Letter 244: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

Pope Hormisdas to Epiphanius of Constantinople, that he should put no delay upon receiving Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus into communion. Hormisdas to Epiphanius, bishop of Constantinople. It would indeed have been fitting that your Fraternity, out of regard for the divine judgment and in consideration of our charity, should without delay admit Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, our brothers and fellow bishops, to the divine mysteries together with you, once we had received them into the fellowship of our communion; and that you should recall them to their own churches, from which the error of discord had excluded them, for the fullness of our peace: so that the unity which God, after the passing of many years, has restored to his churches throughout the whole world might be injured by no divergence of our wills. But since it has come about that a matter so welcome, and so agreeable to the venerable statutes of the Fathers, has hitherto been put off by certain delays, concerning which we remember that we wrote even to your Fraternity's predecessor, we exhort you that the joy which we feel at the condemnation of the error of the past dissension should be saddened in nothing by a renewed cause of disagreeing minds. For it seems to no one that you are in communion with us with the full affection of the mind, if you separate from your own fellowship those who are in communion with us. Surely they appear to receive peace in vain, who delay to fulfill the precepts of peace. For whatever delay you make in receiving those men into communion, you in some manner detract from our reconciliation. And it must be provided against, dearest brother, lest the concord at last granted from above to our churches should take its beginning from such examples, and the venerable rule of religion and the authority of the Apostolic See should seem to be diminished—which God forbid—throughout the East rather than restored.

(a.52im. Hormisdae papae ad Epiphanium Constautiuopolitauiuu. Apnl.) In Eliae , Thomae et Nicosirati suscipienda communione ne moram. hJIom pomat. y, Xi Hormisda Epiphauio episcopo Oonstantinopoii- tano. Oportuerat quidem fraternitatem tuam divini contemplatione judicii atque caritatis nostrae respectu Eliam, Thomam atque Nico- stratum fratres et coepiscopos nostros, postquam in consortium com- munionis nostrae recepimus, ad divina tecum *) mysteria incunctanter admitterC; atque ad ecclesias suas, a quibus eos discordiae ern>r 'excluserat, pro pacis nostrae plenitudine revocare: ut unitas, quam post annorum multa curricula per totum orbem suis Deus restaura- vit ecclesiis, nuUa voluntatum nostraruni distantia laederetur. Sed quia rem tam gratam et patrum statutis venerabilibus cougruentem quibusdam tarditatibus contigit nunc usque differri, unde etiaiu ad oi>. 106. decessorem fraternitatis tuae nos scripsisse .meminimus: hortainur. ^ £x epistola, quam Isidorus Marcellini nomine confinxit, eum hic legi^' coUigitur quae nobis, ut in ^ prima manu. Ex veteribus coUectionis Hispanat.' ut et Isidori libris, in quibus superior Hormisdae ad Epiphanium opistoh 111 proxiniae ejusdem ad Salustiimi praemittitur , hunc papam id quo<l Epiphiuio illic respondet iiotare, ac praedictae epistolae 141 exemplar ad Baeticos desti- nassc conjectamus. Unde consequens est, ut haec ad Baeticos et illa ad S«i- lustium non citius mense ApriU anni 521 conscripta sint. '') Ita P FO*''^*. Al. plenius expedire (J' expediri). ®) J* J* c' soq. suh hac parte; corriguntur ex iisdem mss. et i*. '^') Ita J* p -Ti*, nisi quod i* mMs indulta. Al. sunt illis laiius indic. ne prir. nobis (J* nos) ind. convellereni. Ac vero Hormisda in epistola Bupcriori non pro- pria sed aUorum privilegia servari curat. 144 ') b cc omitt. tecum, moxquc G' post quam annorum ... unde minc etiam. EPISTOLAE 143 — 145. 983 ut laetitiam, quarn de clamnato praeteritae dissensioiiis errore per- (a 621.) cipimus, in nullo itenim diserepantium animorum causa contristet. Etenim nulli videtiu: vos^) nobiscum pleno communicare mentis af- fectu, si eos qui nobiscum conmiunicant a vestro consortio segregatis. Incassum certe videntur pacem recipere, qui pacis diflFerunt prae- cepta complere. Quidquid enim in illorum suscipienda communione moramini, quodammodo de nostra reconciliatione detrahitis. Et pro- videndum est, frater carissime, ne si ecclesiarum nostrarum tandem desuper indulta concordia ab his exordiimi sumat exemplis, et reli- gionis veneranda regula et apostolicae sedis auctoritas imminuta, quod absit, per Orientem potius quam restituta videatur.