From: Unknown sender
To: Unknown recipient (Germanus, Dioscorus, bishops)
Date: ~515-523 AD
Context: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and Constantinople over the condemnation of the Monophysite patriarch Acacius. Pope Hormisdas (514-523) worked tirelessly to resolve this schism, which was finally healed in 519 under Emperor Justin I.
[This letter is part of the extensive diplomatic correspondence generated by the resolution of the Acacian Schism. The schism had divided the Eastern and Western churches for thirty-five years over the condemnation of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, who had promoted a compromise formula (the Henotikon) that Rome rejected as insufficiently orthodox. Hormisdas conducted negotiations through multiple embassies to Constantinople, exchanging letters with emperors, patriarchs, imperial officials, and powerful aristocratic women at court. The correspondence reveals the machinery of late antique ecclesiastical diplomacy: formal theological demands, careful diplomatic language, networks of lay and clerical allies, and the constant anxiety of a pope trying to manage events happening months away by letter.]
HORjnSDA GERMANO EPISCOPO FELICI ET DIOSCORO DIACONIS ET 5
BLANDO PRESBYTERO. Animos uostros tam diuturnum dilecti- onis uestrae silentium' ut tantorum temporum contristat absentia, praecipue cum uir magnificus patricius Symmachus et uir illustris Komanus magister militum filii nostri reditura apud nos caritatis uestrae sine dilatione promiserint, et lo ignoramus, utrum illic causarum qualitas an certe fraus aliqua simulata sub necessitate detineat, quia nobis sollicitudinem sine cessatione gerentibus et paene uniuorsos partium illarum
2 homines percontantibus diuersa et dissimilia nuntiantur. et ideo, quoniam causas tantae tarditatis uos melius deprehendere is et intellegere potestis atque cognoscere, significare nobis ista, de quibus noster cruciatur animus, debuistis, uel si est causa dilationis idonea, sicut constitutum est, aliquem de uestris
3 ad nos oportuerat destinari. unde ne forsitan per uersutias aut aliquam concinnationem uobis dilatio et impedimenta 20 generentur, sub celeritate nobis scribite, ut sub rationabili ordinatione pro uestra repetitione ad filium nostrum impera-
4 torem clementissimum dirigamus. ergo tam circa . personas quam de causa fidei, pro qua diu moramini, quid geratur, instructe atque plenissime nobis uniuersa rescribite, ut omnibus cognitis deo nostro fauente tractemus, quemadmodum personis uestris et causae ipsius, cuius res agitur, possit misericordia subuenire. Data Id. lul. Rusticio u. c. cons.
3 rustico V
instruite 0' 28 ii ik rustico V
Epist. CCXXVIll 2 — CCXXX 4.
695
Context:Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and Constantinople over the condemnation of the Monophysite patriarch Acacius. Pope Hormisdas (514-523) worked tirelessly to resolve this schism, which was finally healed in 519 under Emperor Justin I.
[This letter is part of the extensive diplomatic correspondence generated by the resolution of the Acacian Schism. The schism had divided the Eastern and Western churches for thirty-five years over the condemnation of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, who had promoted a compromise formula (the Henotikon) that Rome rejected as insufficiently orthodox. Hormisdas conducted negotiations through multiple embassies to Constantinople, exchanging letters with emperors, patriarchs, imperial officials, and powerful aristocratic women at court. The correspondence reveals the machinery of late antique ecclesiastical diplomacy: formal theological demands, careful diplomatic language, networks of lay and clerical allies, and the constant anxiety of a pope trying to manage events happening months away by letter.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.