Letter 113

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

%^Jan Anastasii imperatoris ad Hormisdam papam. Cur pristinum sHentium nunc intermittat praefatus (n. 1), Hormisdam rogat, td p.t9l.j ad ea , quae in Scythia mota sunt et propter quae condUum celebramdim dfzif, se mediatorem faciat, |^ Victor Anastasius, pius, felix, inclitus, trium- phator, semper Augustus, Hormisdae sanctis- simo ac religiosissimo archiepiscopo etpatri- archae. 1. Beatitudini vestrae non putamus ignotum, quod pro tem- poris qualitate loquendum atque tacendum, etiam divinae Scriptone provida est admonitione dispositum. Exactum proinde silentii tem- pus incitamenta nobis loquendi concessit, atque ideo opportQnimi esse perspeximus, quae apud nos sub religioilis specie commoventur, auditui vestro committere. Ante hoc siquidem duritia *) eonun, qoi- bus episcopatus, quem nunc geritis, erat sollicitudo commissa, tem- perare nos a transmittendis faciebat epistolis. Nunc autem currens de vobis suavis opinio ad memoriam nostram bonitatem patemae affectionis adduxit, ut illa requiramus, quae Deus et Salvator noster sanctos apostolos divino sermone docuit ac maxime beatum Petrum, in quo fortitudinem Ecclesiae suae constituit. 2. His igitur praefatis initiis hortamur, ut ad ea, quae de Scythiae partibus mota sunt, unde et concilium fieri convenire perspeximus, mcdiatorem se apostolatus vester faciat, ut contentionibus amputatb unitas sanctae restituatur Ecclesiae. Nobis autem onmia optata praestantur, si orationibus vestris et frequenti paginarum allocutione nostri memores fueritis. Data pridie Idus Januarii Constantinopoliy et accepta Anthemio et Florentio viris clarissimis consulibus V Cal. Aprilis per Patricium.