Letter 82: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

It is not the encouragement of your request that prompts us to pray and to offer vows to our God for your well-being together with the assembly of catholic bishops without ceasing, but rather our devoted and persistent purpose in ecclesiastical reconciliation that urges us. For who, separated from the heretical conspiracy, would restrain himself? Who in his own supplication would employ any other beginning than that both you and the most serene emperor, your husband, might have a longer life and the divine grace be nearer for the increase of your prosperity — you who have consecrated the beginnings of a happy reign by striking errors with curses and who have driven out with peaceful intent the discord so dear to the devil? Therefore it is now fitting that you persist in your praiseworthy undertakings and spread the perfect remedy throughout the whole world, because a greater number of the flock offered to Christ confidently demands a more generous reward. Among these matters, let it be your care that no wound afflict persons already healed, but that the unity of communion be a great support for obtaining justice. For we ask that at last, regarding our venerable brothers and fellow bishops Helias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, what the authority of the most sacred canons dictates may be fulfilled by your decree, lest they seem — as the instigators of some evil because they were the first to hasten to unity with the apostolic see — to have deserved to be struck down alone in the common joy of all, and lest justice appear to have been defeated by personal hatred in a praiseworthy deed. Therefore join your prayers to ours before the most clement Augustus, so that the hostile tergiversation may not be able to take away the fruit which the rules of the fathers command to be granted and preserved for them.

HORMiSDA EUFiMiAE AUGUSTAE. Orare no8 et pro uestra incolo- mitate deo nostro uota persoluere cum catholicorum etiam coetu sine cessatione pontificum non uestrae studium exorati- onis inuitat sed deuotum atque persistens in ecclesiastica 2 stimulat conciliatione propositum. quis enim ab haeretica segregatus conspiratione se teneat, ' quis aliis in sua utatur deprecatione principiis, nisi ut uobis serenissimoque principi iugali uestro et uita sit longior et ad prosperitatis augmentum gratia diuina proximior, qui ini<ti>a felicis imperii plectendi execrationibus consecrastis erroris et amicam diabolo pacifica 3 expulistis intentione discordiam? unde nunc decet uos laudabilibus coeptis insistere et per totum orbem perfectam spargere medicinam, quia Christo maior numerus gregis oblatus mercedem confidenter exigit largiorem. inter quae curae uestrae sit, ut nuUum sanatas iamdudum personas uulnus afficiat sed communionis unitas magnum sit iustitiae im- 4 petrandae suffragium. quaesumus namque, ut tandem de uenerabilibus fratribus et coepiscopis nostris Helia Thomate atque Nicostrato, quod sacrissimorum canonum dictat aucto- ritas, uobis decementibus impleatur, ne uideantur ut auctores alicuius mali, quod primi ad unitatem sedis apostolicae festinarunt, in communi omnium gaudio soli meruisse percelli et in facto laudabili uictam personali odio cessisse iustitiam. 5 nostris ergo precibus apud clementissimum Augustum uestras adiungite, ut fructum, quem illis pati-um regulae tribui et conseruari praecipiunt, inimica tergiuersatio aufeire non possit. 208. Dat ut ep. 202. Edd. Car. P 511; Collect. ^oncil ; BTA I 434; Thiel 890; commemorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 2 adq V 5 inuite F, corr. o2 6 reconciliatione Car. 7 segragatus F, corr. a 10 initia o': inia V 11 consecratis V, corr. Car. 16 Satanas iamdudum prostratus uulnus afficiat (efficiat edit. reg.) Car. 17 imperandf F, corr. 20 sacratissimorum ot 23 commoni V Epist. ccni 1 — ccmi 8. 66S