Domnus Apostolicus

Domnus Apostolicus (Lord Apostolic) is a title that was frequently applied to the Pope, especially from the the 6th to the 11th centuries, and that was sometimes applied to other bishops also.[1]

It is included in a petition in the second part of the Litany of the Saints, which in virtue of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum may still, under certain conditions, be chanted at celebrations of the Easter Vigil of the Roman Rite. The petition requests: Ut domnum apostolicum et omnes ecclesiasticos ordines in sancta religione conservare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos (That it may please you to preserve the lord apostolic, and to keep all orders of the Church in holy religion, we beseech you, hear us).[2][3]

Domnus

The word domnus is a shortened form of Latin dominus (lord). While the full form dominus is applied even to God and Jesus Christ, the shortened form is used only of human rulers, ecclesiastical or lay.[1] Thus, in the account in the Annales Loiseliani of events concerning Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria, Charlemagne and Pope Hadrian I are repeatedly referred as Rex (the King) and Apostolicus (the Apostolic), and as domnus Rex and domnus Apostolicus.[4] The word is used in ecclesiastical Latin as a generic title for a superior. When the deacon who is about to read the Gospel requests the presiding priest's blessing, he says: "Iube, domne, benedicere",[5] which in the official text in English becomes "Your blessing, Father",[6] although a more literal translation would be: "Be pleased, sir, to give the blessing."[1]

A similar usage survives in the titles of Don in Italian and Spanish, and Dom in French and Portuguese.

Apostolicus

Look up apostolicus in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The Pope is styled apostolicus (the apostolic man), because he occupies not just an apostolic see (an episcopal see founded by an apostle, as were the sees of Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth etc., to whose bishops the title of Apostolicus is not given), but because he is the bishop of the Apostolic See, the one founded by Peter the Apostle.[7][8] Claude of Turin explains the title as meaning Apostoli custos ("the guardian of the Apostle").[1]

A list of popes compiled in the time of Pope Vigilius (died 7 June 555) begins: Incipiunt nomina Apostolicorum ("Here begin the names of the Apostolics").[9]

The title of apostolicus is also used in the acts of the Second Anglo-Saxon Council of Cloveshoo, in 747, for Pope Zachary and recurs frequently in documents of the Carolingian kings. There are also the expression apostolicatus ("apostolicate" = pontificate) and the ablative absolute apostolicante ("during the apostolicate/pontificate of").[1]

In Gaul the expression sedes apostolica (an apostolic see) was applied, as early as the 5th century, to any episcopal see, even if not founded an apostle. By the 6th century, the term was in general use, and letters addressed by the Merovingian royalty to Gallic bishops collectively begin with Domnis sanctis et apostolica sede dignissimis ("To the holy lords most worthy of their apostolic seat")[10][11] and the title "domnus apostolicus" continued to be applied to individual bishops in the time of Charlemagne, as in a letter of introduction that he gave to the papal legate Boniface.[1] Umberto Benigni explains this usage as based on the bishops being successors of the apostles (see apostolic succession).[1] And although, in the 9th century the title became reserved to the Pope even in the Frankish empire, there are traces of its former use even in the 11th century: a council held at Reims in 1049 excommunicated Bishop Cresconius of Compostela, "quia contra fas sibi vendicaret culmen apostolici nominis" (because he unlawfully claimed the prestige of the name of apostolic man), thinking himself the successor of Saint James the Greater, and the council declared "quod solus Romanus Pontifex universalis Ecclesiae primas esset et apostolicus" (that the Roman pontiff alone was primate of the universal Church and the apostolic).[1][12][13]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Umberto Benigni, "Domnus Apostolicus" in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1909)
  2. ↑ 1962 typical edition of the Roman Missal, p. 210
  3. ↑ 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal, p. 265
  4. ↑ Passage of the Annales Loiseliani quoted in Francis Palgrave, The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth (J. Murray 1832), pp. ccccii–cccciv
  5. ↑ Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, 175
  6. ↑ General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 175
  7. ↑ Collins Dictionary
  8. ↑ Random House Unabridged Dictionary
  9. ↑ Patrologia Latina, LXXVIII, col. 1405–1406
  10. ↑ A letter from Radegund of Thuringia (561-67?)
  11. ↑ Martin Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France (Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum scriptores): "Exemplar rescripti"
  12. ↑ Edwin George Ross Waters, The Anglo-Norman Voyage of St. Brendan (Slatkine Reprints 1974), p. xxvii
  13. ↑ F. Holmes Dudden, Gregory the Great: His Place in History and Thought (Wipf and Stock 2004 ISBN 978-1-59244827-2), p. 198
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