From: Unknown sender
To: Unknown recipient (Justinian/Justin, Nicostratus, 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.]
^2Septt Uormisdao papae ad Eliam, Thomam ei Nicastratum.
Se pro eorum causa ad imperatorem, Augustam, Justinianum et Germamtm scripsitie p. U
significiit.
Ilormisda Eliae, Thomae et Nicostrato episcopis.
Quanto mens nostra doloris vestri participatione fatigetur, super-
vacuiun est apud probantes mutuam caritiitem verbis adstruere: sed
ille, qui et nostrum animum et vestros labores scrutator praescius
iutuetur, moerorem nostrmn vestra in gaudium prosperitate convertat
Verum ne unquam pro vestro negotio sub allegatione justissima et
') Al. festinemus. Hi^jus verbi loco sustinemus restitaeudum eese, inter alia
pcrsiiadent haec Hormisiiae epist. 103 n. 3 ad legatos de iisdcm monacbid dicta:
qui qnum nollent susiinere vestrae dilectionis adventum, Quibus ex verbis praoterea
discimus, eos qui Hormisdao ordinationi atque consilio primom aaBenserant»
cidom postea refragatos esse.
') lis vidclicot, quas pcr Eulogium magistrianum destinarat, hoc est epi-
Btola 78, qua ut Hormisda Scythas monachos digna correctione percuUos peUert
juberet, Justinianus postuhibat. Quocirca proximum illud praeterito temporemm
longum tempus anteccdcns, scd simpliciter id quod an/^a sonat. Forte pradens
papa hac usus est loquendi ratione, ut seutentiae, quam Justiuianus drcaScj-
thas monachos tulcrat, subitam mutationem quodammodo tog^ret. Tadte
tamcn notat inconstantiam ojus, et cur monachos illos non dimittat. rationem
reddit.
EPISTOLAE 91 — 93. 889
latorem tam principi porrigantur quam ceteris, quas designavimus (a. 519.)
supra^ persouis. .
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.