Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/531

 HORNER

471

HORNYOLD

letters summoning the people to reunite with the Roman Church. When the emperor heard of it he had them brought out of the city by a private gate to the seashore, put on shipboard, and sent back to Italy. Then Anastasius, who had momentarily nothing to fear from Vitalian, wrote an insolent letter to Ilormis- das dated 11 July, 517, breaking off the negotiations, and continued to persecute the advocates of union with Rome. On 9 July, 518, he died very suddenly in the midst of a terrible storm. Shortly before that date Timotheus, the heretical Patriarch of Constan- tinople, had also passed away. The Emperor Justin I (518-527), who succeeded, was an orthodox Christian. The people of Constantinople insisted that the new Patriarch John should anathematize the Monophysite heresy, recognize the definition of Chalcedon, and reunite the Greek Church with Rome. A sjmod, held at Constantinople, concurred in these views and an imperial envoy departed for Rome to entreat the pope on behalf of the emperor, the latter's nephew Justinian, and the patriarch to come in person to the Orient, or send a legate for the purpose of re-establish- ing the unity of the Church. Hormisdas appointed the Bishops Germanus and John, a priest Blandus, two deacons, Feli.x and Dioscurus, and a notary, Peter. They had the same instructions and confession of faith which were given the legates of 515. The em- bassy was received in Constantinople with great splen- dour. All the demands of the pontiff were conceded ; the name of the condemned Patriarch Acacius as well as the names of the Emperors Anastasius and Zeno were stricken from the church diptychs, the Patri- arch John accepted the formula of Hormisdas. On Holy Thursday, 28 March, 519, in the cathedral of Constantinople in presence of a great throng of people, the reunion of the Greek Church with Rome was rati- fied in the most solemn manner. The greater number of the Eastern and Greek bishops approved and signed the formula of Hormisdas. At Antioch an orthodox patriarch was chosen to replace the heretical Severus.

In the midst of all this activity for the establish- ment of peace a new quarrel broke out, which turned upon the formula: "One of the Trinity was cruci- fied". It was promulgated at Constantinople in 519 by John Maxentius and numerous Scj'thian monks who were upheld by Justinian (Theopaschite contro- versy). The patriarch and the pope's legates op- posed the demand that this formula should be em- bodied as a dogma of the ("hurch. The monks then proceeded to Rome where they caused some trouble; they also addressed the African bishops then residing in Sardinia. In 521 Hormisdas pronounced that the formula in question, although not false, was danger- ous because it admitted of a false interpretation; that the Council of Chalcedon needed no amendment. About this time the African Bishop Possessor, at the instigation of some African monks, appealed to the pope for information regarding the Church's attitude towards the Bishop of Riez, Provence, whose Semi- pelagian views coloured his wTitings. In his reply Hormisdas severely rebuked the quarrelsome spirit of these monks. He did not forbid the reading of the works of Faustus, but decided that what was good in them should be preserved and what was contrary to the doctrine of the Church should be rejected.

Hormisdas caused a Latin translation of the canons of the Greek Church to be prepared by Dionysius Exiguus and issued a new edition of the Gelasian "Decretum de recipiendis Libris". He sent letters to several bishops in Spain and Gaul on ecclesiastical matters and gave directions regarding church ad- ministration. His relations with Theodoric were amicable. The " Liber Pontificalis" enumerates val- uable gifts presented to St. Peter's by this king as well as by the Emperor Justin.

Shortly before his death the pope received tidings that Thirasamund the Vandal King of Northern

Africa had died (523), and that the severe persecution of Catholics in that region had consequently ceased. Hormisdas was buried at St. Peter's. The text of hia epitaph has been preserved (De Rossi, " Inscriptiones Christianae urbis RomEe", II, 130).

Thiel, ed., Epistolm Romanorum Pontificum, I (Braunsberg, 1868), 739 sqq.: Duchesne ed.. Liber Pontificalis. I. 269 sqq.J OuNTHER in Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, CXXVl (1892), xi: Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche, II (Bonn, 1885), 250 sqq.; Grisar, Geschichte Roms und der Papste, I, passim: ScHNuRER, Die politische Stellung des Papsttums zur Zeit Theoderichs in Historisches Jahrbiieh, II (1889), 253 sqq.; Pfeilschifter, Der Ostgotenknnig Theoderich und die katholische Kirche in Kirchengesch, Studien, III (Miinster. 1869) i-ii. 138 sqq.; Hefele, Konziliengeschichte, 2nd ed.. II, 671 sqq.. 692 sqq.

J. P. KlHSCH.

Homer, Nicholas, layman and martvT, born at Grantley, Yorkshire, England, date of liirth unknown; died at Smithficld, 4 March, 1590. He appears to have been following the calling of a tailor in London, when he was arrested on the charge of harbouring Catholic priests. He was confined for a long time in a damp and noisome cell, where he contracted blood- poisoning in one leg, which it became necessary to amputate. It is said that during this operation Horner was favoured with a vision, which acted as an anodyne to his sufferings. He was afterwards liber- ated, but when he was again found to be harbouring priests he was convicted of felony, and as he refused to conform to the public worship of the Church by law estabhshed, was condemned. On the eve of his exe- cution, he had a vision of a crown of glory hanging over his head, which filled him with courage to face the ordeal of the next day. The story of this vision was told by him to a friend, who in turn transmitted it by letter "to Father Robert Southwell, S.J., 18 March, 1590. Horner was hanged, drawn and quartered, because he had relieved and assisted Christopher Bales, seminary priest and martjT, b. at Cunsley, Durham, 1564; d. on the scaffold at Fetter Lane, Lon- don, 4 March, 1590. Father Bales was cruelly tor- tured in prison, although he was a consumptive; and was condemned merely for being a priest.

CiLLOw, Bibl. Dirt. Eng. Cath., s. v.; Ch.\lloner, Menwirs (Edinburgh, 1.S7S), I, 166, 169, 218; Ribadeneiha, Appendix SchisTnatis Anglicani (1610), 25; Morris, Troubles, 3rd series.

C. F. Wemyss Brown.

Homyold, John Joseph, titular Bishop of Philo- melia. Vicar .Apostolic of the Midland District, Eng- land; b. 19 February, 1706; d. at Longbirch, Stafford- shire, 26 December, 1778. He was descended from two ancient Catholic families, his father being John Homyold, of Blackmore Park and Hanley Castle, Worcestershire; his mother, Mary, daughter of Sir Pyers Mostyn, Baronet, of Talacre, Flintshire. At the age of twenty-two, on 7 .August, 1758, he entered the Engli.sh College at Douai to study for the priest- hood. After his ordination he returned to England and served the mission at Grantham for some time, meeting with much persecution and more than once narrowly escaping arrest as a priest. In 1739 he went as chaplain to Longbirch near Wolverhampton, the seat of "the good Afadam Giffard", a widow remark- able for piety and charity. While there he published his first work, "The Decalogue Exjilained ", published in London in 1744, and afterwards running through many editions. Bishop Milner, in a Memoir of him m the "Laity's Directory" (1818), says: "This was so generally approved of, that he received something like official thanks from O.xford for the publication. It was not to be expected, however, that he should be thanked from that quarter for his other works, which appeared in succession, on the Sacraments and on the Creed." In the former of these, "The Sacraments Explained" (London, 1747), he included several dis- courses written by his predecessor at Longbirch, the Rev. John Johnson. The book on the Creed was called "The Real Principles of Catholicks or a Gate-