Letter 89: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

Hormisdas to Germanus, most illustrious. While you keep watch [stand vigilant] with a praiseworthy purpose on behalf of the peace of the Church and burn with so great a warmth of faith, the giving of thanks alone does not suffice, since it is not the prerogative of human praise that moves you, but the expectation of the divine recompense that fires you on. Therefore, what we most especially owe, we discharge, and we beseech our God daily for your safety -- the God in whose causes you spend yourselves -- asking that your zeal may so burn hot, in every part and in full affection for the unity of the Church, that no room be left for the good office where the protection of your defense does not stand by, according to the rules of the fathers. But above all the case of our brothers and fellow bishops Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus moves us, who, having been the first to follow the concord necessary for the world, are stricken by the loss of their own churches and are cast down together with insult to the venerable canons as well; and the glory of their own reconciliation becomes for them a difficult cause, as though they themselves had rather resisted with stubborn mind, and, while others were returning to the unity of the Apostolic See, they themselves had the more torn apart the members of the Church. How hard this is for us, and how unworthy of the times of a most merciful emperor, it befits your prudence to weigh, and at last to provide a remedy that may, with welcome consolation, take away both their toils and our sorrow.

HORMisDA GERMANo iiLusTRissiMo. Excubautibus uobis proba- 25 bili pro ecclesiastica pace proposito et tanto fidei caiore 3 nota V, corrtxi 210. I)at. (simul cum epp, 189 190 202 203 207 211) a. 519 die 2 Sept. per Eulogium. Edd. Car. P 513; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 888; commemorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 9 participatio a, unde participatione 20 arbitrio ex aibitria corr. V elegatis V, corr. 0 21J. Dat. ut ep. 210. Edd. Car. P 512; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 892; commeinorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 24 illustri Thiel <ixiro> illuatriBsimo Car, 670 lustinus Honnisda; suggestio Gerniani etc. feruentibus gratiarum actio sola non sufGcit, quia nec uos humanae laudis praerogatiua sollicitat sed diuinae expectatio 2 retributionis inflammat. quod igitur maxime debemus, exol- uimus et deum nostrum, cuius uos causis impenditis, pro incolomitate uestra cotidie deprecamur, rogantes, ut studium uestrum in omni pro ecclesiasticae unitatis affectu parte sic ferueat, ut nuUus boni relinquatur locus officii, ubi non paternis regulis uestrae patrocinium defensionis adsistat. S praecipue tamen Heliae Thomae atque Nicostrati fratrum et coepiscoporum uostrorum causa nos commouet, qui primi mundo necessariam secuti concordiam ecclesiarum suarum priuatione perculsi cum ueuerabilium quoque canonum contu- melia deprimuntur fitque illis propriae reconciliationis gloria causa difficilis, quasi ipsi magis pertinaci mente restiterint et aliis ad sedis apostolicae redeuntibus unitatem ipsi ecclesiae 4 magis membra discerpserint. quod quam nobis durum sit quamque clementissimi temporibus imperatoris indignum, prudentiam uestram conuenit aestimare et tandem praestare remedium, quod et illorum labores et nostram grato possit solamine auferre maestitiam.