chapter 4

Letter-Types and Their Uses

As we noted in Chapter 1, it is now more common to speak of letter types,

forms and functions, rather than of genres.1 Following Morello and
Morrison,2 and others who have dismissed the possibility of classifying
any text as a single genre,3 we suggested that a more fruitful approach was
to ask why late antique writers wrote letters and what advantage there was
for cloaking other genres, for example dogmatic treatises, in the polyvalent
form and purpose of the letter. In this chapter we will first ask why the new
letter-forms that emerged in the early Christian period became so popular.
We have then divided them into groups according to the office of the
author: bishop, monk and emperor. Empresses will be treated separately in
Chapter 6 , in our discussion of letters to and by women.

Why Did Christians Adopt the Hybrid Letter-Form?

A great number of Christian letters offer moral advice, which lay outside
the remit of what letter-writers of the Graeco-Roman philosophical tradi-
tion had presumed until then, with one or two exceptions such as Horace’s
letters and Seneca’s epistulae morales. They offered a way to extend such
advice under the guise of Christian friendship. Conring has highlighted the
fact that the letter is a little-regulated genre (Gattung) which leaves the
writer with great freedom with respect to form and content.4 This freedom
of form made the letter the perfect medium for various kinds of instruc-
tion: the letters of Jerome, for instance, include scholarly essays, exegetical
and dogmatic works, admonitions or pamphlets in the form of open
letters, but all appear as letters in the ancient sense.5 The letter-form was

1
Sogno 2017: 2. 2 Morello and Morrison 2007: vi.
3
Fowler 1982: 24 and 181 dismisses the idea that Classical writers embraced ‘pure’ rather than mixed
genres. Frow 2015: 2, 25 argues that texts do not ‘belong’ rigidly to genres, a sentiment also found in
Fowler 1982: 20.
4
Conring 2001: 248. 5 Conring 2001: 249–50.

70

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 Episcopal Letters 71
flexible enough to cover a wide range of functions while also communicat-
ing the intimacy and community feel of a letter. It was also performative, in
that it strengthened existing bonds by speaking about them. As Conybeare
remarked in relation to the letter corpus of Paulinus of Nola: ‘[T]he
epistolary medium – its flexibility and its particular fusion of the public
and private spheres – is ideally suited to the development and enactment of
Paulinus’ ideas. Moreover, it had a special significance, both historically
and in the fourth century, for the creation and reinforcement of a sense of
community within the Christian Church.’6 The same holds true for each of
the epistolary authors studied below. We start with episcopal letters: these
include letters by ordinary bishops, conciliar letters, letters by monastic
bishops and the letters of bishops of Rome. There is obviously a great deal
of overlap between these categories. Papal decretals and other patristic
letters that were incorporated into canon law are treated separately as they
are sui generis. We then proceed to monastic letters and those that offer
spiritual direction, with a focus on the letters of Isidore of Pelusium (fifth
century) and of the Palestinian monastics Barsanuphius and John from the
first quarter of the sixth century. Finally, we treat briefly types of imperial
letter: those written to and from the imperial family and other royal
houses.7

Episcopal Letters
Letters from bishops to a range of correspondents, including laypersons of
influence and monastics, include letters of consolation,8 of recommenda-
tion and intervention,9 pastoral, admonitory, hortatory and polemical
letters and letters offering advice, discipline (enforcing canon law) and
friendship.10 Letters of collegiality and friendship will be considered in
Chapter 6.
Most bishops of the fourth to sixth centuries had a formal education
which included training in oratory and philosophy. Their letters therefore
show the hallmarks of Classical rhetoric, even while they devised new
functions for the epistolary form. Letters of consolation offered advice on

6
Conybeare 2000: 12.
7
See further the study of imperial letters as demonstrations of social networks in Chapter 6.
8
von Moos 1971–2; Luckensmeyer and Neil 2016 (and see Chapter 1).
9
Kim 1972; Cotton 1981.
10
Thirteen letter types were introduced in Allen and Neil 2013: 16–17: polemical, dogmatic, pastoral,
consolation, friendship, disciplinary, administrative, recommendations, advice, admonitions,
encouragement, decrees and judgements.

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 72 Letter-Types and Their Uses
managing grief, usually on the occasion of a bereavement or exile. Paul’s
first letter to the Thessalonians can be considered such a consolation,
offered advice to new Christians on the right attitude to death.11 In the
late fourth century, Gregory Nazianzen offered the following advice to
Philagrius on the occasion of a serious illness:12
[C]onsider this illness a profitable training – namely, to look down on the
body and bodily things, and on all that is fleeting and disturbing and passing
away, and so to become completely focused on what lies above, to live not
for this present world but for the world to come, making this life here what
Plato calls ‘a preparation for death,’ and loosing the soul, as far as possible,
from what, in his words, we call either its body or its prison. If you are
a philosopher about these things, my good friend, and live in this frame of
mind, you yourself will draw the greatest profit; and you will put our mind
at ease about you, and will teach ordinary people to become philosophers
about their sufferings. In addition, you will make no small gain – if this
should matter to you at all – in being admired by everyone.
Philagrius is described as ‘a person unusually well schooled in the things of
God’, who therefore should not experience the same feelings as ordinary
people.13 This letter shows a bishop drawing on a well-established tradition
of consolation from Stoic and Platonic philosophy.
Some bishops wrote from their own exiles to comfort their supporters in
their absence. Other consolations (and complaints) from exile include
those of Nestorius, first relegated to his monastery outside Antioch and
then exiled to Petra in Arabia and to the Western Oasis (el-Kharga) in
Egypt; then to Panopolis and Elephantine, on the fringe of Thebes.14 John
Chrysostom’s letters from exile to Olympias offer comfort and advice on
dealing with her depression.15 Severus of Antioch’s letters to his anti-
Chalcedonian supporters seek to continue the pastoral care that he offered
in person before being deposed and exiled.16 In the mid-seventh century,
Pope Martin I seems to console himself through the act of writing to his
Roman flock, whom he believes have abandoned him to his fate in
Cherson.17

11
Luckensmeyer and Neil 2016. See especially 1 Thess 4:13–5:11.
12
Ad Philagrium Ep. 31.3–6; Gallay 1964–7/1: 39.; tr. Daley 2006: 176.
13
Ep. 31.2; Gallay 1964–7/1: 39; tr. Daley 2006: 176.
14
In the course of his twenty years of exile Nestorius wrote a number of letters, two being conserved
and transmitted by Evagrius, HE 1.7. See Allen and Neil 2013: 53–5.
15
Mayer 2009 and 2010 explores the letters written by John in exile as an exercise in ‘crisis manage-
ment’. See also Delmaire 1991 and 2009a, cited below nn. 63–6.
16
Allen 1999. 17 Neil 2010 on the four letters of Pope Martin I, who died in exile in 654.

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 Conciliar Letters 73
Administrative letters of bishops pertained to the institutional running
of their churches, including clerical elections, property management and
related financial issues. Decrees were a subset of administrative letters of
bishops of Rome to another bishop (or bishops), that were later taken to
have universal application in the western church. Admonitions instructed
their recipients on a disciplinary or doctrinal matter, using threats of
spiritual punishment in order to ensure compliance. Letters of encourage-
ment or hortation were similar, but with an emphasis on spiritual reward
for compliance. Both admonitions and hortations could be addressed to
other bishops or to the imperial family. Similarly, the rather rare letter of
judgement – a pronouncement of deposition from clerical office and/or
excommunication – was reserved for wayward clergy, heretics (clerical, lay
or monastic) and imperial family members. Polemical letters refuted
paganism or other religions, especially in our period Judaism, while dog-
matic letters dealt with disagreements over Christian doctrine, usually
defined as heresy.
The largest group of episcopal letters was pastoral, offering advice on
spiritual matters to non-clergy. Pastoral care included concern for the
physical as well as the spiritual needs of the members of a bishop’s
congregation.18 We return below to pastoral concerns in administrative
letters, a hybrid type, after a brief treatment of episcopal letters that have
been transmitted in the proceedings of church councils.

Conciliar Letters
As mentioned in Chapter 1, letters transmitted in the acta of councils
dominate in the correspondence under consideration. These encompass
influential letter-writers, such as Leo of Rome, Cyril of Alexandria and
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, as well as a range of lesser figures who made
submissions to church councils from all over the later Roman empire.
These included both ecumenical councils, which aimed to have universal
representation from bishops or their delegates across the empire, to rela-
tively small local synods, which met annually to discuss regional affairs. We
have noted that many of these compositions were included in the council
record for their dogmatic and polemical potential, meaning that these two
letter-types also overlap with other types, as we saw in the case of admin-
istrative letters. Such doctrinal and conciliar letters could be co-opted for
liturgical use, being read aloud for the edification of the faithful,19 and were

18 19
Allen and Mayer 2000. See Alpi 2009a.

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 74 Letter-Types and Their Uses
frequently employed for diplomatic purposes, when a mission required
a brief history of previous correspondence.20
Let us start with letters from the losing side, those condemned as here-
tical at various councils, including ecumenical gatherings of bishops from
across the western and eastern parts of the Late Roman empire. From Arius
we have only a few letters, transmitted through various channels, and from
Nestorius we have about eighteen letters (CPG 5665–82), many of which
are fragmentary, as is the case with the remnants of other dissenting voices
in our survey of letters. Alexander of Hierapolis (Mabbug), a follower of
Nestorius, wrote many letters in defence of their position regarding the
first Council of Ephesus (431) and of Alexander’s opposition to the agree-
ment reached between Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch in 433, but
only about twenty-eight pieces have come down to us, all transmitted by
conciliar acta (CPG 6392–31). A completely different case of a dissenting
epistolographical voice is that of Severus, anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of
Antioch from 512 to 518, who spent twenty years in Egypt after his exile in
518 and whose considerable epistolary legacy has come down to us almost
entirely in early Syriac translations. The fact that Severus’ works in the
original Greek (of which language he seems to have been a master) were
consigned to the flames after his condemnation by imperial edict in 536
clearly did not impede their transmission in translation, and we have about
250 of his letters, as well as many fragments (CPG 7070, 7071).21 Severus’
successor as leader of the anti-Chalcedonian church in the East was
Theodosius of Alexandria (535–66), an influential and active churchman
from whom only about twenty letters survive in Syriac translation.22 The
patchy transmission we have outlined for the East holds true also for the
West, as we can see in the case of the so-called heretic Priscillian, who died
in 385 and is survived by only one fragmentary letter (CPL 787); by the
unpopular Julian of Eclanum, fragments of whose letters survive in the
works of his opponent Augustine (CPL 775); and the letters of Pelagius,
who was considered a heretic, which total only eleven (CPL 737–47).
In this section we have already touched on the correspondence of Cyril
of Alexandria and Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Now it is time to look more
closely at the dogmatic and polemical aspects of what they wrote in this
form.
Cyril’s dogmatic and polemical letters are primarily concerned with the
Council of Ephesus (431) and the controversy about Nestorius and his

20
Gillett 2003, 2012b; Allen 2017. 21 See further Allen 1999: 388–91; Allen and Hayward 2004.
22
CPG 7134–5, 7138–49. For the background to Theodosius’ patriarchate see Allen 2013c.

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 Conciliar Letters 75
doctrine of the Christ-bearer (Christotokos). We have a rich harvest of these
pieces, which was used for centuries in many ways. The most important of
these letters for our purposes here are the second and third letters to
Nestorius23 and the first and second letters to Succensus, bishop of
Diocaesarea in Isauria.24 The second letter to Nestorius is an attack on
those who do not espouse the definition of the Council of Nicaea (325), and
the third letter, as previously remarked, is important for having at its end
Cyril’s twelve anathemata or chapters, which he insists Nestorius must
follow. These anathemata were approved not only at the Council of
Ephesus in 431 but also at the Council of Chalcedon in 451:
These are the views we have been taught to hold both by the holy apostles
and evangelists and by inspired Scripture in its entirety and from the true
confession of the blessed fathers. Your Piety must assent to all this and give it
your entire unfeigned concurrence. What your Piety must anathematise, is
set down here in our letter.25
In his two letters to Bishop Succensus, about whom we otherwise know
little, Cyril expounds his views on the two natures in Christ, and sets
himself against the Antiochene theologian, Diodore of Tarsus (ep. 1), while
distancing himself from the views of Apollinaris of Laodicaea. The second
letter, although shorter, ranges more widely across christological issues,
including that of Christ’s sufferings in the flesh (theopaschitism).
If Cyril’s twelve anathemata against Nestorius received acclaim, it was
not universal. Theodoret of Cyrrhus wrote a work refuting them (CPG
6214), and in turn was rebutted by the bishop of Alexandria (CPG 5222). In
a letter to Domnus, bishop of Antioch (442–49), Theodoret (ep. 112)
polemicises against the ‘poison’ of the twelve chapters, their author and
their subsequent defender, Dioscorus, Cyril’s successor in Alexandria.
According to the bishop of Cyrrhus, the twelve anathemata contain the
doctrines of Apollinaris and have been found so by many bishops of the
East. The next letter in the collection (ep. 113) is addressed to Leo I, bishop
of Rome. After an unctuous overture in which Theodoret lauds the glory of
Rome and Leo’s christological doctrine, he continues with polemic against
Dioscorus of Alexandria and the treatment he has received at the hand of
the latter, demonstrating his own orthodoxy and opposition to Arians,
Eunomians and others. He argues against the deposition handed to him by
the Council of Ephesus. In a similar vein, in a long letter to the monks at

23
Epp. 4 and 17; CPG 5304, 5317. Schwartz 1927 [ACO 1.1.1]: 25–8 and 33–42; tr. Wickham 1983: 2–33.
24
Epp. 45 and 46; CPG 5345, 5346. Schwartz 1928 [ACO 1.1.6]: 151–62; tr. Wickham 1983: 70–93.
25
Schwartz 1927: 151–62; tr. Wickham 1983: 29.

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 76 Letter-Types and Their Uses
Constantinople (ep. 146 [CXLV]) composed possibly in 451, Theodoret
defends his doctrinal position and protests his innocence against his
calumniators.

Administrative Letters
From administrative letters, we can surmise that a large amount of episco-
pal attention was taken up with the management and maintenance of
property including churches and monasteries and their furnishings and
slaves. As administrative duties increased, so did the need to archive related
correspondence.
In the case of Rome, such correspondence was archived together with
wills, property deeds and other legal documents in the scrinium. The
administration of papal estates was a major focus of bishops of Rome in
the fifth and sixth centuries, as a letter of Gelasius I (492–96) illustrates:
Gelasius to the managers of the city
It is settled that you (pl.) have put in an amount of 30 solidi of gold to
church accounts out of the payment from the farm of Clacula which you
(sing.) hold on the basis of the farming title, concerning the produce during
the year of the consulship of the viri clarissimi Asterius and Praesidius, in the
third indiction. I signed on the fifth Kalends of August (28 July 495), while
the vir clarissimus Flavius was consul.26
Sometimes the pastoral and the administrative side overlapped in late
antique letters, as the interventions of two bishops will illustrate. The
first concerns the pastoral care by Theodoret of Cyrrhus of asylum-
seekers and refugees who had fled North Africa in the wake of the
Vandal invasion and had ended up in Syria. The bishop wrote no fewer
than twelve letters (and many others may be missing) in which he takes the
side of those in need by writing to highly placed officials, ecclesiastics and
sophists on their behalf.27 Here there is also overlap with the letter of
recommendation/introduction. An example of this is the case of the
Libyan girl Maria, whom Theodoret gave into the care of a deacon, until
he wrote for her a letter of safe passage addressed to a bishop on the coast,
explaining the girl’s plight and entrusting him with her return to her family
in Libya (ep. 70). Other examples from the non-religious sphere are the
episcopal letters of introduction to prospective employers carried by itin-
erant farm labourers, as for instance in late Roman Gaul.28

26 27
Ep. 31; Thiel 1867: 447–8; tr. Neil and Allen 2014: 139. Allen and Neil 2013: 61–66.
28
Grey 2004.

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 Decretals 77
Evidence of pastoral concern can be found in the correspondence of
Sidonius (ep. 6.4) to Bishop Lupus of Troyes, a churchman who had
persuaded Attila the Hun to spare his city in 451. Having overcome some-
what the cloying subservience that he had expressed in a previous letter to
Lupus (ep. 6.1), Sidonius here presents the plight of a kinswoman of the
letter-bearers, to the effect that the woman had been abducted by barbar-
ians and sold into slavery. The purchaser of the merchandise is apparently
a resident of Troyes, and accordingly Sidonius requests Lupus to meet the
parties face-to-face in order to remedy the situation before charges are
brought before the bishop’s court (audientia episcopalis). We have no reply
from Lupus and no indication of whether the case was resolved.
As the number of administrative letters produced in the see of Rome
increased, archiving them securely for future reference became an impor-
tant concern. The notarius of the regions was one of the most important
offices in the papal administration. Gregory the Great (590–604) was the
first to organise his secretaries (notarii) into a college (schola), with one for
each region of Rome, and many of them performed the office of envoy or
letter-bearer as well.29 Several notarii regionarii assisted at the Lateran
Synod of 649, producing letters in Latin and Greek to be excerpted as
proof texts or testimonies to the issue under the discussion: the con-
demnation of monothelitism. Two notarii regionarii are named in the
acta: Paschal and Anastasius. This synod was apparently led by the new
pope Martin I (649–53) but in fact seems to have been run by the circle of
the Greek monk and champion of dyothelitism, Maximus the Confessor
(d. 662), which perhaps explains why so many of the letters adduced at
this synod were originally Greek. The whole proceedings had to be
rendered in both languages, Latin and Greek, even the letters.

Decretals
Decretals were a subset of administrative letter. In the eastern part of the
Roman empire, ecclesiastical and imperial (state) laws, issued in letter
form, were known as nomocanons. They had a combined function that
was at once administrative, disciplinary and pastoral. The first collection of
nomocanons was attributed to John of Skythopolis, who combined eighty-
seven extracts pertaining to the church from Justinian’s Novellae with the
canons of church councils up to his day (c. 550). Photius compiled a major
collection of nomocanons in 883,30a revised version of the seventh-century

29 30
Byrne 2003: 780. Taylor 1990: 61.

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 78 Letter-Types and Their Uses
Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, compiled under Emperor Heraclius (610–
41). Accompanying the nomocanons were selections from the letters of
important Greek bishops, such as Basil of Caesarea, whose three canonical
letters to Amphilochius of Iconium deal with questions about the canons
from along the same lines as those answered in later Roman decretals about
the rules for penance, ordination, baptism and sexual ethics.31
Such mixed collections of ecclesiastical canons and state laws did not
exist in the West, although Dionysius Exiguus placed them side by side
with western canons in his Collectio Dionysiana, a selection of papal
pronouncements on subjects pertaining to ecclesiastical law and clerical
discipline. This collection from the early sixth century is well known as one
of the earliest witnesses to Roman canon law. It was made up of canons and
extracts from papal letters, known as decretals. The production of the
Collectio Dionysiana, usually studied in isolation, should be located within
the context of Dionysius’ larger project, the Liber Decretorum. Dionysius’
rationale for including this selection of early papal decretals, especially the
General Decree (one of two decretal letters of Gelasius I which had lasting
impact and are studied further below, ‘Decretals’) in the pontificate of
Hormisdas (514–23) probably had to do with the Acacian schism and his
wish to bring peace between the warring factions of Rome and the eastern
churches.32
Unlike other community letters, such as the genuine letters of the
apostle Paul and the deutero-Pauline letters, papal letters offer no personal
information, no pastoral care except doctrinal advice, and contain no sign-
off (subscriptio). They are written in a lofty and often legalistic tone, using
the first person plural reminiscent of imperial directives. The shorter
directives were increasingly modelled upon edicts of the imperial chancery,
such as Emperor Trajan’s rescript to the governor Pliny the Younger on
how to deal with the new Christian sect, which Pliny calls ‘a bad and
extravagant superstition’.33 The language was juristic and authoritative and
emphasised the command of the author over the reader.34 This has been
demonstrated in the case of decretal letters of Innocent I and Leo I, or their
chanceries.35 Decretals from bishops of Rome originated as responses to
queries from individual bishops, which were later taken to have universal

31
Courtonne 1957–61/2003/2: 120–31 (ep. 188), 154–64 (ep. 199) and 208–17 (ep. 217).
32
As argued in Neil 2013.
33
Pliny, ep. 96.6, c. 112 ce. See Moreau 2010: 493–4 on the legal terminology, structure and use of royal
plurals in papal decretals of the fourth and fifth centuries.
34
See Jasper and Fuhrmann 2001: 12–19, with bibliography.
35
See Dunn 2015b on Innocent; Pietrini 2002 on Leo.

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 Decretals 79
application. Their status as decretals was thus a gradual evolution, owed in
large part to their preservation in mediaeval canon law collections. Like the
deutero-Pauline letters,36 letters attributed to bishops of Rome were not
necessarily written by them. Rather, they were often the work of their
deputies, usually deacons, who dictated to scribes, as did bishops
themselves.37 Since the next pope was usually chosen from the diaconate,
this system had the advantage of preparing papal successors for their letter-
writing duties ahead of time.38
Although Gelasius was not the first pope to issue decretals, he gave the
first definition of a decretal in ep. 42, his index of acceptable and forbidden
books, when he wrote: ‘Likewise, (to be accepted are) the decretal letters
which the most blessed popes sent at different times from the city of Rome,
for the consultation of diverse Fathers, are to be taken up with respect.’39
Books permitted to be read by Christians included the Acts of the ecume-
nical councils of Nicaea, Ephesus and Chalcedon, Ep. 28 of Leo I to Flavian
and the decretals of previous bishops of Rome. Gelasius here treats the
precepts of ancient canons and papal writings as equally binding, referring
to them both as ‘canons’, and this understanding was to persist from the
sixth century onwards. The bulk of ep. 42 (chapters 4–9) was reproduced
by Pope Hormisdas (514–23) and is discussed below. It was henceforth
included in almost every collection of canon law and became normative by
the time of its inclusion in the collection of Gratian in the mid-eleventh
century.40
In his second decretal letter (ep. 14.1), the General Decree, addressed to
the bishops of Italy, Gelasius again insisted on the authority of patristic
tradition. The letter was issued on 11 March 494, shortly after the triumph
of Theodoric in Italy. It seeks to lay out ecclesiastical law and also strays
into some areas of civil law. We can see Gelasius’ lofty conception of
Roman authority within the church hierarchy in his closing statement:
But by all means every single pontiff will be the destroyer of his own rank
and office if he should think that these matters are to be kept from any one
of the clergy or from the hearing of the whole church.41

36
Elmer 2015: 38: ‘So, it seems that we have less than what Paul wrote and, of those letters we do have,
Paul wrote less than what is attributed to him. This observation alone testifies to the communal
nature of the enterprise focused on the preservation, redaction and collection of Paul’s letters.’
37
E.g. Gregory I of Rome, ep. 5.26, Norberg 1982/1: 293, records that Gregory dictated this letter to his
secretary (notarius) Paterius, to be written out by him: hanc autem epistolam Paterio notario ecclesiae
nostrae scribendam dictauimus. See Ertl 1938 and Pollard 2013 on the papal use of secretaries.
38
Pollard 2013: 300. 39 Ep. 42.3; Thiel 1867: 458; tr. ours. 40 Jasper and Fuhrmann 2001: 65.
41
Ep. 14.28; Thiel 1867: 379; tr. ours.

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 80 Letter-Types and Their Uses
In his pronouncements on a variety of matters of discipline in the General
Decretal, he makes frequent reference to the ancient canons of the church,
while allowing for relaxations of these rules according to the situation, such
as an acute lack of clergy.42 The following example illustrates the point:
Due deference to the ordinances of old remains, which it is appropriate to
observe in accordance with the rules when there is no pressing emergency to
do with circumstances or the times.43
Referring to the ordination of illiterates, amputees or deserters, he rules:
Together the ancient tradition and the olden-time formulation of the
apostolic see do not admit this.44
Concerning those who have castrated themselves, the canons of the
Fathers have clearly set down what ought to be followed.45
Any deserter . . . will not escape the ordinances of the revered canons.46
Gelasius notes in section 3 that a layman’s suitability should be investigated
more carefully in regard to his character and lifestyle than is prescribed for
monks; but later states that neither monks or laypersons should be
exempted from the rules governing ordination unless the times demanded
it.47 Other matters under discussion included the marriage of previously
consecrated virgins; clergy who have broken their vow of celibacy or
committed theft; clergy who have charged for baptism or confirmation;
as well as lay offences. For instance, the re-marriage of seculars was allowed,
but twice-married people could not enter the clergy; widows should not be
veiled.
The authors of decretals did not claim to be original: in fact it was better if
they could prove that their rulings had been issued before. Pope Innocent’s
influence can be traced in Gelasius’ General Decretal (ep. 14.6), which limited
priests from performing chrism or confirmation, which were both tasks of
the bishop. The separation of roles of priests and bishops meant that the first
anointing at baptism and the second anointing of confirmation were sepa-
rated in time, sometimes for an extended period. Innocent had made
a similar ruling in 416, in his letter to Decentius of Gubbio, which later
became a decretal: ‘For whether the bishop is present or not, presbyters are
allowed to anoint the baptized with chrism. But they are not allowed to sign

42
Neil 2019 analyses Gelasius’ theory of law and his views on the relationship between ecclesiastical
canons and secular laws.
43 44
Ep. 14.2; Thiel 1867: 362; tr. ours. Ep. 14.16; Thiel 1867: 371; tr. ours.
45
Ep. 14.17; Thiel 1867: 372; tr. ours. 46 Ep. 14.23; Thiel 1867: 375; tr. ours.
47
Ep. 14.3; Thiel 1867: 363; Ep. 14.24; Thiel 1867: 375: ‘in the event that it is proved not to be a question
of any exigency’. Tr. ours.

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 Decretals 81
the forehead with the same oil consecrated by the bishop, for that is used by
the bishops only when they give the Spirit’.48 Gelasius’ General Decretal was
a convenient collection of all previous rulings plus a few new ones, and was
the last of its kind.49 Before Innocent, we have only one Roman decretal that
was later taken to have universal application, whether or not that was the
author‘s intention: in 386 Pope Siricius (384–99) addressed a letter to the
bishops of Hispania and Gallia in answer to questions put to Siricius’
predecessor Damasus by Himerius, bishop of Tarragon.50 As Moreau
notes, however, the beginnings of the legislative power of the Roman see
began with Damasus.51
In the case of Hormisdas, it is likely that the papal archive (scrinium) was
a major source for the letters and replies from his many correspondents that
are contained in the Collectio Avellana, collated in Italy in the sixth
century.52 The Hormisdas collection is found alongside letters from
other bishops of Rome and responses written from the fourth century up
to 535.53 Its five sections seem to have been compiled at different times with
varying rationales; the fourth, containing the Hormisdan letters, is the
largest section and comprises community letters to do with the Acacian
schism.54 Even though papal decretals were no longer being produced or
collected as general sources on church discipline or teachings, mediaeval
collators continued to excerpt these decretals and copy them assiduously,
well into the twelfth century, reassigning them to different papal authors
and adding forgeries where it suited their purposes.55 The use that was
made of papal letters in later ages may well have been at odds with the
original intentions of the sixth-century collators. Access to the papal
archive of imperial and other correspondences encouraged scribes to
model their letters on imperial examples.
While only a few papal letters were classified as ‘decretals’, the following
characteristics are common to both: first, they establish lines of authority,
either through citation of their adherence to past church councils,

48
Ep. 25.3; PL 20: 551–61; tr. Connell 2010: 28. See Dunn 2015a on the transmission of Innocent’s
letters, including this one, in early canon law collections.
49
Jasper and Fuhrmann 2001: 59.
50
Ferreiro 2015: 81–2 argues that it was not Siricius’ intention that the letter have universal significance
as the author of Liber Pontificalis 40, claims; Duchesne and Vogel 1955–7/1: 216. See also Blaudeau
2015.
51
Moreau 2010: 498.
52
Günther 1895/2: 495–743 (Coll. Av. 105–243). The contents are listed in Günther 1895/1: IX–XIV.
53
Kéry 1999: 37–38.
54
On the schism and its reflection in the letters of the Collectio Avellana see Blaudeau 2013.
55
Kéry 1999 and Jasper and Fuhrmann 2001 are the best surveys of the complex manuscript tradition of
these collections.

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 82 Letter-Types and Their Uses
ecumenical and local, or through their adherence to the teachings or
positions or practices of previous bishops of Rome, especially the apostle
Peter, primus inter pares; second, they contain veiled or explicit threats of
punishment for non-compliance; third, they cite imperial support; and
fourth, they use imperial epistolary language and forms of address. Fifth,
they request broader circulation, and sometimes also demand that councils
be held to ratify their pronouncements. They also commonly attach
sources, or chains of sources, and sometimes recycle previous papal letters.
We find almost all these features evidenced by a single example: ep. 125 of
Hormisdas (514–23). This letter shows the influence of papal letter-writers
of note from the previous century, especially Innocent I (401/2–17), Leo
I (440–61) and Gelasius (492–96), who also used their letters to oppose
heresy.56 Hormisdas’ letter was simply a reissue of Gelasius’ work On Books
to be Accepted and not Accepted (De libris accipiendis et non accipiendis). The
transmission of this community letter of Hormisdas is significant because it
deals with the composition of the western canon. To Gelasius’ list of those
readings other than Scripture which were acceptable for Christian reading
(ep. 125), he added a list of canonical Old Testament and New Testament
books. The lack of distinction between heretical and apocryphal books is
an interesting feature of the original decretal of Gelasius. Its redaction by
Hormisdas demonstrates that the third category of books that are ‘improv-
ing for the soul’ had contracted to just a few works by the early sixth
century. François Bovon has recently made a plea for recognition of this
third category by contemporary scholars,57 since a strict dichotomy
between ‘canonical’ and ‘non-canonical’ usually relegates apocryphal
works to non-canonical status. Hormisdas’ account of the western canon
comprises Scripture, the orthodox patristic tradition, the canonical church
councils and a few other works acceptable for reading by the Roman
church, and thus the whole church.
Hormisdas’ declaration of the scriptural canon was hardly original, or
necessary, largely conforming as it did to the Athanasian pronouncement
made 150 years earlier in his festal letter for 367 (ep. 39) and to the similar
list pronounced at the Synod of Carthage in 397. In line with that North
African synod, Hormisdas’ only change from Athanasius was to move
several ‘historical’ books (now judged ‘apocryphal’) from those to be read
with profit by Christians new to the faith into the Old Testament

56
Regarding papal letters opposing heresy, see Dunn 2015b on Innocent; Neil 2012 on Leo; Neil and
Allen 2014: 31–46 on Gelasius; Demacopoulos 2013a and Sessa 2012. See also Neil and Allen 2020.
57
Bovon 2012.

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 Pastoral Letters 83
canon.58 In respect to the books he condemned, Hormisdas was similarly
conservative. His single addition to the list of works rejected by Gelasius
was The Canons of the Apostles (ep. 125.10). Hormisdas omitted only one
work judged apocryphal by Gelasius: The Repentance of St Cyprian, and
slightly changed the names of three others. Erring on the side of caution,
as he admits, he rejected conspicuous forgeries and pseudepigrapha,
which included the letters of King Abgar V to Jesus and Jesus’s reply,
mentioned by Eusebius and the holy land pilgrim Egeria; and the
spurious correspondence between Seneca and the apostle Paul.
His list of recommended reading was, by contrast, very small: the
writings of approved Fathers, especially previous popes; the canons of
approved councils; and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
This decretal letter was intended to reinforce Roman ecclesiastical author-
ity by borrowing from the canon of tradition. None of it was new; and that
was probably the point.
With the exception of his epp. 125 and 25, the great age of papal
decretals was over by Hormisdas’ day.59 Hormisdas addressed his other
decretal (ep. 25) to the bishops of Spain, this letter of Hormisdas gave
instructions on three matters of discipline: first, that ordinations be
conducted according to the canons; second, that bribes should not be
accepted in return for a bishopric; third, that a council should be held
every year. Hormisdas began his instructions with the usual appeal to the
tradition of his predecessors: ‘As for the ordination of priests, you should
understand what was prescribed and defined by the Fathers . . . ’60 The
absence of other Hormisdan decretals in later collections points to the
declining influence of the bishops of Rome over the western church from
the sixth century onwards. From this time, papal letters were no longer
collected as general sources on church discipline or teachings.

Pastoral Letters
Episcopal pastoral letters were not exactly a new letter-form but
a combination of several existing genres including friendship letters, con-
solation letters and others. They offered spiritual direction for individuals
and/or for the wider public. Thus they are rightly called community
letters.61
58
These books were Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther, Judith and Tobit, alongside the two books
of Maccabees, which were already considered apocryphal.
59
Jasper and Fuhrmann 2001: 59. 60 Ep. 25.1; Thiel 1867: 789; tr. ours.
61
Elmer 2015 used the term ‘community documents’ for the Pauline letters; see also Edsall 2018.

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 84 Letter-Types and Their Uses
Basil of Caesarea was the author of pastoral letters even before he became
a bishop. These are treated below under Monastic Letters. His vituperation
towards heretics and anyone else who contested his authority was legend-
ary. In ep. 115, addressed to ‘the heretic Simplicia’, whose heresy, if any, is
unknown to us: ‘You have stirred up lizards and toads against us, spring-
time animals no doubt, but nevertheless unclean. But a bird will come
from on high to feed on them.’62 This cryptic statement is preceded not so
much by spiritual instruction as by Basil’s warning to Simplicia that the last
judgement is coming and that he knows better than she does because he is
not strangled by the thorns of heresy.
The letters of John Chrysostom from exile evince a pronounced pastoral
care,63 although during that time (404–7) the exiled bishop suffered
regularly from health problems.64 His care is particularly evident in the
case of his adherents – including his patron, the influential deacon
Olympias – who were experiencing difficulties in Constantinople follow-
ing his disgrace.65 During this same period John also arranged for mis-
sionaries to be despatched to Phoenicia and kept a watching brief on them
from afar.66
In his letters Augustine displays pastoral concern for those who have
gone over to the Donatists. In addition he writes specifically in answer to
various people who approach him for spiritual advice, one being the
scrupulous Publicola (ep. 46), who presents the bishop with a list of
eighteen topics on which he seeks pastoral advice. Augustine duly replies
(ep. 47), attempting to allay the man’s scruples. Ep. 143 to Marcellinus, who
had a philosophical and literary background, contains Augustine’s answer
to him on the subject of free will and original sin, topics which Marcellinus
must have enquired about in two lost letters. A lost letter from the would-
be ascetic Ecdicia is answered in pastoral terms by the bishop of Hippo (ep.
262), who points out to her that embracing continence and voluntary
poverty against her husband’s wishes, as well as donning widow’s garb,
needs to be sorted out with her spouse.
We should not pass over the letters of bishops Gregory Nazianzen,67
Gregory of Nyssa (one of whose thirty letters is also ascribed to the former
Gregory)68 and Paulinus of Nola,69 many of which contain points of
spiritual direction but are not dedicated to the subject.

62
Courtonne 1957–61/2003/2: 20.13–15; tr. Allen 2014: 189.
63
On this corpus of letters see Delmaire 1991: 71–180. 64 Delmaire 2009a: 290.
65
Delmaire 1991: 173. 66 Delmaire 1991: 173–4. 67 Storin 2017.
68
Radde-Gallwitz 2017: 103. 69 Trout 2017; Perrin 1992.

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 Monastic Letters 85
Festal Letters
Festal letters (epistolai heortastikai) were an Alexandrian phenomenon,
which may be considered a hybrid of letters of intervention and hortation.
Often accompanied by gifts, they were issued on the occasion of a great
feast, especially Easter or on the feast of a martyr.70 The Easter practice
arose out of the Alexandrian responsibility for announcing to the rest of the
church the correct date for the celebration of Easter.71 Later they also
announced the beginning of Lent, forty days before Easter, and encouraged
spiritual preparations for the new fast, introduced to Alexandria after 330
and made compulsory by 347.72 The earliest known paschal letter was that
of Dionysius of Alexandria, preserved in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History
7.20. The best-known festal letters were issued by the patriarchs Peter I,73
the great defender of Nicene orthodoxy Athanasius, Theophilus,74 and his
nephew Cyril.75 The practice continued as late as the ninth century.76
Banev notes that traditionally in Alexandria the Festal Letters were used in
place of sermons and read out to large congregations on major feasts in the
liturgical year such as Epiphany.77 As well as providing moral instruction,
letters of this type were also used to address polemical concerns, the most
famous exemplum being Athanasius’ paschal letter of 367 (ep. 39), in which
he circulated his nominations for the canon of New Testament books.78
On the occasion of martyrs’ or other saints’ feasts, bishops outside Egypt
might exchange letters of encouragement, thanksgiving and/or spiritual
reproof. Evidence of such festal letters, as well as paschal letters, survives
from Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen and
Theodoret of Cyrrhus.79

Monastic Letters
Monastic letters typically offer spiritual direction (among other things) to
men and to women. Their addressees included laypersons and monastics,
as well as bishops. Moving now to monastic letters of a mystical character,

70
Calvet-Sebasti 2009: 77–79. On gifts see further the Epilogue to this volume.
71
Brok 1951: 101; Külzer 1998. 72 Brok 1951: 101 n. 3. 73 Brok 1951: 101.
74
On Theophilus’ use of such letters to convey his anti-Origenist views, see Banev 2015: 50, 62–80,
150. Banev 2015: 79 notes that in spite of their rhetorical sophistication these letters can appear to
a modern reader ‘tedious to read’.
75
Évieux 1991–98. Évieux 1991–98/3 contains Festal Letters 12–17 from 424 to 429, focusing on
trinitarian theology against Arius and on christology, the last being probably his first writing against
Nestorius. On political topics addressed in Cyril’s festal letters see Allen 2010b.
76
Brok 1951: 102. 77 Banev 2015: 150. 78 Brakke 1994 and 2010.
79
Calvet-Sebasti 2009: 68–77.

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 86 Letter-Types and Their Uses
we come to one of the foundational spiritual writers in the period under
discussion, namely Evagrius of Pontus (d. 399), who at one stage belonged
to the circle of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen. The Evagrian
letters are transmitted in Syriac and Armenian translations, as well as in
fragments in the Greek original.80 The fact that his person was condemned
by Emperor Justinian in 553 could not impede the enduring influence of
the esoteric philosophy in his letters, as demonstrated, for example, in the
works of Maximus the Confessor. This philosophy was offered in the guise
of spiritual direction to other monks, a type of letter common to other
ascetics of the late fourth century, including Jerome, who wrote from his
monastery in Bethlehem to several consecrated Roman elites with words of
spiritual advice. Many of his addressees were women who had given him
financial support in return for spiritual guidance. One such was the patron
of his monastery Paula (see e.g. ep. 46), whose eldest daughter, Blesilla, had
died as a young woman from over-enthusiastic fasting for the sake of
Christ. Jerome wrote an epistolary epitaph on the unfortunate young
woman, which doubled as spiritual advice to her mother and the other
grieving family members she left behind.81 Paula the Elder received at least
twenty-two letters from Jerome and wrote a letter of spiritual guidance to
her friend and fellow ascetic Marcella. Jerome wrote to Asella, a virgin in
Marcella’s household in Rome, and to Paula’s daughter Eustochium.
Many bishops were also monastic, and their letters reflect their focus on
ascetic concerns. We mentioned above Basil of Caesarea (d. 379). From the
monk-turned-bishop, we have several surviving letters that deal with
pastoral and spiritual topics. Ep. 22, written in 364 with no addressee(s)
specified although it can be assumed that they were his own monks, is
a long spiritual manifesto or set of ‘commandments’ dealing with the
perfection of the monastic life, but it has also more general applications
for all Christians. The following letter (ep. 23 as is it is numbered in the
collection), written while he was not yet a bishop, according to the title in
the manuscripts contains advice to a monk, but it appears that Basil had all
his monks in mind. Basil addressed epp. 44 and 45 to monks who had fallen
by the wayside, and the long, scathing ep. 46 to a female monastic, whom
he accused as follows:
You have broken the yoke of this divine intimacy (sc. with Christ), you have
fled the pure bridal chamber of the true king, you have fallen disgracefully

80
See in detail Darling Young 2017: 166–71.
81
Cain 2013: 119 points out that many elements of that epitaph (ep. 39) were recycled in Paula’s
encomium twenty years later, in 404.

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 Monastic Letters 87
into this dishonourable and sacrilegious corruption, and because you do not
know how to escape from this sharp accusation, and do not have any means
or ploy to hide this terrible deed, you are proceeding to an outrage.82
Similarly, Gregory the Great (590–604) was a practising ascetic before he
became bishop of Rome, much against his will. A large corpus of over 854
letters survives from the papal archives and from other smaller collections kept
by his addressees. Gregory’s epistolary spiritual direction is best illustrated in
his correspondence with Augustine of Canterbury, whom he had sent to Kent
to convert the Anglo-Saxons and found an English church. Although this
correspondence follows the typical spiritual father/spiritual discipline model, it
was complicated by the fact that Augustine was himself spiritual father to the
monks who had accompanied him on his mission team.83 Gregory’s letters to
Augustine contained the usual warnings against spiritual pride,84 but also
recommended the pastoral principle of condescensio (accommodation),
which he outlines in his Responsa, a response to the pastoral problems faced
by Augustine. The Responsa, a lengthy letter between bishops in the question-
and-answer tradition also employed by Augustine of Hippo and Leo of
Rome,85 among others, is preserved only in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History 1.27,
but should be considered authentically Gregorian.86
Some of Gregory’s letters cover more than one base, being both pastoral
in a monastic sense and administrative in a way that is more typical of
episcopal letters. For example, Gregory wrote to Adeodata, a woman who
had founded a monastery in her house in Lilibeo, Sicily, encouraging her
spiritual devotion but also informing her about a bishop he was sending to
judge a disciplinary matter concerning bishop Decius of Lilibeo (ep. 8.34).
We will speak more about letters to women in Chapter 6.
Apart from the prolific Nilus of Ancyra (d. 430),87 who wrote nearly
1,000 letters of spiritual direction, the most important eastern monastic
letter-writers came out of Egypt and Palestine. These included the fourth-
century Antony of Egypt, whose ten letters put paid once and for all to the
notion that Antony was illiterate;88 Isidore of Pelusium (d. 435–40);
Barsanuphius and John of Gaza (sixth century). The largest surviving
monastic corpus is the c. 2,000 letters of the monk Isidore.89 This vast

82
Courtonne 1957–61/2003/1: 117.1–7. Tr. ours.
83
Demacopoulos 2013b: 221–3. See also Demacopoulos 2013a: 70–8.
84
E.g. ep. 11.36; cf. ep. 3.4 to Boniface of Reggio.
85
Leo I, ep. 108 to Theodore of Fréjus, and ep. 167 to Rusticus of Narbonne; these two letters are
decretals. See Neil 2009: 133–6 and 138–46.
86
Deanesly and Grosjean 1959. 87 Garzya 1985. 88 Rubenson 1995.
89
Larsen 2017: 288. See further Évieux 1995, Maisano 1980.

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 88 Letter-Types and Their Uses
corpus of letters, admittedly most of them quite short, documents Isidore’s
spiritual interactions with a range of people, most to ecclesiastical leaders,
and only relatively few (some 150) to fellow monastics.90 Évieux identified
489 named recipients of Isidore’s letters, a fair total for an ostensible
solitary.91 Only a quarter of the letters attributed to Isidore have so far
been edited.92 Since these letters are significantly closer to the events they
describe than any other form of monastic literary production, Larsen agrees
with Choat that monastic letters are an essential antidote to hagiographic
works and monastic ‘sayings’ that have dominated the historical reading of
late antique Egyptian monasticism.93
In contrast to the huge epistolary activity of Isidore, probably from the
end of the fifth century we have just ten letters from the mystical author
known as Ps-Dionysius, a monastic of uncertain provenance whose influ-
ence on subsequent mystical theology was significant.94 While Ps-Dionysius
wrote several mystical tractates, it is in his fourth letter to the monk Gaius
(CPG 6607) that we encounter the term ‘a new theandric activity’ to describe
the interaction of the divine and human in Christ. This term was to play an
important role in subsequent theological debate, particularly in the late sixth
and early seventh centuries, concerning the question of activities and wills in
Christ.
Written in a similar vein to those of Isidore of Pelusium, around 850
letters survive from the Gazan ascetics Barsanuphius and John, who also
provided spiritual advice to those who sought it not by face-to-face contact
but by letter.95 This correspondence allowed them to remain in seclusion.
Nevertheless, it is evident from many of their letters that they had a good
idea what was going on in the outside world. Like the letters of Isidore,
those of Barsanuphius and John are not addressed solely to monastics, but
rather to a range of believers.96 One quarter was addressed to laypersons
(almost all male) and another large group to priests and bishops. Although
each of the Old Men lived as recluses, they were surrounded by monasteries
(coenobia). These monasteries were situated close to towns and villages,
leading to an intense interaction of the fathers with monks and laypersons
by mail. Perrone notes that this sort of interaction between monks and
laypersons is a distinctive feature of Gazan monasticism. Under the model
of spiritual direction, where Barsanuphius and John functioned as

90
Larsen 2017: 291. For the edited corpus, see Évieux 1997 and 2000.
91
Larsen 2017: 289. These included 172 clerics, 63 monks and 138 lay people: Évieux 1997: 13.
92
Larsen 2017: 289. 93 Choat 2013: 228, cited by Larsen 2017: 286 n. 4.
94
Grillmeier 2013: 298–342. 95 Hevelone-Harper 2017; Allen 2017: 123–7.
96
See further Hevelone-Harper 2005 and 2017.

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 Imperial letters 89
directors of all areas of life for both monks and laypersons, ‘the letters of the
two recluses of Gaza should be regarded as a unique document of an
ascetically oriented Christianity permeating every realm of existence’.97
Barsanuphius and John rarely wrote their own replies; rather they were
dictated to their disciples Seridos and Dorotheus of Gaza, respectively.
Other letter-writers in Gaza in the late fifth and sixth centuries include the
Christian philosophers Aeneas and Procopius98 and the anti-Chalcedonian
monk John Rufus. Copies were kept, from which this corpus was compiled
at an unknown date by someone from their community.99 This person
gave brief summaries of the letter of enquiry before giving the Old Men’s
answer. The rationale for composition of the collection is not made explicit
but was probably aimed at giving responses to a wide range of problems,
spiritual and otherwise. Barsanuphius and John gave advice on almsgiving
and care for strangers, including itinerant monks who were not encouraged
to stay long at the monasteries where they sought hospitality.100 Such care
included provision of food, shelter and blankets. They also provided advice
on healthcare, which amounted to little more than pray, bathe (a practice
that was not common among ascetics who practised non-bathing as
a spiritual discipline), drink an extra cup of wine daily and apply holy
water regularly. This advice shows the blurred line between what one
might today consider ‘spiritual direction’ as opposed to medical advice.
The important feature of letters of spiritual direction is that they were
tailored to the addressee’s level of spiritual maturity. In Barsanuphius and
John’s case, this comes through clearly in their letters on illness. While they
give practical advice to laypersons and junior monks for treating symp-
toms, in the case of mature monks they are more inclined to describe
physical suffering as a source of spiritual growth, and to encourage accep-
tance rather than treatment.101

Imperial Letters
As well as Constantinople, Ravenna was an importance centre for imperial
correspondence and archiving. The ecclesial notarius regionarius in Rome
had a secular counterpart there, who worked for the Byzantine exarchate
and the imperial court. The historian of the church of Ravenna, Andreas

97
Perrone 2012: 13.
98
The collection of Aeneas’ twenty-five letters, which showcases the author’s rhetorical skill, is
studied by Watts 2017; Procopius’ larger collection by Westberg 2017.
99
Hevelone-Harper 2017: 421. 100 Choi 2018. 101 Choi 2018: 202–4.

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 90 Letter-Types and Their Uses
Agnellus, provides a good description of this role in the time of exarch
Theodore II (677/8 to 687):102
It happened in that time that the notarius of the aforementioned exarch
(Theodore) died, by divine decree. The patrician was lamenting that fact,
not only because of his death, but more because he did not have a man of his
like, who could most wisely compose imperial letters or other written
documents, which he had been required to produce in the palace.
Imperial letters are usually contained in collections of episcopal correspon-
dence, and thus pertain to doctrinal or disciplinary matters. Bishops of the
Pentarchy – Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria –
were expected to inform the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople
of their election: Pope Gelasius, for instance, was chastised by imperial
legates of Anastasius (491–518) for failing to do so until the third year of his
incumbency.103 Gelasius’ correspondence with rulers also included letters
to the new Ostrogothic king Theodoric, whose legislative powers the pope
tried to curtail after he assumed the title of king of Italy in 493. The power
differential between bishop and king or emperor often leads to salient facts
being ignored in their correspondence. For instance, Gelasius made no
reference to the fact that Theodoric had adopted homoian Christianity,
and politely refrained from mentioning his own two tracts against
Arianism. He did however take Theodoric to task for summoning clergy
to his court for trial on charges of property theft; the king was required to
forward to Gelasius for examination any clerics accused of
misdemeanours.104 In this way the pope tried to ensure that the ‘laws of
princes’ did not extend as far as the church.105
Even more significant was the administrative role played by one of
Gelasius’ successors, Hormisdas, who is perhaps erroneously credited
with ending the Acacian schism that divided the churches in the East
and the West from 484 to 518. In contrast to Gelasius’ letter-collection,
Theoderic has been deliberately written out of Hormisdas’ correspondence
in his letter-collection, the majority of which is transmitted in the Collectio
Avellana.106 During his pontificate Hormisdas had dealings in the East
with Emperor Anastasius, Emperor Justin I (518–27), and with the nephew
of the latter, Count Justinian, who became emperor on his uncle’s death in
527 and reigned until 565. The two indiculi or lists of instructions which we
possess from Hormisdas (epp. 7 and 49) evince a distrust of the emperor,

102
LPR 120; tr. Deliyannis 2000: 291.
103
Cf. Gelasius’ ep. 12 to Anastasius, ch. 1; Thiel 1867: 349; tr. Neil and Allen 2014: 73.
104
Frg. 11; frg. 13; ep. 46. 105 See Neil 2019. 106 Viezure 2015: 97.

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 Imperial letters 91
the patriarch of Constantinople, and easterners in general – a distrust
which must have coloured the pontiff’s negotiations with the imperium.
The early correspondence between Hormisdas and Anastasius is friendly
enough (epp. 2, 4, 6). Events took another turn, however, when the papal
legates were sent to Constantinople in July 515 with a list of instructions
(indiculus) regarding their behaviour while in the East (ep. 7). They carried
other documents as well. The beginning of the first indiculus deserves to be
cited in full, being a perfect example of the minutiae that occupied the
pontiff in his epistolary administration:
When, with the help of God and the prayers of the apostles, you arrive in
Greek territories, if bishops should wish to meet you, receive them with
reverence, as is appropriate. And if they should want to provide hospitality
do not reject it, in case the lay people judge that you do not want to be on
good terms with them. But if they should wish to invite you to a party
[convivium], turn them down with an affable excuse and say: ‘Pray that first
we may deserve to have that mystical table in common, and then that will be
more delightful for us’. But if they should wish to offer you food or some-
thing else (except transport, however, if the circumstance should require it),
do not accept: rather, make excuses like this, saying that you need nothing,
hoping too that they bring their souls into conformity with you, where there
are gifts and wealth and love and unity, and whatever it is established
pertains to religious joy.107
One scholar suggests that the indiculi were perhaps not prescriptive but
intended more as a guide to the ambassadors,108 although we may wonder
why an aristocratic, worldly-wise bishop like the papal legate Ennodius of
Pavia would need such guidance.
The exchange of letters between Justin I and Justinian on the one
hand, and Hormisdas on the other (as it survives),109 began with the
emperor Justin‘s announcement on 1 August 518 of his elevation to the
imperial throne (ep. 41). Their second letter (ep. 42, 7 September 518),
informing the pontiff that John, patriarch of Constantinople, and
others desire peace between the churches. On the same day as his
uncle wrote to Hormisdas, Justinian despatched a letter to the same
addressee, underlining Justin’s concern for the unity of the churches
and urging the pope not to delay coming to Constantinople or at least
sending his legates to discuss peace. Another indication that the peace
process needed impetus is provided by nine letters from or to

107
Text in Thiel 1867: 748, ch. 1; tr. Neil and Allen 2020. 108 Gillett 2003: 227–30.
109
For a list of the letters between Justin and Hormisdas see Gillett 2012b: 264.

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 92 Letter-Types and Their Uses
Hormisdas from imperial and elite women in the East, which con-
stitute a good example of ‘lateral diplomacy’.110
The book or tractate (libellus) which bears Hormisdas’ name but is in
fact anonymous111 is an epistolary tractate addressed to Emperor Justinian
which was included in a letter by the bishop of Rome. Such libelli were
routinely delivered by legates from one bishop to another, to an emperor,
or a council, like the document sent by Pope Felix III (483–92), to Emperor
Zeno on the subject of the Acacian schism.112 To be noted in all of this is
the role played in epistolary exchange by the imperial house, to which we
return in Chapter 6.

Conclusion
In Late Antiquity, all types of letters functioned in a community
setting. Spiritual direction was a common function of episcopal letters
but also of monastic letters, where the letter-form allowed monks to
maintain their seclusion while also offering advice on spiritual and
practical matters. Festal letters first emerged in Alexandria and were
used to encourage, to intervene in disputes, for example over the
correct date for the celebration of Easter, and to address polemical
concerns such as the canon of biblical books. Their equivalent in
Rome was the papal decretal, which functioned as a community
document for the church of Rome, but also gradually expanded its
reach to all the western churches. It provided rulings on clerical
discipline and interventions in disputes of doctrine. Papal letters
could also be used to provide personal recommendations, give pastoral
encouragement, make requests for material aid and offer other signs of
friendship. From the fourth century up to the end of Gregory the
Great’s papacy (604), papal letters functioned as community docu-
ments for the church of Rome, but also gained an expanded reach to
all the western churches. Their functions were hortatory, polemical,
recommendatory and/or interventive. Due to the nature of mediaeval
canon law collections and the rationale behind their compilation, that
of providing authorities on questions of clerical discipline and doc-
trinal error, the content of papal letters that survive is remarkably
homogeneous. Almost all letters by bishops of Rome from Innocent

110
On lateral diplomacy see Gillett 2012b and Nechaeva 2012.
111
On the libellus and its text see Menze 2008 and Neil and Allen 2020.
112
Allen and Neil 2013: 23.

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 Conclusion 93
I (401/2–17) to Pelagius II (579–90) are preserved only in mediaeval
letter-collections,113 or in collections of their correspondents, such as
Augustine and Jerome in the case of Innocent I. As Pollard notes,
bishops of Rome from the fifth to sixth centuries ‘were not averse to
employing others, even groups, to prepare (their) correspondence’, and
these others typically were specially trained letter-writers located in the
papal scrinium.114 Common themes in all episcopal collections are
increasing pressure on the legal system, disputed episcopal succession,
matters of clerical discipline, pastoral care and property disputes.
Records were kept of letters relating to the deposition of clergy,
disputes between bishops and judgements on appeals brought to the
audientia episcopalis. They show bishops acting as crisis managers in
the areas of population displacement, violent conflict, failure of the
justice system and breakdown in the structures of dependence,115 but
just as often as agitators and defenders of their own privileges, espe-
cially in relation to their imperial and royal correspondents.

113
Maassen 1870. For a summary of all letters produced by the papacy from 410 to 590, see Allen and
Neil 2013: 214–22. An incomplete list of Roman bishops’ letters is found in Jaffé and Kaltenbrunner
1885 (and now Herbers 2016). On the earliest papal letter-collections, especially the letters of
Innocent, Zosimus and Boniface, see especially the recent work of Dunn 2015a: 175–80. On the
letters of Pelagius II, see Pollard 2013: 297–99.
114
Pollard 2013: 299. 115 Neil and Allen 2014.

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