Libellus

"Libel" is an accusation. In English law, this has the connotation of a false one. It derives from the old Christian libelli: a message of ritualised anathema against the wrong Christians. Once successfully libelled, the target Christians entered infamy as haeretics and lost their places in the Diptych canons. The time machine reveals that Roger Pearse is going to alert us to some old libels.

Translated here in 2022 is much of the correspondence of the Roman bishops from AD 496-520. On the Roman side, Anastasius II and Hormisdas; on the Constantinopolitan side, emperors Anastasios and Justin, and patriarch Epiphanios (this post shall stick with -us).

We get here several libelli, starting from Dioscorus Alexandrene of Ephesian (in)fame. Hormisdas is going to lump Dioscorus with Eutyches in a libellus of his own. John II of Cappadocia delivers his own libellius to the Romans agreeing with their bishop.

The translator ubipetrus2019 finds most-interesting Epistle 80 - rather, "LXXX", coming from Rome as it did. Hormisdas in his own time couldn't get many bishops to sign his bill, which Americans will note as both post-facto and of attainder. The bishop of old Roma - whom I have not been hailing "Pope" - grovels to Epiphanius and by-proxy to Justin and prince Justinian, advising the New Rome they not even raise the name of Peter. The blog, "Ubi Petrus Ibi Ecclesia", intends to muse upon that term rather than to prove it.

To sixth-century Rome, Chalcedon is what matters - and not the "Papacy". Keep this in mind when Saint Martin Confessor convenes the bishops to the Lateran in the 640s. Also of interest Nestorius' spectre floats around mostly as a haeretic boogaboo - with one exception.

Looking around, Volker Menze (2008) doi 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199534876.003.0003 suggests that the libelli where they condemn nonChalcedonians ... put the latters' back up. Menze argues that it gave motive to, say, Egypt to create their own church. This couldn't happen under Justinian but it broke out hard under the younger Justin.

BACKDATE 8/15