Symmachus

Alban Butler: July · ST. SYMMACHUS, POPE, C.

He was a native of Sardinia, and archdeacon of the Roman church under pope Anastasius, and succeeded him in the holy see in 498. Festus, the patrician, had been gained by Anastasius, emperor of Constantinople, and a protector of the Eutychians, to endeavor to procure from pope Anastasius a confirmation of the Henoticon of Zeno, an imperial edict in favor of those heretics, as Theophanes relates. That pope dying, Festus, by bribes, gained several voices to raise Laurence, archpriest of St. Praxedes, to the pontificate. They were both ordained the same day; Symmachus in the basilic of Constantine, and Laurence in that of our lady. Theodoric, king of Italy, though an Arian, ordered that election should take place which was first, and made by the greater number. By this rule Symmachus was acknowledged lawful pope. He called a council at Rome of seventy-three bishops, and sixty-seven priests, which, to prevent cabals and factions in the elections of popes, ordained that if any one promised his vote to another, or deliberated in any assembly upon that subject, whilst the pope is living, he should be deposed and excommunicated; and that after the pope’s death that person should be duly elected who had a majority of the voices of the clergy. Laurence subscribed these decrees the first among the priests,[229] and was afterward made bishop of Nocera. Soon after, some of the clergy and senators, by the contrivance of Festus and Probinus, privately recalled Laurence to Rome, and renewed the schism, which is by many historians reckoned the first that happened in that church, though Novatian had attempted to form one. The schismatics accused Symmachus of many crimes, and king Theodoric commanded a synod should be held at Rome upon that occasion. The bishops of Liguria, Emilia, and Venetia took Ravenna in their way to Rome, and strongly represented to the king, that the pope himself ought to call the council, which right he enjoyed both by the primacy of his see, derived from St. Peter, and by the authority of councils; also, that there never had been an instance of his being subjected to the judgment of his inferiors.[230] The king showed them the pope’s letters by which he agreed to, and summoned the council. Indeed the pontifical says, that Symmachus assembled this council.[231] The synod met at Rome in September, 501, and declared pope Symmachus acquitted of the accusations entered against him, condemning to be punished as schismatics any who should celebrate mass without his consent; but pardoning those who had raised the schism, provided they gave satisfaction to the pope.[232] When this decree was carried into Gaul, all the bishops were alarmed at it; and they charged Saint Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to write about it in the name of them all. He addressed his letter to Faustus and Symmachus, two patricians who had both been consuls, complaining, that when the Pope had been accused before the prince, the bishops, instead of opposing such an injustice, had taken upon them to judge him: “For,” says he, “it is not easy to apprehend how the superior can be judged by his inferiors, especially the head of the Church.” However, he commends the council for bearing testimony to his innocence, and earnestly entreats the senate to maintain the honor of the Church, and not to suffer the flocks to rise up against their pastors. The famous deacon Paschasius, a man eminent for his great alms-deeds and other good works, had the misfortune blindly to abet this schism to the latter end of his life; for which St. Gregory the Great relates, upon the authority of a certain revelation,[233] that he was detained in purgatory after his death, but delivered by the prayers of St. Germanus, bishop of Capua. Ceillier thinks that he repented only in his last moments;[234] or, that simplicity of heart extenuated his sin. Paschasius wrote a learned book on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, though the two books on that subject which now bear his name, are the work of Faustus of Riez.

Pope Symmachus wrote to the emperor Anastasius declaring that he could not hold communion with him so long as he maintained that of Acacius. That prince expected such a menace from the zeal of the pope, and therefore he had not written to him upon his promotion, according to custom. He also accused him of Manicheism, though Symmachus had banished the Manichees out of Rome; and he did not cease to thwart the pope, dreading his known zeal against his favorite sect of the Acephali. Symmachus composed an apology against this emperor, in which he shows the dignity of the Christian priesthood.[235] He wrote to the Oriental bishops, exhorting them to suffer banishment and all persecutions rather than to betray the divine truth.[236] King Thrasimund having banished many Catholic African bishops into Sardinia, pope Symmachus sent them annually both clothes and money; and there is still extant among the works of Ennodius a letter which this pope sent to comfort them. He accompanied it with some relics of the martyrs SS. Nazarius and Romanus. He redeemed many captives; and gave one hundred and seventy-nine pounds of silver in ornaments to several churches in Rome; and to the chapel of the holy cross, a gold cross of ten pound weight, in which he inclosed a piece of the true cross. On a ciborium, that is, in the language of that time, a tabernacle, which he gave to St. Paul’s church, he caused to be engraved the figures of our Saviour and the twelve apostles. He instituted that the hymn of divine praise called the Gloria in Excelsis should be sung on every Sunday, and on the festivals of martyrs, as the pontifical testifies. He filled the papal chair fifteen years and eight months; and died on the 19th of July, 514. See his letters, the councils, and Anastasius Bibl. Also F. Amort’s Diss. on the cause of pope Symmachus, printed at Bologna in 1758.

Biographical overview

Symmachus is a name from Roman antiquity. It may refer to: Symmachus (translator) (late 2nd century), author of one of the Greek versions of the Old Testament Symmachus ben Joseph, a Jewish Tanna sage of the fifth generation Symmachus (consul 522), son of Boethius Pope Symmachus, bishop of Rome from 498 to 514 Symmachi, a Roman aristocratic family Aurelius Valerius Tullianus Symmachus, consul in 330 Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, praefectus urbi in 364–365 Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 340–c. 402), orator, author, and politician, the most influential of the Symmachi Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus (383/384 – after 402), praetor Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, consul in 446 Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus (died 526), consul in 485 and wrote a history of Rome

Martyrologium Romanum · Latin witness

Romae sancti Symmachi Papae, qui, a schismaticorum factione diutius fatigatus, demum, sanctitate conspicuus, migravit ad Dominum.

The Lives Of The Saints: Volume 08, July Pt. 2 · S. SYMMACHUS, POPE.

(A.D. 514.)

[Roman Martyrology. Not found in any Marty rologies prior to the i6th cent. Authorities : — Anastasius Bibliothecarius, his own letters, and writers of the period in Muratori.]

The Eastern and Western Churches had been estranged since Felix III,, Pope of Rome, and Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, had mutually excommunicated each other in 484. Felix died, Acacius died ; but the two Churches remained separate. Felix would not be reconciled till the name of Acacius was struck out of the diptychs, when Acacius died in 489. To pray for him, to commemorate him at the altar, was to doubt the damnation of the man who had dared to fulminate excommunication against the successor of S. Peter. Felix was succeeded, in 492, by Gelasius I., and the schism remained unhealed ; the Churches of the East persisted in mentioning Acacius in their eucharistic supplications. Gelasius died in 496, and Anastasius II. succeeded him. “ Felix and Acacius

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T^y xg.] S. Symmachiis. 449

are now before a higher tribunal than ours/' said the gentle pope ; “ leave them to that unerring judgment .” 1

He made overtures of reconciliation, and even, it is asserted, admitted to communion a deacon of Thessalonica who had kept up communion with Acacius. His sudden death, after a brief pontificate of two years, cut short all prospect of reconciliation of the schism.

The mild measures of Anastasius seem to have given rise to a party in Rome, headed by the senator, Festus Niger, which was desirous to see the wretched schism healed, and the terms of compromise approved by Pope Anastasius made a basis for general reconciliation. On the other side there was a party opposed to every compro- mise, demanding the erasure of the name of Acacius, now dead fourteen years, from the diptychs, as one damned beyond redemption, and the rejection of the Henoticon of Zeno, which had been accepted by the greater part of the Eastern Church as terms of mutual forbearance, without compromise of principle. But the Henoticon did not formally accept as final the ruling of the Council of Chalcedon, and without the enunciation of heresy it evaded stigmatizing as heretical the views held by the Euty chians.

The death of Anastasius was the signal for a collision of these rival parties in Rome; each elected a pope, the former chose the archpriest Laurence, the latter the deacon Symmachus, a Sardinian, and a convert from paganism . 2 The rival pontiffs were consecrated the same day, Symma- chus in the Lateran Church, Laurence in the basilica of S. Maria. At the head of the party of Laurence stood

1 u Namque et predecessor noster Papa Felix, et etiam Acacius illic proculdubio sunt : ubi unusquisque sub tanto judice non potest perdere sui meriti qualitatem.' J — Anast. Epist. a.o. 496.

3 "Catholica tides, quam in sede beati Petri, veniens ex paganitate, snscepi. ,J —

Epist. ad Anastat.