Letter 64: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

Justin Augustus [Emperor Justin I] to Hormisdas the Pope. 1. With how great a zeal we burn for the gathering together of the most sacred churches into concord we are recognized to have made plain long since, we who from the very outset of our reign judged that your Holiness ought to be admonished, so that you might dispatch men of sure standing, in order that through their intervention some remedy might be found for these affairs; and, before those who have been appointed have arrived, we have prepared everything, so that those matters which had to be arranged throughout this most flourishing city [Constantinople] might more easily be carried through. 2. But since petitions have been presented to our Majesty from various Eastern provinces, setting forth certain definite things on behalf of the catholic faith and declaring the secret matters of their mind, in which they testify to what they hold established among themselves concerning the undivided Trinity, and which they show that they will firmly hold fast to, and since, when these had been read over, Dioscorus asserted that certain things had been inserted in an order that was not fitting: we have rightly judged that those things which we have been taught ought to be disclosed to you. 3. And so, not long after, a certain man will be dispatched by us to make your Beatitude more fully informed concerning all matters, both to convey to you the supplications which have been offered to us, and to bring back the response of your Piety, by which the unsuitable doubts may at last be cut away. Secure therefore concerning our purpose, may you deign with anxious prayers to make the highest Divinity favorable to us. Given on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of February [January 19], at Constantinople, in the consulship of Vitalianus and Rusticius.

lusTiNus AUGusTus HOBJQSDAE FAPAE. Quauto fiagramus 5 studio pro colligendis concordia sacratissimis ecclesiis iam- dudum planum fecisse dinoscimur, qui et ab ineunte nostro imperio sanctitudinem uestram admonendam duximus, quo certos dirigeret, ut interuentu eorum remedium aliquod his rebus inueniri possit, et, antequam aduenerint qui destinati lo sunt, cuncta praeparauimus, quo facilius transigerentur, quae 2 per hanc florentissimam urbem disponenda fuerant. uerum quoniam preces nostro numi<ni>porrectae sunt ex diuersis Eois prouinciis certa quaedam disserentibus pro fide catholica secretaque suae mentis declarantibus, quae apud se pro i& indiuidua trinitate constituta testantur quaeque firmiter sese retenturos ostendunt, hisque relectis Dioscorus aliqua asseruit non conuenienti ordine inserta fuisse : merito duximus aperienda 3 uobis ea, quae suraus edocti. non multo itaque post a nobis quidam destinabitur ad certiorem faciendam beatitudinem so tuam super omnibus et insinuandas uobis supplicationes, quae nobis oblatae sunt, et responsum pietatis uestrae referendum, quo possint resecari tandem dubitationes incongruae. securi igltur de nostro consilio sollicitis orationibus placare nobis 181. Bat (simul eum epp. 182 183 185) a. 520 die 19 lan.: per Eulogium. Edd. Car. P 529; Bar. ad a. 520, 3; CoUect. ConcU.; Thiel 908. 6 concordia F, corr. o 7 <nos^ planum Car. dinosci- tur F, correxi (cf. ep. 232 § 1) 9 interuentum F, corr. p ali- quid F, corr. o 11 transigentur F, corr. 13 numij F, corr. o Epist. CLXXX 2 — CLXXXn 3. 637 diuinitatem summain dignemini. Data XIIII. Eal. Febr. Constantinopoli Uitaliano et Busticio conss.