470 Lizzi Testa
patrimony of what was Unscila’s church, and for those the bishop asked for the
customary exemptions.90 As the reply was addressed to the praetorian prefect
Faustus Niger who according to the Liber Pontificalis had been a great supporter
of Pope Symmachus, it can be assumed that Unscila could then rely on the
patronage of that powerful aristocrat by virtue of their shared pro-Symmachan
sympathies.91 While this new patron was no less powerful than Cassiodorus’
father, the bishop received a negative answer because, for Theoderic, tax relief
could not transcend the customary limits.92 In Ostrogothic Italy bishops, cler-
ics, and churches did not become rich by obtaining greater privileges from a
weak king who needed their support. If it appears so, it is simply because other
(lay) domini had become poorer in the meantime.
The Jurisdictional Privileges of the Bishops and their Limits
Nor may it be said that the powers of the bishops as judges of the ecclesiastical
courts were enhanced in Ostrogothic Italy. A sentence from a letter of Pope
Gelasius (Si crimine respersi erant aliquo, ecclesiastica debuit examinatione
cognosci... )93 has usually been interpreted as if the Roman bishop held that
“secular authorities could not only not decide on the ordination or deposition
of a bishop, but furthermore were incompetent to judge a bishop accused of a
crime”.94 Taken in the context of the letter in which it belongs, however, another
meaning is revealed. The letter was a serious rebuke against eastern bishops,
who remained unmoved in the face of the oppression of Chalcedonians by
Acacian schismatics. Gelasius, therefore, claimed the authority of papal judge-
ment not on bishops subject to actual criminal charges, but on those who
had made such doctrinal choices that other bishops (who were hostile to the
bishop of Rome) judged heretical. At the time certain heresies had been classi-
fied in the category of crimina and were thus dealt with by imperial legislation;
90 Cass., Va r. 1.26, ed. Fridh, p. 34, lines 7–18.
91 Liber Pontificalis 53, ed. Duchesne, p. 260, line 79 and p. 261, line 6–7: “Solus autem Faustus
excons. pro ecclesia pugnabat.” PLRE II, s. v. “Fl. Anicius Probus Faustus iunior Niger” 9,
pp. 454–56. It is likely that the name engraved on at least one of the loca of the Flavian
Amphitheatre belongs to him. In this case, his full name was Anicius Acilius Probus
Faustus. See Orlandi, Epigrafia anfiteatrale, pp. 476–8, n. 62.
92 Cass., Va r. 1.26, ed. Fridh, p. 34, lines 17–21.
93 Gelasius, Ep. 27.8–9, ed. Thiel, pp. 430–1.
94 Banfi, Habent illi iudices suos, p. 277.