Letter 87: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

Hormisdas to Dorotheus, Bishop of Thessalonica. Considering that the church of your Fraternity, before the evil of the passing discord, had once been joined to the Apostolic See in special charity, we recently believed you to be the author of the peace restored from above; but because you delay even to follow those whom you ought to have anticipated, we groan not lightly, on account of your Fraternity, over the slowness of a correction so long deferred. For you write that our ears have been troubled by the atrocity of a certain crime: would that a report so detestable had run only as far as ourselves, and had not announced throughout the whole world, to Christian minds, a deed as much to be lamented as it is to be execrated, so that those who do not know you to be innocent should believe that you have at the same time strayed from the path of Christianity! For in what part of the world does the odium of this monstrousness not both sadden the Catholic churches and gladden the depraved wishes of the heretics? These things we desire to be shown foreign to the conscience of your Charity, as you intimate in your letter: for what accords more with our wishes than that it should always come to pass that bishops who are willing to return to the Catholic peace be proved ever innocent of cruelty and of crimes? We await therefore, if the safeguards of the truth known to God are not lacking to your Fraternity, that you both repel from yourself the odium of so great a crime and at last, in the reconciliation of the faith, follow the examples of those who have returned. Given on the fourth day before the Kalends of November, Rusticius, most distinguished man, being consul.

HORMisDA DOROTHEo EPiscopo THEssALONicENsi. Considcrantes tuae fraternitatis ecclesiam ante praetereuntis mala discordiae olim cum sede apostolica praecipua fuisse caritate coniunctam te nuper pacis desuper redditae esse credebamus auctorem: sed quia, quos praeuenire debueras, sequi etiam remoraris, non leuiter pro fraternitate tua dilatae correctionis ingemiscimus • 2 tarditatem. scribis enim aures nostras cuiusdam sceleris atrocitate turbatas: utinam usque ad nos tantum tam dete- stabilis fama percurreret ac non toto orbe Christianis mentibus tam dolendum quam execrabile facinus nuntiaret, ut qui te innocentem nesciunt, a christianitatis simul credant tramite deuiasse! in qua enim mundi parte immauitatis huius inuidia non et catholicas contristat ecclesias et haereticorum praua 3 uota laetificat? quae nos a dilectionis tuae conscientia, sicut litteris intimas, ostendi cupimus aliena: quid enim uotis nostris magis conuenit, nisi ut redire ad pacem catholicam 9 per uenerabiles F, corr. Thiel 209. Bata (simul cum ep, 201) a. 520 die 29 Oct, per Eulogium; respondet epistulae 208. Edd. Car. P 546; Bar. ad a. 520, 63; BTA I 445; Thiel 956. 18 redite V 28 loetificat V EpiBt. ccvm 4 — CCXI 1. 669 uolentes episcopos a crudelitate et criminibus contingat semper innoxios comprobariV expectamus igitur, si non desunt frater- nitati tuae ueritatis deo notae praesidia, ut et tanti sceleris a te repellas inuidiam et in reconciliatione fidei tandem eorum, 5 qui reuersi sunt, sequaris exempla. Data IIII. Eal. Nouemb. Busticio u. c. cons.