly the same in the Theodosiancode.