Delator
Delator (plural: delatores, feminine: delatrix) is
Secular Roman law
In
Under the
Pliny the Elder and Martial mention instances of enormous fortunes amassed by professional delators. But it was not without its dangers. If the delator lost his case or refused to carry it through, he was liable to the same penalties as the accused; he was exposed to the risk of vengeance at the hands of the proscribed in the event of their return, or of their relatives; while emperors like Tiberius would have no scruples about banishing or putting out of the way those whom he had no further use for and who might have proved dangerous to himself.
Jewish law
Canon law
The term delatores was used by the Hispanian Synod of Elvira (c. 306) to stigmatize those Christians who appeared as accusers of their brethren. This synod decided[2] 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, an extreme ecclesiastical punishment.
No distinction is made between true and false accusation, but the synod probably meant only the accusation of Christianity before the pagan judges, or at most a false accusation.[original research?] Any false accusation against a bishop, priest or deacon was visited with a similar punishment by the same synod. The punishment for false witness in general was proportioned by can. lxxiv to the gravity of the accusation.
The
During the persecutions of the early Christians it sometimes happened that
In general, false accusation is visited with severe punishments in later synods, e.g.
and others. These decrees appear in the later medieval collections of canons.New punitive decrees against calumny were issued by Pope Gregory IX in his Decretals.[6]
Uses as an English word
See Owen J. Blum, OFM
In the alternate reality TV series An Englishman's Castle, depicting a Nazi-occupied Britain, the word "delator" is revived in reference to informers helping the Nazi occupiers.
Notes
- ^ "Delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum...per praemia eliciebantur" (Tacitus, Annals, iv.30)
- ^ can. lxxiii, Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2d ed., I, 188.
- ^ Apostolic Fathers ed. Lightfoot, 2d ed., I. i, 50 sqq.
- ^ 443 or 453, can. xxiv.
- ^ 506, can. viii.
- ^ de calumniatoribus, V, 3 in Corp. Jur. Can.
References
- See Satire IV . 48 for ancient authorities; C Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, chap. 44; W Rein, Criminalrecht der Römer (1842); T Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht (1899); Kleinfeller in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopädie.
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Delatores". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Delator". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 945–946. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the