Letter 214

From: Unknown correspondent To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Epiphanius, Dioscorus, Constantinople) 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.]

seu Suggestio^) Dioscori diaconi ad Hormisdam papam. a. 520d. 29 Febr. Johannem Constantinopolitanum antistitem ex hac vita discessisse ejusque loco acc. d. electum esse Epiphanium. 7 April. Erat optabile et voto nostro conveniens, consonantia praeteritis perior 97, altera per Eulogium, quae adhuc latet, transmissa. De hac postrema loqui yidetur Johamies in proxima epistola 109 n. 2, ubi Dominicae passionis diem, qui in ipsius Hormisdae litteris contiuetur, recte adscribi respondet. Conf. not. epist. Horm. non exstant. n. XXVII. ') Ita G'. Ed. exempla. Ex his unum ad nos pervenit, scil. epistola 102 seu indiculus a Johanne episcopo et Epiphanio presbytero directus, qui re ipsa in Vaticano exemplari epistolae huic subncctitur. a. 520. nuntiare; scilicet pontificem Constantinopolitanae ecclesiae Jolianneiii esse superstitem^ et confessionem libello editam; cujus merita non est dubium Deo placere^ qui inter catholicos et communicatores sedis apostolicae meruit ad aliam ex hac vita discedere. In cujus locum Epiphanius^) quidam presbyter quondam sjncellus ejus successit, cujus initia bona videntur; nam rationabilia loquitur, et promittit patrum se regulas servaturum; pacem unitatemque ordinatam non dissipare sed magis augere. Ista sunt quae promittit; quid tamen opere possit implere, adhuc ignoramus. Has siquidem litteras quarta post ordinationem ejusdem die reperta occasione transmisimus; nec- dum cum eo communicavimuS; non quasi resistentes, sed quia adhuc ab eo non sumus invitati. Superest, ut beatitudinis vestrae insistat oratio, quatenus divinae gratiae adjutorio talis erumpat^ per quem de perfecta possimus unitate gaudere. Accepta VII Idus Aprilis, Rustico viro clarissimo consule.