Letter 198: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

Pope Hormisdas to Justin Augustus. [Heading.] That he should see to it that Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus are restored to their own sees. [Summary.] Hormisdas to Justin Augustus. To the glorious labors of your Clemency there respond, by general acclamation, the longed-for tranquillity of ecclesiastical concord restored and of a pacified world. This matter renders us sparing, and holds back, in performing the duty of a discourse of thanksgiving. Yet that which we unceasingly do, in pouring out prayers to our Lord on your behalf, we do not pass over in silence. For since in our prayers the affection is boundless, in our public acclamation our judgment can have a limit. But amid these benefits of your Piety, one care does not forsake us, which indeed afflicts us vehemently: namely, that Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, my brothers and fellow bishops, who among the first followed ecclesiastical concord with eager devotion, are not only cheated of the great reward of being foremost, but are even accompanied by the misery of a bad example. Wherefore with weeping mingled also with our prayers we beseech your Clemency, that the intolerable casting-down of the aforesaid men may not disturb the joys which you daily afford us by the conversion of heretics: because it is not the cause of these persons alone that troubles us, men for whom the glory both of a good deed and of merit could at the same time suffice, but the fact that the established ordinances of the venerable canons are held in contempt, [...] [Editorial apparatus, not part of the letter: On 'palma' (the reward/foremost place): It ought not to have been changed without authority to 'prima,' which signifies the first and chief part. The case of Thomas and his associates seems to have been the same as that of those bishops in whose favor Leo writes in Epistle 93, chapter 3: "But since we are not unaware that very many bishops, because they would not accept the heresy, were driven from their sees and deported into exile, and that substitutes were put in place of the survivors, let the medicine of justice be applied first of all to these wounds, and let no one be so deprived of his own that another should make use of what belongs to others; whereas if, as..." Page heading: Of St. Hormisdas the Pope. (A.D. 519.)] ...and that the casting-down of them touches in no small degree the authority of the Apostolic See: lest the sincerity of your Christianity, by which you both bestow great protection upon the ancient ordinances and confirm the primacy of the Apostolic See by veneration newly performed, should leave to posterity, in this one matter, an unanswerable question.

Hormisdae papao ad Jastinum Augustiim. ^.t^^V' Ut suis sedibus eiiam Eliani^ Thomatem ei Nicosiratum restituendos curet. Hormisda Justino Augusto. Gloriosis clementiae vestrae laboribus ecelesiasticae prima^) concordiae et orbis pacati votiva tranquillitas generali praedicatione respondent. Quae res nostri parcum*) reddit ac retinet ad agendas gratias sermonis officium. Illud tamen, quod pro vobis indesinenter Domino nostro preces efFmidimus, non tacemus. Quia in votis infi- nitus affectus est, fiiiitiun esse potest in praedicatione judicium. Verum inter haec pietatis vestrae beneficia una nos, quae etiam vehementer afficit, cura non deserit, quod Eliam, Thomatem atque Nicostratumfratres et coepiscoposmeos,qui primi ecclesiasticam festina secuti sunt devotione concordiam, non solum magni frustratur pahua principii; verum etiam mali miseria comitatur exempli. Quare cle- mentiam vestram mixto etiam precibus fletu deposcimus, ne gaudia nostra^ quae de haereticorum quotidie conversione praestatis, prae- fatorum abjectio intoleranda conturbet: quia non sola personarum nos causa sollicitat, quibus et boni facti simul sufficere gloria posset et meriti, sed quod venerabilium constituta canonum contemnuntur'^), 93 '] c^ seq. palma. Sine auctoritate mutari non dcbuit prima, quod primas ac praecipuas partcs sonat. Thomae et sociorum eadem videtur exstitisse causa, quae episcoporum illorum, in quorum gratiam Leo epist. 93 c. 3 scribit: Quia vero non ignoramus, plurimos episcopos, quia haeresim non reciperent, sedibus suis pulsos et in exsilia deportaiosy atque in locum supcrslitum alios subslititios: his primitus vulncribus adhibeaiur medi- cina Justitiae, nec quisquam ita carcal propriis» ut alter utaiur alicnis; quum si, ut 89<) S. HOKMISDAE PAPAE I (a. 519.) et quod nou parvam eoruin abjectio apostolieae sedis taiigit iujumm: ne^) Cliristiauitatis vestrac .sinceritas^ qua et niagnum patrocinium veteribus constitutis impenditis et sedis apostolieae principatum acta noviter veneratione sancitis, in uno inexpugnabilem relinquat posteris negotio quaestionem.