It is not to be doubted that God is the author of good works and of spiritual endeavours; He who, whose minds He incites, also aids their actions. Which has plainly appeared to us by present experience. For indeed, amid the far-distant spaces of separated regions, our hearts took up one counsel, so that what you desired from us met you at the very time when your letters were being sent — if indeed our writings could be delivered to your Charity, which were dispatched not only by the authority of the Apostolic See, but also by the unanimity of the holy synod that had frequently assembled unto us, that in these things it might appear how great a care we have for the whole Church;
namely by exhorting the minds of all the faithful, and by requesting the protection of the most clement princes for the defence of the faith; whose pious and catholic minds we do not doubt will grant their aid and authority to our just petitions; that thereby the more speedily, with the Lord's help, the pernicious heresy, long ago condemned by the authority of the holy Fathers, which lately at Ephesus was wickedly abetted, may be taken away. Meanwhile, however, let your Charity give heed, as far as may be done, that it may become known to all the sons of the Church what, against the impious opinion, we preach according to the evangelical and apostolic doctrine.
For although we have written fully what has always been and is the opinion of catholics, yet now also, for the confirming of all minds, we have added no small exhortation. For I am mindful that I preside under the name of that Church whose confession has been glorified by the Lord Jesus Christ, and whose faith indeed destroys all heresies, but most of all overthrows the impiety of the present error; and I understand that nothing else is permitted to me than to devote all my efforts to that cause in which the salvation of the universal Church is assailed. But lest, by any occasion of negligence, our writings should not have been able to reach you, we have thought that copies of the same should now be sent:
so that in no way may the preaching of the faith which we defend be withheld from your knowledge. Given on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, in the seventh consulship of Valentinian Augustus and of Avienus, the most illustrious, being consuls.