Letter 178

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

8eu Exemplum epistolae Anastasiae ad Hormisdam. (a. 519 d. 22April.) Imperatorem concordiam pacis ecclesiis restituisse; itt pro illius salute» pro con- jugcy pro sobolCi pro se ipsa preces Ilormisda ad Deum fundat. Domino sancto et beatissimo patri patrum Hor- misdae archiepiscopo universali Ecclesiae Anastasia^). Divini muneris^) illuxisse nobis gratiam merito profitemur, apo- stolatus vestri reverentiam in sancto corde nostri tenere memoriam, paginali assertione noscentes. Veraci namque spe confidimus, super- nae misericordiae propitiationem de pontificali intercessione sub- sistere, doniine beatissime et apostolico honore suscipiende pater! Pervigiles vestrarum orationum excubiae et miranda victoriosissimi 69 *) Ita hic ut epist. 70 latine videtur conversum, quod graece ferebatur a.q%uniGY.Qn(£i ot7iovfi£viy.(j). De eadem locutioue riuae ad epistolae 39 inscriptio- nem observata sunt, repete. ') Is erat Anastasii Augusti ex sorpre nepos, cujus ut et Hypatii fratris infelix exitus a Procopio de bello Persico I, 24 describitur. Quocirca Cyrillus in vitii 8. Sabae eum imperatoris consobrinum vocat. Uxorem habebat oodem Cyrillo teste Anastasiam cognatam Julianac, quac ipsius Pompeji consobrina in hist. miscell. lib. 15 appellatur. . 70 *) Pompcji, cujus est superior epistola, ut in eam observavimus, uxor. KPI8T0LAE BOMAN. PONTIF. I. * 55 (a. 519.) principis fides splendore catholico semper irradians diu expetitam sacrosanctis ecclesiis concordiam pacis resfcituit; quam omnibus trimn- phis suis solidissime firmatis invictum^)*jure exsultat praecolmsse vexillum. Ideoque illibata vestrae patemitatis saiictimonia pro in- columitate atque prosperitate praedicti domini nostri Augusti toU precesque omnipotenti Deo offerre indesinenti continuatione perai- stat : ut ineffabilem tantorum bonorum gratiam^ quam ipse piis ejns sensibus inspiravit, ad futurae quoque beatitudinis profectum con- servare dignetur. Domino etiam jugali fiiio vestro et mihi peculiari cultrici vestrae, cum sobole, quam nobis Dominus donare dignatos est, a vestro pontificatu oratio benigniter impendatur, cujus suffira- gio divini favoris protectio nobis clementer adspiret.