From: Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To: Unknown recipient (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.]
HORMISDA EriPHANIO EPISCOPO CONSTANTIXOPOLITAXO. Multo
gaudio sum repletus, quod circa ecclesiae pacem et sanctissimi imperatoris et dilectionis tuae tale studium, quale litteris
3 sensuum VHisp.i sensum H (sensu /iVi^ sensuum man. 2), sensini editiones Hadrianae 6 potuissem Thiel 10 euoluerem H (exceptis hVt^) conueniens Gonjs;. 12 cogitanduniH 13 deseruire Gonz. indigenter Gom^ 14 quid VHi^: quod Hisp. (excepto i^) 15 trinae V Gom. : trinitate R (triiii- tatem c?*-, in trinitate hVi^ et man.iih'^)^ in trinitate i praedicata Hisp. (praedicta i^) 17 Data etc. om. Hisp. vii VwmH 18 u. c. H: om. V
237« Dat. ut ep. H36. Epistulam ex Auellana coUectione primus edidit Car. P 560, quem secuti sunt Bar. ad a. 521^ 18; Fronto Ducaeus in editione loh. Zonarae commentanorum (Lut. Par. 1618) p. 665; Collect. Concil; BT I 141; Thiel 970. extat praeterea in collectione Hispana (ed. Gonzalez II n. 93 p. 150), ex qua transiit in Pseudoisi- dorianam (ed. Hinsdiius p. 691). Hisp. = consensifs editionis Gon- zalezii (= Gonz ) et communis lectionis codicum i (i^ = Uatic. 1341, »2 = Vatic, 630, i^ = Uatic. 3791). 20 Honnisdae papae ad Epi- phanium Constantinopolitanum episcopum. Dilectissimo fratri Epiphanio episcopo Hormisda Hisp.
Epist. CCXXXVI 19 —
CCXXXVII 1.
723
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From:Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To:Unknown recipient (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.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.