Victor Anastasius, pious, fortunate, illustrious, triumphant, always Augustus, to Hormisdas, the most holy and most religious archbishop and patriarch.

We do not think it unknown to your Beatitude that, according to the quality of the times, when to speak and when to be silent has been arranged even by the provident admonition of divine Scripture. Therefore, the time of silence having passed, has granted us incentives to speak. And so, we have perceived it to be opportune to commit to your hearing what is stirred up among us under the guise of religion. Before this, indeed, the hardness of those to whom the episcopate, which you now hold, was entrusted, restrained us from sending letters. But now, a sweet opinion about you running through our memory has brought to mind the goodness of paternal affection, so that we may seek those things which God and our Savior taught the holy apostles in divine words, and especially blessed Peter, in whom he established the strength of His Church. Therefore, with these prefaced beginnings, we urge that your apostolate make itself a mediator for those things which have been stirred up from the parts of Scythia, where we have also perceived it fitting that a council be held, so that by cutting off contentions, the unity of the holy Church may be restored. But all things wished for are granted to us, if you remember us in your prayers and frequent writings. Given the day before the Ides of January at Constantinople, and received during the consulship of Anthemius and Florentius, five days before the Calends of April, by Patricius (Given and received in the year of the Lord 515).