With the favor of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who establishes his empire upon sacred religion reigns forever, for he who governs human affairs rightly has first pleased the divine. We rejoice that this has come to pass in the present times. For your most merciful son, the emperor, has obtained the scepter by the gift of eternity and has taken up the causes of the faith to be explained, and, having sent a delegation to your holiness of the Apostolic See, we have obtained priests, through whose arrival the concord of the most holy churches has greatly flourished, with you persistently supporting this, as was proper.

For the name of Acacius, which was causing discord, has been cut off at the root, and in accordance with the letters you sent, the desired unity has come about in this royal city and many others, which should be revered as having been found through great labors and must be preserved forever. Who would permit these matters, which the eternal majesty has rightly arranged, to be reconsidered by any argument?

But since the enemy of humankind often hastens to hinder successful endeavors, a considerable part of the Easterners cannot be compelled by sword or fire to condemn the names of the deceased bishops who followed Acacius. This difficulty delays general concord. Therefore, may your holiness, inspired from above, consider the nature of the times and the circumstances and, having condemned the authors of this error—namely, Acacius of Constantinople, Peter and Timothy the Aelurian, Dioscorus of Alexandria, and Peter of Antioch—deem it proper to end this longstanding dispute by letting the question of the other names rest, so that you may redeem the people whom our God has committed to your rule, not through persecutions and bloodshed, but by priestly patience, reconciling the people to our Lord without losing their bodies and souls while striving to save them.

Indeed, longstanding errors should be corrected with gentleness and clemency, especially because your blessed predecessors have often wished to recall our republic’s bishops to their communion, provided that only the names of Acacius and the others mentioned were kept silent. Therefore, it is not a heavy thing for your See to do what it has already advised. Moreover, we earnestly request that your holiness, with the grace of heaven, deign to consider what the Eastern bishops propose and to grant a fitting agreement to their faith.

For it seems to us that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, born of the Virgin Mary, whom the supreme apostle declares to have suffered in the flesh, is rightly said to be one in the Trinity, reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For just as it seems ambiguous to simply say ‘one of the Trinity’ without first naming our Lord Jesus Christ, so we do not doubt that His person is in the Trinity with the persons of the Father and the Holy Spirit. For without the person of Christ, neither can the Trinity be rightly believed nor faithfully adored, as St. Augustine says: ‘Or is it some person of the Trinity?’ and elsewhere: ‘Only He in the Trinity took on flesh’ and again: ‘One of the Three.’

Therefore, we respectfully ask, remembering the future judgment, that you settle this matter in such a way that no doubt remains in the future, so that, with all causes of discord removed, the bonds of the desired peace may be renewed throughout the world, and the concord of the venerable churches may flourish, and the members of the one body may be restored to their former state. For the physician is rightly praised who hastens to heal old wounds in such a way that new ones do not arise from them.

Thus, let your pontificate especially know that, with these two chapters settled, all the bishops of this republic gladly embrace your communion. Received on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of the illustrious Rusticus (year of our Lord 520).