Chapter 1. — The purity of the Christian faith, in which your Clemency shines forth, you demonstrate also by these letters which my brother and fellow-bishop Nestorius has brought, extending most just favour to my brother Proterius, prelate of the city of Alexandria, so that he should be in all respects the more acceptable to me. For he to whom your piety deigns to bear witness would undoubtedly be to be approved, even if he were silent. But it adds to his favour, that he is also known by his own discourse, and how sincere a preacher he is of catholic dogma becomes clear from his own profession.
Whence with fullest affection I embrace the love of my orthodox brother, and I give thanks to God, that, he being removed who wished to oppose the Gospel of Christ and to dissent from the understanding of the holy Fathers, He has provided for the Church of Alexandria such a priest as would agree with the preceding rulers both in faith and in life. For since he professes with his whole heart that he embraces my letter, which I sent against the impious Eutyches to Flavian of blessed memory, what else does he show himself to be but a disciple of the apostles? Since the doctrine of truth remains in its own light, and that which is one and indivisible cannot be diverse. Chapter 2. — I have therefore written back to the aforesaid brother what I owed, and admonished him to persevere in holy zeal.
He will without doubt be the more steadfast, if he is also aided by the exhortations of your Clemency. Nor in anything let the unskilled dissension of certain persons terrify him, whom ignorance, at the instigations of a few heretics, makes liable. What therefore they cannot attain by their own diligence, let it be opportunely instilled into their hearing. And lest the aforesaid man seem to introduce new things and to construct things of his own, let the writings of the venerable Fathers who presided over that same Church be read again; and let them recognize what the blessed Athanasius, what Theophilus, what Cyril, what also the other Oriental masters thought concerning the incarnation of the Lord; lest they be deceived by errors sprouting up again, which were long ago overthrown by the power of the evangelical word:
since almost all the heresies which have arisen at various times, while they do not understand the mystery of the bodily nativity and of the passion and resurrection of Christ, have deviated from the Gospel. And we might labour less in repelling heretics, if those lies which antiquity has slain did not disturb untrained minds. But now, as I have said, this is the best method of teaching, that the lines of the paternal meanings should become known to the ears of the Alexandrian people and clergy; and if there be any who despise our writings, let them at least acquiesce in those who agree with us in the apostolic meanings. In which work I shall greatly rejoice in the devotion of my fellow-priest, and shall always be glad in his unanimity:
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quiafraternapaxnonnisi (ik) inunafideiconfessioneservatur. CAP. III. — Quiaveroquorumdamhæreticorumversutanequitiaadconturbandamnostrorumsimplicitatem, epistolammeam,quamadbeatæmemoriaeFlavianumdedi, falsasseperbibetur,utcommutatisquibusdamverbisvelsyllabis,receptoremmeNestorianierrorisassereret:
because fraternal peace is preserved only in one confession of the faith. Chapter 3. — But because the crafty wickedness of certain heretics is imbibed as having falsified my letter, which I gave to Flavian of blessed memory, in order to disturb the simplicity of our people — so that, certain words or syllables being altered, it might assert me to be a receiver of the Nestorian error:
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obsecrovenerabilemclementiamvestramuteademepistolamperfratremmeumJulianumepiscopum, veleosquosidoneosadhocopuspictasvestradelegerit, inGræcumsermonemjubeatisintegrediligenterquetranslatamperidoneumperlatoremsubvestrisignaculiimpressionedeferri,tradendamjudicibusAlexandrinis, quicamcleroetplebiipsiuscivitatiscumprædictorumepiscoporumprædicationibus, quibusetmeascriptaconsentiunt, faciantrecitari, ut 1239 agnoscantsefallaciumhominumfraudeulteriusdecipinondebere;
I beseech your venerable Clemency that you would command that same letter, through my brother Julian the bishop, or those whom your piety shall have appointed as suitable for this work, to be translated whole and diligently into the Greek tongue, and to be conveyed by a suitable bearer under the impression of your seal, to be handed over to the judges of Alexandria, who together with the clergy and people of that city may cause it to be recited along with the preachings of the aforesaid bishops, with which my writings also agree, so that they may recognize that they ought no longer to be deceived by the fraud of deceitful men.
and let them prove themselves sincere disciples of the Apostolic See, in whose eyes neither Eutyches nor Nestorius holds any place, since the universal Church has condemned these men just as it condemned the other heretics. Given on the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Aetius and Studius.