To the most glorious and most excellent patrician Festus, and to the venerable bishops Cresconius and Germanus, sent from the city of Rome together with his power in legation to the most clement and Christ-loving Emperor Anastasius — Dioscorus presbyter of the venerable church of Alexandria, and Chaeremon lector, serving as the apocrisiarii of the same church.
Chapter I: The Petrine Concord of Rome and Alexandria; The Roman Bishop’s Designation of the Alexandrian Archbishop in Ambiguous Matters
1. The venerable churches of Rome and Alexandria have not only preserved the right and immaculate faith ever since the saving word was preached among them, but also in the divine ministry have always preserved concord. For since by one and the same was thrown the foundation of faith in both — we mean the most blessed Apostle Peter, of whom in all things the holy Evangelist Mark stood forth as the imitator — so it was, that whenever it might happen that certain councils of bishops were celebrated in ambiguous matters, the most holy one who presided over the Roman church would designate the most reverend archbishop of the city of Alexandria, that he might take up the care of his own place.
Chapter II: The Schism Attributed to Nestorian Translators of Leo’s Letters; The Earlier Alexandrian Legation to Rome
2. But the enemy of the human race, to whom good things are hateful, who always rages with impious fury for our destruction, was not loth to sow tares between the two through his own satellites, that he might bring about discord in so great a unity. For when Eutyches the most impious was sensing and attempting to teach against the faith which had been preached in the most blessed apostles, it happened around that same time that Leo, then prelate of the Apostolic See, sent letters to the Council of Chalcedon. The translators of these letters were those who had at that time been followers of the Nestorian heresy together with Theodoret, bishop of the city of Cyrus: and the aforementioned letters are demonstrated to stand against that faith which was set forth by the venerable three hundred and eighteen fathers, and they furnished no small occasions to those who defend the blasphemies of the same most nefarious Nestorius, so that they might construct more freely [the claim] that the same Nestorius held nothing perverse. By these causes therefore our God-loving people was offended, and judged that the Latin discourse also contained a sense similar to the Greek translation, and divided itself from the unity of the Roman church. And not less did the Roman pontiff also, judging that we had conspired against the faith handed down from the most blessed apostles, suspend himself from our communion.
3. Nevertheless, wishing to satisfy his sanctity that we hold that faith which the prince of the apostles, Peter, and his disciple the most blessed Mark believed, and which afterwards the three hundred and eighteen venerable pontiffs set forth, our church took care to send legates to the city of Rome. But there a certain man of our city was found who dissented from the right faith and was alien from it on diverse grounds — who appears to have done this, that no opportunity might be given for the receiving of the legates: who, not even being admitted to the face of the salutation, returned without any effect.
Chapter III: Photinus’s Account from Thessalonica; The Petition to the Roman Legates
4. But because not long ago Photinus the religious deacon of the holy church of Thessalonica joined with us in words about the peace of the churches, and said that he had a short time before been sent by the most holy Archbishop Andrew of the church of Thessalonica to the Roman pontiff Anastasius, and was affirming concerning these things which gravely offend us, that satisfaction had been made him concerning the translation of the letter by the aforesaid prelate of the Roman church — that, namely, errors were corroborated in the translation of the letter, but that the Latin letter itself stood forth as set forth in accordance with the faith of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers; and besides this he reported that certain things had been said in the person of the same prelate, which pertained to the censure of those things which had been put into the translation, and to those who had attempted to break those errors, and to the satisfaction of those who do not neglect to keep the right and immaculate faith.
5. Being abundantly healed by these things, and desiring that the former concord be restored, we wished also to be taught from you, if those things are true which Photinus the religious deacon had reported to us, and we desired to meet your sanctity and have a conversation about all these things. And your sanctity has deigned to teach us not once but frequently that the errors interspersed in the interpretation of the letter were not conceived in the Latin text. Wherefore we have besought you that you would receive the confession of our faith, on whose behalf we discharge the legation of our venerable church — which faith also the most holy archbishop proclaimed everywhere, and received the rescripts of all approving — that, if you should also see your holy church to agree with this faith, you would order satisfaction to be made to us, so that, the scandals being removed from the midst, both the venerable Roman and Alexandrian churches may return to the former unity.
Chapter IV: The Profession of Faith — Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and the Twelve Chapters of Cyril
6. This confession of faith we have offered to you, containing thus from the evangelical and apostolic proclamations, by divine inspiration, the only true and right faith — which the three hundred and eighteen venerable fathers gathered at the Synod of Nicaea set forth; which also the one hundred and fifty equally venerable pontiffs who came together at the royal city followed. This also was followed by the fathers gathered at Ephesus, with the consent also of the most holy pope of the Apostolic See, Celestine, who condemned the sacrilegious Nestorius, prefixing a penalty against those who should attempt to set forth another faith — which Nestorius we also, together with Eutyches as sensing things contrary to those said above, condemn with the punishment of anathema, receiving those twelve chapters which Cyril of venerable memory, formerly archbishop of the church of Alexandria, wrote.
And we confess the only-begotten Son of God and God, who according to truth was made man, our Lord Jesus Christ — consubstantial with the Father according to the divinity, and the same one consubstantial with us according to the humanity: who descended and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit from Mary the Virgin, the Theotokos, that is, the Mother of God — one Son existing, not two. For we say that of one only-begotten Son of God are both the miracles and the sufferings, which He sustained in the flesh willingly for us. But those who divide or confound, or introduce some phantasy, we by no means receive: because that incarnation, which the Mother of God brought forth from herself according to truth, did not produce an addition to the Son. For the Trinity remained, even with the Word of God, who is one of the Trinity, made incarnate. These things therefore we have written, not innovating in the faith, but desiring to make satisfaction to you for the sake of concord. And every one who senses or shall sense otherwise, whether now or at any time, in any place or in any council, we strike with the punishment of anathema — but especially Nestorius and Eutyches and all who assent to them.
Chapter V: The Diptychs Question — The Legates Decline to Decide Without Papal Mandate
7. Your reverence therefore, receiving our faith, asserted that he would refer it to the prelate of the Roman church, Anastasius — and was reporting that he stood ready to make satisfaction to those whom we should send to him for this cause. He also asserted that against this faith Dioscorus, Timothy, and Peter, formerly archbishops of our city, had sensed, and that their names ought not to be reckoned in the diptychs. We on the contrary demanded that either persons be brought against them who would maintain and demonstrate such things; or, if none could be found who could convict them, that he would acquiesce when we had made satisfaction on their behalf — demonstrating and approving that our aforesaid fathers and archbishops Timothy, Dioscorus, and Peter had held this faith, taught it, and handed it on to all whom they had instructed. But your sanctity refused, saying that you had not been instructed by the pontiff of the Apostolic See to make this question.
Chapter VI: The Petition to Pope Anastasius II and Witness Before the Last Judgment
8. For the sake of this matter we adjure you before our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who was incarnate and born of the holy Mother of God Mary the Virgin, who freely approves and receives the concordant glorification and service of the faithful, and by His holy angels, and by this same immaculate faith which is concerning Him: that, coming to the city of Rome with the Lord’s favor, you may offer this little charter to the pontiff of the Apostolic See Anastasius — which has been offered to you in the person of the holy church of Alexandria — that his sanctity, reading it again, may deign to make manifest what shall please him, either by letters given to our most holy archbishop, or through some go-between. For when by his sanctity the confession of right faith, which has been established by the blessed fathers, has been preserved, we profess ourselves ready to send legates to the city of Rome who shall act on behalf of the unity of the holy churches of God.
9. We trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, that, His blessedness consenting to this faith, according to those things which are placed in the response, he may regard our peoples also as his own and bear solicitude for their governance, desiring according to God to be approved as useful to all. We have retained a copy of this little charter with us, holding it necessary, if any delay should occur which would prevent the unity of the holy churches from being effected, at that glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from the heavens, when He shall come to judge the living and the dead, before His tribunal, where there is no acceptance of persons, to assist with this for the refutation of those who have neglected the unity of the holy churches.
Footnotes
- ↩ Festus, a Roman senator, was at this same time at Constantinople as the envoy of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, sent to negotiate Theodoric’s recognition by the Emperor Anastasius. After Anastasius II’s death in November 498, Festus would become — in Thiel’s own words — gravissimi in Ecclesia schismatis auctor ac fautor praecipuus, the principal author and supporter of the Laurentian schism against Symmachus. The salutation thus captures, inadvertently, a moment six months before that schism began: Festus, Cresconius, and Germanus side by side at Constantinople, each working a related angle of the same negotiation.
- ↩ The Latin is simul cum ejus potestate directis — “sent together with his power.” The pronoun refers to Pope Anastasius II. Even the Alexandrian apocrisiarii, addressing the legates, recognize that the legates bear the pope’s potestas — that the pope’s authority is what the legation carries.
- ↩ Not Dioscorus the patriarch (deposed at Chalcedon, 451). The identification of this Dioscorus with the later disputed Pope/Antipope Dioscorus of 530 has been proposed but is not certain; the name and Alexandrian provenance match, but the dating is loose.
- ↩ The original libellus was Greek; per Thiel’s apparatus, when it reached Rome it was translated into Latin by Dionysius Exiguus. Apocrisiarii are accredited resident representatives of one church or see at another; the office is structurally similar to a papal nuncio in later usage. Dioscorus and Chaeremon are the resident representatives of the church of Alexandria at Constantinople, serving Patriarch Athanasius II of Alexandria (496–498), the successor of Peter Mongus in the Alexandrian see.
- ↩ The Petrine derivation of the Alexandrian church from Mark, Peter’s disciple, is the same theological premise Leo I had used in Letter IX (444/445) to Dioscorus of Alexandria: that Alexandrian tradition is Petrine tradition because it derives from Peter’s disciple. The premise is invoked here to ground a claim of historic concord between the two churches.
- ↩ The Latin is sanctissimus is, qui Romanae praesidebat ecclesiae, reverendissimum Alexandrinae civitatis archiepiscopum deligeret, ut sui curam loci susciperet. The historical claim — that the Roman bishop designated the Alexandrian archbishop to preside in his place at councils — is unusually strong. The reader should observe that this is the apocrisiarii’s own framing of the historical relation, offered to a papal legation as the basis for the present petition. Whatever the historical accuracy in detail, the rhetorical move is to acknowledge Roman precedence in the strongest form available: the Alexandrian patriarch acted as the Roman bishop’s designate in ambiguous matters.
- ↩ The accusation is that the Greek translation of Leo’s Tome presented to the Council of Chalcedon (451) had been corrupted by translators sympathetic to Nestorianism — Theodoret of Cyrus and his circle. Thiel’s footnote 5 records the textual difficulty with this claim: the same Theodoret had been formally vindicated at Chalcedon, and Leo’s Tome itself reflects no Nestorian corruption in any extant text. The reader should treat this claim as a rhetorical move: the Alexandrian apocrisiarii are recasting the schism as a translation problem rather than a doctrinal disagreement, and shifting the responsibility from Alexandrian Christology to alleged Nestorian translators.
- ↩ Per Thiel’s footnote 8, the obstruction Dioscorus and Chaeremon are about to describe involves John Talaja, the Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria who had been driven from Alexandria after Peter Mongus’s accession and had taken refuge at Rome. From the Henoticon-aligned perspective of the apocrisiarii, Talaja was a dissenter from “the right faith”; from a Catholic perspective, he was the legitimate Catholic claimant to the Alexandrian see whose protest at Rome was structurally the reason a Henoticon-aligned Alexandrian legation could not be received as in good standing.
- ↩ Photinus the deacon of Thessalonica appears in the Liber Pontificalis as the figure with whom Anastasius II is alleged to have communicated improperly — a charge later used to accuse the pope of compromising the Felix-Gelasius line. The libellus here gives the other side of the story: Photinus had reported to the Alexandrian apocrisiarii that the difficulty in Leo’s letters lay in the Greek translation, not in the Latin original; that the Roman pontiff had told him so; and that the Alexandrian objection was therefore (on this account) misplaced. The Photinus episode is one of the cruxes of the case the Symmachian party would later make against Anastasius II’s pontificate.
- ↩ Athanasius II of Alexandria (496–498), Peter Mongus’s successor and the patriarch on whose behalf the apocrisiarii are acting. Athanasius II is described later in the document as having circulated the formula and received approbatory rescripts from all parties consulted — a claim that, if accurate, would mean the Henoticon-aligned formula had broad reception among the Eastern bishops Athanasius could reach.
- ↩ The reader should observe carefully what this list contains and what it does not. Nicaea (325) is named. Constantinople I (381) is named. Ephesus (431) is about to be named, with credit given to Pope Celestine. The Council of Chalcedon (451) — the council that defined the two-natures formula and at which Leo’s Tome was received — is conspicuously absent. Leo’s Tome itself is not named. This is the Henoticon move: ground reunion on the first three councils alone, pass over Chalcedon in silence. The omission is the substantive doctrinal commitment of the document, not an accident.
- ↩ The Latin is annuente quoque sedis apostolicae papa sanctissimo Coelestino. Thiel’s footnote 15 notes that this clause does not appear in the Henoticon itself — it has been added ad gratiam sedis apostolicae captandam, “to capture the favor of the Apostolic See.” The acknowledgment of Pope Celestine’s consent to Ephesus 431 is rhetorically aimed at the Roman legates: it tells them that even on the Alexandrian formula, the Apostolic See’s role at the third ecumenical council is being acknowledged. This is genuine recognition of Roman authority at Ephesus, even if the wider rhetorical purpose is to skip past Chalcedon.
- ↩ The Twelve Chapters (or Twelve Anathemas) of Cyril of Alexandria, written against Nestorius around 430. The Council of Chalcedon (451) did not formally receive them; their reception became a marker of the Cyrillian and later Monophysite traditions. By naming them as a doctrinal standard, the apocrisiarii are aligning the Alexandrian profession with the Cyrillian-Monophysite line rather than with Chalcedon.
- ↩ The Greek theotokos is here transliterated and explicitly explained as Dei genitrice (“Mother of God” / “the one who bore God”). The title was the doctrinal point at issue at Ephesus 431; its use here, with explanatory gloss, is a substantive theological invocation, not a passing reference. The Marian title is invoked again in §8 in the closing oath: qui de sancta et Dei genitrice Maria virgine incarnatus et natus est.
- ↩ Dioscorus II of Alexandria (444–451; deposed at Chalcedon for his role at Ephesus II in 449); Timothy Aelurus (“the Cat,” 457–477, with interruptions; condemned by Rome as a Monophysite); and Peter Mongus (“the Stammerer,” 477, 482–489; condemned by Rome and central to the Acacian Schism). The apocrisiarii call them parentes nostri — “our fathers” — and ask that their names not be removed from the diptychs. The Roman position from Felix III through Hormisdas treated them either as condemned or as in communion with the condemned. The Roman legates’ refusal to commit on this question, narrated in the next sentence, is not procedural caution but substantive caution: the apocrisiarii are asking Rome to rehabilitate the Monophysite Alexandrian patriarchal line, and the legates know this is precisely the kind of question that must not be decided without explicit papal mandate.
- ↩ The Latin is vestra autem sanctitas renuit dicens, non sibi fuisse praeceptum ab apostolicae sedis antistite de his facere quaestionem. This sentence is the operative crux of the document for the question of papal authority. The papal legates, faced with a substantive Eastern petition concerning the diptychs of three Alexandrian patriarchs, decline to render judgment because they have not been instructed by the pope to do so. The reader should observe what this entails. The legates are bishops, not laymen; they are accredited representatives of the Apostolic See; they are at Constantinople in the very capacity of negotiating Eastern reconciliation; and they have a coherent Eastern petition before them. They could conceivably have rendered judgment. They refuse. They refuse because the matter has not been delegated to them by name — and only the pope can delegate it. The decision-rights for the diptychs question are reserved to the See itself, and the legates’ authority is precisely the authority delegated to them, no broader. This is the canonical principle on which papal jurisdiction operates concretely: legates exercise what they are commissioned to exercise; what they are not commissioned to exercise remains with the pope. The principle is being invoked here not by Rome to defend itself but by Rome’s legates, in good faith, in response to an Eastern request — and acknowledged by the Eastern petitioners themselves.
- ↩ The petition is precise about the channel. The libellus is to be carried to Rome and laid before the pope; the pope’s response is to be conveyed back to the Alexandrian archbishop either by letter or by personal envoy. The apocrisiarii are not asking the legates to decide; they are asking the legates to function as messengers — to deliver the document to the only authority who can decide. This is the same canonical structure that the legates’ refusal in §7 reflects: substantive judgment is the Apostolic See’s; the legation conveys.
- ↩ The Latin is velut proprios etiam nostros populos arbitretur, et pro eorum regimine sollicitudinem gerat — “may regard our peoples also as his own and bear solicitude for their governance.” The sollicitudo language picks up the same Pauline-papal idiom (cf. 2 Cor. 11:28) that runs through Leo, Felix III, Gelasius, and Anastasius II’s own correspondence as the defining term for the Roman bishop’s universal pastoral responsibility. The apocrisiarii are appealing to the Alexandrian people as falling within the Roman pontiff’s universal solicitude — even from a separated communion, the framework being invoked is the Roman bishop’s care for all the churches.
Historical Commentary