Synod of Braga

The first Synod of Braga took place in 561 in what is now the Portuguese city of Braga . The local council, which took place at the metropolitan seat of the Suebian Empire under the direction of Lucretius of Braga , had become possible because, with King Ariamir, the Suebian Empire was again ruled by a Catholic king after his Arian predecessors had forbidden Catholic meetings of their subjects.

The eight synod fathers turned against Priscillianism and Manichaeism in a decree . What is significant is the condemnation of the teaching that the devil was uncreated. The Synod thus made the first doctrinal statement about the devil in church history.

In a second decree, the Synod Fathers made decisions on the order of the liturgy, which - like later councils - had only local significance and ultimately led to a local liturgy, the ritus bracarensis .

literature

Carl Joseph Hefele: Conciliengeschichte: edited according to the sources. Freiburg 1873, p. 15ff. (on-line)
José Orlandis / Domingo Ramos-Lissón: The synods on the Iberian Peninsula until the onset of Islam (711). Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-74681-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

^ EA Thompson: The Goths in Spain, Oxford 1969, p. 35.
↑ Cf. Can. 7 of the Council Decree: Si quis dicit, diabolum non fuisse prius bonum angelum a Deo factum, nec Dei opificium fuisse naturam eius, sed dicit eum ex chao et tenebris emersisse nec aliquem sui habere auctorem, sed ipsum esse principium atque substantiam mali, sicut Manichaeus Priscillianus dixerunt, anathema sit. (Eng. Whoever says that the devil was not previously a good angel created by God and that his nature was not the work of God, but says that he emerged from chaos and darkness and has no author of himself, but is himself that Principle and the substance of evil, as Manichaeus and Priscillian said, it is occupied with the anathema . ) Quoted from DH 457.
↑ Jeffrey Burton Russell: Lucifer. The Devil in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, p. 95.

[1] EA Thompson: The Goths in Spain, Oxford 1969, p. 35.

[2] Cf. Can. 7 of the Council Decree: Si quis dicit, diabolum non fuisse prius bonum angelum a Deo factum, nec Dei opificium fuisse naturam eius, sed dicit eum ex chao et tenebris emersisse nec aliquem sui habere auctorem, sed ipsum esse principium atque substantiam mali, sicut Manichaeus Priscillianus dixerunt, anathema sit. (Eng. Whoever says that the devil was not previously a good angel created by God and that his nature was not the work of God, but says that he emerged from chaos and darkness and has no author of himself, but is himself that Principle and the substance of evil, as Manichaeus and Priscillian said, it is occupied with the anathema . ) Quoted from DH 457.

[3] Jeffrey Burton Russell: Lucifer. The Devil in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, p. 95.