Letter 146

From: Unknown correspondent To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Anastasia, 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.]

a.5i7d. Horitiisdae papac ad Anastasinm Augustum. l/l Jokannem Nicopolitanum a molestiU infestantiwn tueatur, rogat. Hormisda Anastasio Augusto per Ennodium et Peregrinum episcopos. Dum sapientiae vestrae, clementissime imperator, profunda con- sidero, providentes saluti propriae vobis displicere non aestimo. Neque enim aut divina mouita aut humana continent instituta, nt qui consulit bonae spei, qualibet debeat reprehensione eulpari : quum maxime pietas quoque vestra affectu se unitatis et pacis flagrare fateatur. Quae res me quoque vel pro fiducia conscientiae vesfrae vel pro creditae quoque mihi dispensationis officio, emergente com- pulit non supersedere negotio. Johannes frater et coepiscopus meas Nicopolitanae civitatis antistes, praedecessoris sui sanctae recordatio- nis Alcysonis secutus exemplum, beati Petri apostoli commumonem cum synodo sua, damuatis his, quos Ecclesia detestatur, expetiit. Is nunc gravibus fatigatur insidiis. Precor mansuetudinem vestram, iniqua molientibus obviate, et removete molestias, et correctum fovete, cui, ut corrigeret *), debuisset insisti. Scient enim qui tar daverint, se reos futuros, quum a vobis foveri viderint jam reversoi. Fateor, clementissime imperator, miror insidiantium pertinaciam neque Dei neque vestro intuitu permoveri. Nam qui odenmt in ') Ed. Serva . . . subsequentur . . . aposloHca sententia et omitt. affecdome, 37 *) Supple se. Sic et in aliis superiorum praesulum epistolis corrigentes pto se corrigentes non semel offendimus. Quocirca Baron. scbstitaens carr^erttat ab Hormisda potius littera quam mcnte discessit: sed in atioqae peccat, qood subjicit debuisset assistere. EPISTOLAE 36 — 38. 813 homine studium desiderii boni; quod de se aestimant judicari^ in-a. 517. sequuntur. Ad recta reduces jure culpandi, si non converterint deviantes. Datae^) fidei vestrae clara documenta, si aflfueritis ad xinitatem reductis, effici, omni adhortatione cogitetis.