Having frequently experienced the grace of your magnificence, because you graciously receive it, I have directed by a serving page the office of a salutation. And because you know it to be of the synodal laws, that in matters which pertain to the state of the Church, if any doubt has arisen, we should have recourse to the supreme priest of the Roman Church, as the members to our head; by the consent of the bishops of the province of Vienne I have sent, with solicitude, the homage of due veneration to holy Hormisdas—or whosoever he now is—the pope: desiring to hear from the authority of the aforesaid See what it has learned concerning the outcome of the embassy directed by it to the East.
Since therefore, as I have said, I am consulted by my provincials, I too do not presume to answer, unless I first consult my superior. There is need, then, of the support of your ordering, that this may be completed on both sides in order: that either an inquiry may come from us, or a response return to us from the one setting it forth. Not to the priests alone does the state of the Church pertain: this solicitude is common to all the faithful. Whosoever we seem, and in whatever place, to govern the Church, we bear your role in the Catholic religion. When concerning the rule of faith anyone is sick or is healed, it behooves you either to rejoice or to groan with us. Whence neither ought anything of the cause about which I consult to be believed hidden from you.
If I were acting for myself alone, your knowledge would suffice enough for my inquiry: we can hear no more of truth from the pope than from you. But the usefulness of the Churches demands that what you know, you as teacher should impart. Yet I, your peculiar one, will await a rescript from you the more peculiarly, if you deign: whereby indeed, as I have said, only so much of the truth will be able to become known to me, as the bishop of the Roman city shall rejoice to have answered, by the privilege of his authority, to those who seek it.