From: Unknown correspondent
To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Dioscorus, 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.]
^sDec) Hormisdae papae ad Thomam et Nicostratum episcopos.
De eorum causa se semper soUicitum fuisse ejusque curam nuper Johanni et
Dioscoro demandasse.
Hormisda Tliomae et Nicostrato episcopis.
Animimi nostrum pro negotio vestro otiosum aut desidem non pute-
tis; nam non aliter de vestra fatigatione quam de propria cogitamofl.
Mena siquidem ecclesiae nostrae notario insinuante, cognovimus carita-
. tem vestram adhuc observationum molestias sustinere. Et ideo ut ') istis
adversitatibus Deus onmipotens dignetur praestare remedium, tam ad
ep. 106. Johannem fratrem et coepiscopum nostrum scripta direximus, quam
ep. 105. filio nostro Dioscoro diacono per litteras nostras injunximus, ut
domino et filio nostro Justino principi necessitatem et causam tc-
strae dilectionis insinuet, et instanter agat, quatenus desideriis vestris
dominus noster congruum dignetur praestare efiectum. Cum qno
Dioscoro diacono debet loqui vestra fratemitas, quia necesse est, ut
intentioni vestrae vel intuitu catholicae communionis vel considera-
tione nostrae adhortationis studeat. Data quo supra consule.
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.