Letter 89: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and...

As you keep watch with a commendable resolve for ecclesiastical peace and burn with such great fervor of faith, the giving of thanks alone does not suffice, because it is not the prerogative of human praise that moves you but the expectation of divine recompense that inflames you. What we therefore owe most of all, we fulfill, and we pray daily to our God, to whose causes you devote yourselves, for your well-being, asking that your zeal may burn in every quarter with such affection for ecclesiastical unity that no place for a good office be left where the patronage of your defense does not stand by the rules of the fathers. But the cause of our brothers and fellow bishops Helias, Thomas, and Nicostratus especially moves us, who, having been the first to follow the concord of the churches — so necessary for the world — have been struck by the deprivation of their churches and are weighed down even with the insult to the venerable canons, and the glory of their own reconciliation becomes for them the cause of difficulty, as though they themselves had resisted with a more obstinate mind and, while others were returning to the unity of the apostolic see, they rather tore apart the members of the church. How hard this is for us and how unworthy of the times of the most clement emperor, it befits your prudence to judge and at last to provide a remedy that may relieve both their labors and our own sadness with welcome consolation.

HORMisDA GERMANo iiLusTRissiMo. Excubautibus uobis proba- 25 bili pro ecclesiastica pace proposito et tanto fidei caiore 3 nota V, corrtxi 210. I)at. (simul cum epp, 189 190 202 203 207 211) a. 519 die 2 Sept. per Eulogium. Edd. Car. P 513; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 888; commemorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 9 participatio a, unde participatione 20 arbitrio ex aibitria corr. V elegatis V, corr. 0 21J. Dat. ut ep. 210. Edd. Car. P 512; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 892; commeinorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 24 illustri Thiel <ixiro> illuatriBsimo Car, 670 lustinus Honnisda; suggestio Gerniani etc. feruentibus gratiarum actio sola non sufGcit, quia nec uos humanae laudis praerogatiua sollicitat sed diuinae expectatio 2 retributionis inflammat. quod igitur maxime debemus, exol- uimus et deum nostrum, cuius uos causis impenditis, pro incolomitate uestra cotidie deprecamur, rogantes, ut studium uestrum in omni pro ecclesiasticae unitatis affectu parte sic ferueat, ut nuUus boni relinquatur locus officii, ubi non paternis regulis uestrae patrocinium defensionis adsistat. S praecipue tamen Heliae Thomae atque Nicostrati fratrum et coepiscoporum uostrorum causa nos commouet, qui primi mundo necessariam secuti concordiam ecclesiarum suarum priuatione perculsi cum ueuerabilium quoque canonum contu- melia deprimuntur fitque illis propriae reconciliationis gloria causa difficilis, quasi ipsi magis pertinaci mente restiterint et aliis ad sedis apostolicae redeuntibus unitatem ipsi ecclesiae 4 magis membra discerpserint. quod quam nobis durum sit quamque clementissimi temporibus imperatoris indignum, prudentiam uestram conuenit aestimare et tandem praestare remedium, quod et illorum labores et nostram grato possit solamine auferre maestitiam.