We most earnestly pray with the letters of our Serenity that your Beatitude may fare well, asking that you impart to us the favour of Almighty God by the intercession of your prayers: that His merciful and peace-giving Majesty may deign to grant all things fortunate and desirable to our realm. We marvel beyond measure that, after the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of the venerable bishops sent to your Holiness—in which they signified all that had been done in that Council—no such epistles have by any means been sent back by your Clemency, which, being read publicly in the most holy Churches, ought to have come to the knowledge of all. This has cast much ambiguity into the minds of certain persons who even now follow the perverse opinion and perversity of Eutyches, as to whether your Beatitude has confirmed what was decreed in the holy Council. And for this reason, may your Piety deign to send letters through which it may be made manifest to all Churches and peoples that what was enacted in the holy Council is ratified by your Beatitude.
That indeed, as befitted a bishop of the Apostolic See, your Holiness excellently accomplished, in that by keeping the ecclesiastical canons you suffered nothing of the ancient custom and order, established of old and inviolably observed unto this very day, to be innovated. But concerning the letters of your Beatitude, what and how great things have been done by certain persons, your Holiness will be able to learn most clearly from others; whom we were unwilling to oppose, since your Charity in God did not yet affirm that the Council of Chalcedon, with all the bishops consenting, had followed the catholic and true orthodox faith. Wherefore let your venerable Dignity issue a decree as speedily as possible, whereby it may most manifestly show that it confirms that very Council of Chalcedon, so that those who long for trackless bypaths may be able to have no suspicion concerning the judgment of your Holiness. Given on the fifteenth before the Kalends.
[Given] at Constantinople on the Kalends of March. Chapter I. — With what excellent piety and with what glorious zeal of your Clemency the Christian faith was lately restored to its integrity, the whole world acknowledges, and that the singular safeguard of its salvation has through you been repaired by the Lord. And if anything from a contrary spirit is felt to arise against the consummation of so great a work, it is necessary that it be referred to the aid of your Piety, which divine providence has prepared for the guardianship of catholic truth: so that, since it belongs to your power to cut off scandals even those arisen far off, much more should you not suffer those which dare to rise before your very eyes to grow.
The ordination of Bishop Anatolius—as the knowledge of God is my witness—the authors of his consecration had rendered suspect to me (which must be confessed), and I judged the one chosen to be not unlike those who chose him;
and it followed that, when he sought the communion of the Apostolic See, I long refrained from sending letters of peace to him. But when the testimony of your Piety supported him, and he promised concerning his faith and unanimity all things desirable and pleasing, I believed his profession to be so sincere that nevertheless I did not cease to admonish him with what observance he ought to conduct himself, diligently and carefully impressing upon him that he should dare to have none of the persecutors of Flavian of blessed memory in his fellowship, and that he should truly abhor the followers of the heretic Eutyches as enemies of Christ. This he seemed to accept so obediently that he indicated the deacon Andrew, a defender of the Eutychian heresy, had been cast down by him.
And it followed that concerning those things which had been defined for the catholic faith in the synodal council, he wrote to me such things as it befitted a catholic priest to write. Chapter II. — When therefore these things had gone before to commend his beginnings, I know not what cause or occasion has emerged, that a man of catholic faith, and constantly opposed even to the Nestorian and Eutychian heretics, he should degrade the archdeacon under the appearance of honour, and should suddenly transfer the dispensation of the whole cause and ecclesiastical care to Andrew the Eutychianist: being so disturbed by excessive agitation that the consecration which he gave in place of an injury, he conferred on the sixth day of the week, being either ignorant or forgetful of the apostolic tradition:
as though the fault of that ordination pertained more to a bishop than to a presbyter: he who, finding nothing to blame in the man's faith, nothing to disapprove in his morals, fulfilled the casting down of an innocent man under the appearance of promotion, adding in his sentence this injury, that by assigning him to a cemetery he condemned him as it were to a certain exile. Yet him I presume to commend to your Piety, lest he be able to be further burdened by any harmful snares, whom the Lord, as I have learned, has established under your defence. Chapter III. — I add moreover also this entreaty, that you would deign necessarily to rebuke the aforesaid bishop, dissonant from his own profession, and too forgetful of your testimony and favour. Let him cease to persecute the catholics;
let him cease to crush those who pleased Flavian of holy memory, and to choose the society of those whom he condemned. For we shall be able to bestow fraternal charity on him in no other way than that he approve himself to detest the enemies of the catholic faith, and cut off from himself the fellowship of the one whom he deservedly cast away. Who, even if he had been purged with great satisfaction, yet having returned after a doubtful error, ought to have been placed after the catholic deacons, not before them. This too I ask of your Clemency's benevolence, that you would hold my brother Julian the bishop, your venerator, in your affection, as you deign to do; by whose services the image of my presence may be rendered to you.
For, trusting also in the sincerity of his faith, I have delegated to him my office against the heretics of our time; and for the guardianship of the peace of the Churches, I required that he should not be absent from your court. Deign to hear his suggestions, for the concord of catholic unity, as though they were my own, pleasing God, who may confer upon you, besides the royal crown, also the priestly palm. Given on the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Opilio, a most illustrious man. Chapter I. — Since there exist many proofs by which the affection of your Piety toward the love of the Church of God is manifested, deservedly, as often as any of scandals arises, your aid is desired:
so that the faith, which by your striving has been defended against the fabrications of the heretics, may obtain the perpetual firmness of a secure peace. For what does it profit that the adversaries of truth are overcome without, if we should have those same men revived within the Lord's enclosures? Therefore what I have learned to have been done concerning the person of my son Aetius makes me exceedingly anxious, and compels me by sure reason to fear lest I should have to repent that, concerning the bishop of Constantinople—who had been ordained by the assailants of the faith—I acquiesced, at your exhortation, in thinking better things, since he was aided by so great a testimony of your Piety, lest the infirmity of his ordination should burden him, where your intervention was afforded.
Wherefore I had begun to rejoice that he was said to honour the memory of blessed Flavian, and to resist the attempts of the heretics. But I grieve that he, as the lamentable complaint of the aforesaid man shows, has been changed for the worse, and has now established as archdeacon the very man whom he himself professed had been rejected by him, who had betrayed himself among us as a defender of the Eutychian heresy. Since he has now set him over ecclesiastical affairs, he is convicted of showing his favour to him on account of the heretical perversity; who, even if he could have merited indulgence by great satisfaction, ought by no means to have been preferred to those who had remained in the faith. Chapter II. — Wherefore, since it is not hidden from your Clemency,
how much peril is nourished either by shameful sloth or by crafty wickedness, deign to recall the bishop to the profession of his faith by the authority of your Clemency. Let him not draw these stains upon himself, nor despise the esteem which he acquired by your favour; let him cut off the society of the heretic whom he lately removed from it, and let him cease to persecute the one whom he ought to have held more dear. I rejoice that you so came to the aid of his innocence, that your Piety by worthy consolation relieved his grief. Concerning my brother Julian the bishop, your venerator, how much your regard ought to grow toward him, estimate by the judgment of the Apostolic See;
since in the cause of the faith, which your Glory serves, I have delegated my office to him to this extent, that not departing from that observance which is owed to you, he may not cease to present me to your Piety: fulfilling in the guardianship of the faith and in ecclesiastical disciplines my solicitude in all things, and by opportune suggestions insinuating what may profit the universal Church: so that in him neither may your protection be lacking to the catholics, whom we wish to be aided, nor my obedience be lacking to you. Given on the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Opilio, a most illustrious man.