Letter 246

From: Unknown sender To: Unknown recipient (Epiphanius, Constantinople, 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.]

seu Relatio episcopi Epiphanii Constantinopolitani. ^*^JulV" Paniiniwi defenHorem laudat^ scque in ecclesiarum redintcyralione omnia ea: tior- misdae sententia gessisse, sed miti disposiiione opns esse significat. Domino meo per omnia amabili Deo sanctissimo- que fratri et comministratori Hormisdae Epi- phanius in Domino salutem. Paulinus venerabilis *) defensor, qui vestram retulit epistolajii, op. 144. vestraeque sanctitatis virtutes*) in se ostendens, cum gaudio nobis- cum conversatus, suam sollicitudinem coiimmnibus consiliis actibusque contulit. 8ed quoniam ad vos festinantem non opoi*tebat eum pro- lixiore tompore remorari, ideoque reciprocis alloquentes vestram saii- ctitatem, protegi praefatum virum et vestri'*) digimm amoris fidelem servum subsistentera commeudanms. Erit autem de his, quae a nobis gesta sunt pro vestro animo, et circa sanctas ecclesias solHcitudine quam gerinms vigilare, nobis dignus fide euarrator*). Nam nos Majo Constantinopolim fuisse regressos, inimo nihildum ibi de eorum pro- rectione al> Urbe fuisse compertum. 147 ') G* »6, quod CBivenerabilis. a* vcstrac, b cc vcstrftc sedis. In superioribus opistolis 73, 89 et 105 Paulinus Homanac dcfcjt.sor ccrlesifie constanter appellatiir. '^) Wii G'. Ed. virlutem. Moxque mallemus idco (loco idcof/ue). •') Ceu ntpotc fiddcm scrvum vestrum. llunc virum suldimem appollaro Junti- nianuB epist. 89 non dediguatur. - Kd. nostri. (a. 521. oratioiiibiis vestnie sanctitatis , et^) naturalem bonitatem hiijus rei respicientes, vigilantissimum habentem studimu, et Deo cooperante in phirimis verbuni gratiae discurrens sine aliqua obsistentia ad ef- fectum nostram ducit intentionem. Sed quia difHeuItat^s «iliquae ac- cesserunt, gubenicitione utique et miti dispositioue ea, quae hic moventur, oportet^) comi^etenter exponi, sicut et vestra cognoscit 8Ui)er onmia sanctitas: et quemadmodum oportet eos, qui Dei gre- ges pascere sortiti sunt, universa ad gloriam Dei et agere et niohri, lf?/g* spem salutis in eum habentes, et sicut scriptum est: DiligenUbus Jkm omnia cooperantitr in bonvm. Ea enim, quae vobis phiceant, siout dictum est, sentire quoque et agere nitimur, sanctissime. Omnem in Uliristo fraternitatem, quae cum vestra est sanctitate, ego quoque et mei i^lurimum salutamus.