Even if there were no other cause whereby the meeting of my devotion should seek out your beatitude with a literary service, it would be just that you be honored by all, who by your holy repute impart the desire of yourself to all. For it is fitting that you be sought no less than the Roman See, since you shine not more by that power than you by charity. To whose reverence, a salutation being first sent as is due, I confess to your apostolate, even if with bashfulness, my Gallican ignorance. Nor do I think it better for anyone to feign what he knows, than to have learned it if he knows it not. What things are transacted between the Roman and the Constantinopolitan Church, we learn by no certain authority, but rather gather from rumors and the variety of reports.
And therefore, lest perchance we be believed as negligent as we are rustic, accordingly the whole province now, through the clergy of Vienne, consults the holy pope and your beatitude, that you may declare, by the light of a wholesome rescript, what has been defined for you concerning the state of the faith with the party of the East. For since it becomes teachers to extend doctrine even to those placed afar of their own accord, care must be taken for the soundness of the body, that the members may always recognize the prosperity of their own head. Wherefore, if to your servants my sons, whom I have directed for this very purpose, the faculty of approaching even as far as Rome be granted, through two chiefs of the Church it will be abundant that the Gauls be instructed.
But if perchance those whom we have sent should return from your See, your apostolic and faithful response will become for us the fullness of all that instruction which may reach unto all.