Aurelius of Carthage (attributed): Epistola ad Damasum Papam

This very short letter is addressed in the name of Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, to Pope Damasus. The writer asks the pope to send him in writing the decrees issued by the apostolic see from the death of Peter, prince of the apostles, down to the beginning of Damasus’s own pontificate, so that the African church may know what had been decreed in those times and who had acted against the canons. The letter ends with a request for the pope’s prayers and a dating clause, followed by a note that it was read at Rome.

The letter cannot be authentic as it stands: Damasus died in 384, while Aurelius became bishop of Carthage only some years later. It belongs to the body of forged papal correspondence that circulated in the early Middle Ages to give authority to collections of papal decrees, presenting a request for the earliest papal rulings to which an answer from Rome could then be attached. It is of interest as an example of how such collections sought to establish an unbroken record of papal legislation back to Peter.