To the beloved and most pious Emperor from God, the most Christian prince Justin, a supplication and petition from the clergy, abbots, and landowners of the provinces of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Syria Secunda.

“Draw water with joy from the fountains of salvation” (Isaiah 12), exclaims the prophet Isaiah, clearly referring to the fountains of salvation as the proclamations of evangelical truth, from which the blessed Apostles and their successors, the wise teachers of the Church, drew the saving water of faith, irrigating the entire holy Church of God, which, founded on the rock of the chief of the Apostles, maintains a right and unbending confession, confidently proclaiming to the only-begotten Son of God, saying at all times: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16).

Receiving this saving confession from the holy four synods, which have been honored with evangelical teachings, we have never, by the grace of Christ, deviated from the correct doctrines handed down to us, as the evidence of events and the steadfastness of faith in times of need demonstrate. Therefore, since we are participants in the reasoning of faith as Christians, and hasten toward common peace and unity, we make our faith, which we have held from the beginning, manifest to your piety through this our satisfaction; so that it may be known that we are striving for peace and, with God’s help, do not turn away from the right faith, but rather wholly abhor every heresy, not only Eutychianists and Acephaloi but also Nestorians and those who, in their entirety, worship man, boldly anathematizing them with all our soul.

We, O most beloved Emperor, as previously stated, worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, baptized from the beginning and believing in the essence of God in three subsistences, according to the creed of the holy Fathers. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God the Word, and similarly in one Holy Spirit. According to this divine teaching, we understand and accept the definition proclaimed by the holy Council of Chalcedon, believing and professing that the same holy Council declared God the Word in two natures, that is, in divinity and humanity, indivisibly and without confusion. Our Lord Jesus Christ is one of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity; for if we receive one God in three subsistences, as has been said, the Father did not incarnate, nor did the Holy Spirit, but the Word of God became incarnate and became man, and is one of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity according to the property of sonship.

Thus, believing according to the aforementioned four synods, we do not refuse to confess the second birth of the Word of God according to the flesh. Wherefore, it is rightly believed that the Virgin is the Mother of God, as she gave birth to the Son of God the Word, who is of one essence with the Father by nature, immutable, and who was made man from her. We confess the two natures in Christ, united in essence or substance, as in one person or substance. We neither take away the diversity or property of these after the union, nor have we learned to divide them into two persons and substances through the union; and we know him to be the only-begotten Son of God both before and after his incarnation, being both God and man; passible in the flesh, impassible in divinity; circumscribed in body, not circumscribed in spirit; earthly and heavenly, whom the world could contain as man but could not as God; mortal and immortal, with no diversity of his natures ever removed, nor dividing the union by essence.

This is indeed the great mystery of piety, that the one Word of God from the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity became incarnate and is recognized and worshiped as both God and man in both natures of divinity and humanity, without conversion or change, preserving the property of both natures in one person in himself. For this reason, receiving and keeping the aforementioned holy synods, we anathematize all who have at any time or in any way written against them, especially John Aegeota, who vomited many blasphemies as a Nestorian against the aforementioned holy Council of Chalcedon; likewise condemning Timothy, surnamed Ælurus (the Cat), as a Eutychianist, barking against it with his followers. Thus we have always felt and feel now with the help of God.

Therefore, we have offered this satisfaction to your piety: and as it has been ordered, we set forth our own understanding and how we think concerning the true faith; because some heretics, while hastening to hide their evil faith, try to disparage our freedom and right faith in Christ. We therefore humbly beseech your clemency to have perfect diligence in the union of the holy Churches, so that the unity which shall come to be with God’s help may not be disturbed thereafter by any rational or irrational pretext of unrest. May God fulfill all your pious desire for his glory and the discipline of the republic.