Letter 81: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

To the glorious labors of your clemency for the concord of the church, the longed-for tranquility of a pacified world responds with universal acclaim — a fact which renders the office of our speech poor and holds it back from giving adequate thanks. Yet we do not keep silent about this: that we pour out prayers unceasingly to our Lord on your behalf, because in our desires the affection is boundless, even if judgment in its praise may be finite. But amid these benefits of your piety, one concern, which has also vehemently affected us, does not abandon us: that our brothers and fellow bishops Helias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, who were the first to follow ecclesiastical concord with eager devotion, are not only cheated of the palm of their great initiative but are even attended by the misery of a bad precedent. Therefore, mingling even tears with our prayers, we beseech your clemency not to let the intolerable rejection of the aforesaid men disturb the joys which you daily provide through the conversion of heretics, because it is not solely the case of the persons that concerns us — for whom the glory of a good deed, together with its merit, could suffice — but rather the fact that the decrees of the venerable canons are being despised and that their rejection inflicts no small injury upon the apostolic see: lest the sincerity of your Christianity, by which you both extend great patronage to ancient constitutions and confirm the primacy of the apostolic see with newly rendered veneration, should in one single affair leave posterity an inextricable problem.

5 HoiuiisDA lusTiNo AUGusTo. Gloriosis clementiae uestrae laboribus ecclesiasticae prima concordiae et orbis pacati uotiua tranquillitas generali praedicatione respondent, quae res nostri parcum red<d>it ac retinet ad agendas gratias sermonis ofQcium. illud tamen, quod pro uobis indesinenter domino nostro preces 10 effundimus, non tacemus : quia in uotis infinitus affectus est, finitum esse potest in praedicatione iudicium. uerum inter 2 liaec pietatis uestrae beneficia una nos, quae etiam uehementer affecit, cura non deserit, quod Heliam Tliomatem atque Nicostratum fratres et coepiscopos meos, qui primi ecclesia- 15 sticam festina secuti sunt deuotione concordiam, non solum magni frustratur palma principii uerum etiam mali miseria comitatur exempli. quare clementiam uestram mixto etiam 3 precibus fletu deposcimus, ne gaudia nostra, quae de haereti- corum cotidie conuersione praestatis, praefatorum abiectio 20 iotoleranda conturbet, quia non sola personanim nos causa sollicitat, quibus et boni facti simul sufficere gloria posset et meriti, sed quod uenerabilium constituta canonum contem- nuntur et quod non paruam eorum abiectio apostolicae sedis tangit iuiuriam: ne christianitatis uestrae sinceritas, qua et ts magnum patrocinium ueteribus constitutis impenditis et sedis apostolicae principatum acta nouiter ueneratione sancitis, in uno inexplicabilem relinquat posteris negotio quaestionem. 202. Bat. (simul cum epp. 189 190 203 207 210 211) a. 519 die ^ Sept per Eulogium. Edd. Car, P 510; CoUect Concil; BTA I 433; Thiel 889; commemorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 6 prima V: palma edit reg. 8 redit F, corr. o 13 afficit Car. 19 conuer- satione V, corr. Car. 20 intolleranda 662 Uormisda Euphemiae; Hormisda Epiphanio