Editor’s note: This Appendix gathers four separate documents from the procedural sequence of the 501 Roman synods that produced the Synodus Palmaris (Letter V). Thiel collected them as supplementary acts because they illuminate the framework within which that synod’s absolution of Pope Symmachus took place. The most substantively important is the bishops’ Relatio (document III), in which the bishops report to King Theodoric their procedural impasse and quote Pope Symmachus’s own words declining to submit himself to further synodal examination, and Theodoric’s Anagnosticum (document IV), which identifies the case as belonging to God and the clergy rather than to the civil power.
Translator’s note: Theodoric’s two praeceptiones (documents I and II) are written in heavily formal late-imperial chancery Latin, with periodic constructions and administrative euphemism that make for difficult reading even in the original. The translation here aims for substantive accuracy and reasonable English readability; readers consulting the document for technical purposes should compare against the Latin in Thiel’s edition (pp. 670–681) where the precise wording matters. The bishops’ Relatio (document III) and Theodoric’s Anagnosticum (document IV) are written in considerably plainer Latin, and the translation in those sections corresponds more closely to the original.
I. Praeceptio I: Theodoric’s First Letter to the Synod, Sent Through the Bishops Germanus and Carosus
To the holy and venerable fathers, Laurentius, Marcellinus, Petrus, and all the bishops residing in the City: Theodoric, king.
1. You have done something congruent with our purpose: that you chose rather to consult us about your second return than to abandon the council that had been announced, after the example of others’ ill-considered haste — lest, with everyone scattering and leaving the case manifestly deserted, a still greater crowd should shake the royal city with seditious commotions. But We have not wished to allow the case committed to the holy congregation’s examination to be drawn out by this delay, nor to leave the spirits of the whole community more gravely suspended in pre-judgment. For delay of decision does not serve the city’s tranquillity, nor can a sentence of discord agree with the priestly purpose.
2. Therefore, having received with annoyance the confusion that has arisen and the departure of the rest — because, on account of the disturbance which fell out either by chance or by the fault of certain men, the judgments that had begun were repeatedly being abandoned (whereas, had they considered what was fitting, they would rather have remained in the City as you did, awaiting from Our providence the ordering of a remedy for what had happened) — when our reflection had scattered itself in many directions, our care has converged on this counsel: We have judged that the same number of priests who had previously been summoned should once again convene on the day of the Kalends of September. It is therefore fitting that your holiness should patiently await the presence of the others, so that, with the tumult compressed and dissension removed, the case that arose from all may be carried through by all.
3. For We have not thought, as you hoped, that the council should be recalled to Ravenna, and that the labor of others should be added to the burden of age in some of you. Yet We are prepared, if the synodal judgment shall not have placed an end to the case at this second meeting, to come to Rome ourselves at your desire — postponing our occupations and the love of our peace — that, with God authorizing it, We may rather come to Rome, so that, with us at least present, this great cause may obtain its term short of confusion and discord, in the fear of God; and so that the royal city may no longer be wearied by the tempests of crowds, but may return to quiet by the fairness of your judgment. Lest the delay seem burdensome to you, it is for your providence to estimate whether, for the tranquillity of our times, it can be tolerated that — with the council loosened without any definition under the uncertainty of this contest — the Roman Church should lose its City.
By another hand: Pray for us, lord and venerable fathers!
Given on the sixth day before the Ides of August in the reign of the abovesaid happily, with Rufius Magnus Faustus Avienus, the most distinguished man, consul.
II. Praeceptio IV: Theodoric’s Fourth Letter, Sent Through the Major Domus Regis
Theodoric, king, to all the bishops convoked to the synod.
4. For the peace of the Roman Church, with bishop Symmachus impugned by criminous propositions, under the disturbance of the crowd which you observe, how could Our providence better consult than that — at the petition of the senate and clergy — We summon bishops from various provinces to gather and deal with the case, and that We make a holy man come for the religious action and judgment in the council? Before Our eyes, the matter has long been destined for the universal synod, and the oracles of Our conscience confirm: We have committed this right to the bishops by their convocation, with the affection of integrity alone, that — under the equity of the synod’s sentence — [the Pope] may either rejoice in his innocence’s absolution or, if convicted by the objections, lie under his guilt.
5. After such a constitution had been established, who could doubt that an end was being given to the matter? Who could believe that, from so numerous a council of priests, more confusion’s ambiguity should arise? What did it profit, that an aged man traveled to us at the cost of so long a journey, that the business of so many absent priests was suspended for the journey of churches? What hope of remaining will there be, if from such a great gathering no agreement can be obtained? But let those things suffice which it is enough to call to memory for this purpose; let the goods of past matters cease, if they displease, that the care of correction may emend what has been wronged. Let it not at least be the case, by the dilation of the matter, that the repeated judgments of the second congregation about to come — for faith, for innocence, for the equity of concord — should depart with some studies dissenting from integrity. This our petition, this affection of our religion, presses upon the city of Rome: that, with priestly consideration, the matter being delegated to a settled limit without contention, you may know that your examination will follow God’s judgment.
6. Consider, that confusion is the mother of discord, and just as doubts are settled by consensus, so too are firm dissensions dissolved. Does the Church demand laborious things, or things grave to your conscience, or things inimical to your purpose, when she seeks peace from her own bishops? And from those whose profession of religion ought to incline them more readily to the care of justice, must faith await a tumultuous intention? You have liberty to serve justice in cognizance; with all occasions removed, let it be unimpeded for your will to examine by judgment the case of the criminal objections — provided that, with studious endeavor in the love of decision, all confusion’s ambiguity be cut off. Especially when, for the religion’s reverence and consideration of justice, our oracles confer on you the faculty: that, just as it is for you to inquire in this business with will and care for truth, with all persons there constituted, by which the truth of the matters sought can be established — you may know, both you and God, what you ought to judge in the case itself, with peace by all means restored to the clergy, the senate, and the Roman people after the judgment, lest some confusion or discord remain in the city. If however you wish that — what was proposed having stood — the matter should pass without examination of judgment, you know, both you and God, how to ordain it; provided that peace be returned to the clergy, the senate, and the Roman people under your ordination. Behold, before God and men, We commit to your arbitrement the universal things, having absolved our conscience as was right.
Only that, with just ordination, the matter shall have been finished, and unity restored to the dissenting be made known. For it is neither tolerable, nor does the love of the royal city by which We are held permit it: that, with all things being pacified by God’s authority, [Rome] alone should not have peace, by which we may use the celestial favor against external enemies. Indeed it is shameful — to the stupor of those who behold the diversity — that the Roman state should be erected in tranquillity on the boundary of nations, and yet in the middle of the City be confused, so that one must seek the city in some higher place, situated as it is under the proximity of enemies, and yet [should be] secure.
7. Lest We seem to have neglected anything, since We believed bishop Symmachus’s presence necessary in the cognizance, We have sent Gudila and Bedeulphus, the eminent men, the chiefs of our household, with the illustrious count Arigernus. Lest our command have any doubt about it, the eminent men will guarantee the sacraments to the designated bishop — that, just as Your ordination shall have estimated, it will suffice; and that, called to the council, secure outside the City without molestation or fear, [he] may proceed.
Pray for me, holy and venerable fathers! Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of September at Ravenna, in the reign of the aforesaid happily, with Rufius Avienus Faustus, the most distinguished man, consul.
III. The Bishops’ Relatio to the King from the Third Synod (Containing Symmachus’s Statement Through Legates)
The bishops’ report to the king. The third synod held at Rome.
8. We give thanks to God, who governs and tempers the hearts of kings by His own piety’s hand — for the clemency that comes from Him, Your goodwill out of Your love of Us has shown with most moderate kindness, by the eminent men sent through the chief of the household, Gudila and Bedeulphus. So the Lord of heaven made gentle the princes whom He loved; and to those for whom Divinity is propitious, He ordains in all causes that they obey His commands, since it is written, with God speaking: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5) — at least, where the things of the good are to be understood.
9. With all affection and obedience, therefore, We have decided to obey Your command. We caused our brother bishops to convene four times from the second synod for the judgment, that they might bring our brother bishop the Pope to the assembly. But he himself testified that he could not at all come to our hearing, sending this mandate by them: “First, when you came to Rome, I hastened to your assembly without any hesitation, I submitted my privileges to the royal will, and I gave authority to the synod; as ecclesiastical discipline requires, I asked according to the canons that the restoration of the churches [be conducted]: but no result came to me from you. Then, when I came [to the synod] with my clergy, I was cruelly assaulted. Further, I do not commit myself to your examination: it is in the power of God and of the lord king to ordain what should be deliberated concerning me.” We sent the bishops with the chief of the royal household to the illustrious man Arigernus. Whatever response he gave, [the king] is notified by his own report.
10. We notify the most serene lord nevertheless that nothing has remained which We could do, nor can We bring [him] unwilling to our disputation. Since the appeals of all bishops are committed [to the Apostolic See] by the canons themselves, and when [he] himself appeals, what is to be done? We cannot bear sentence on an absent man, nor presume to deliberate on a contumacious one — of whom he himself proclaims that he met your judgments twice. Especially because the matter is new, and that a pontiff of this See should be tried before us has no precedent.
11. We wished what remained — that peace, according to your command and will, be returned to the city; the matter is amicable, congruent with our purpose, and fitting to the felicity of your times. Since We grieve and shudder at the confusion of so great a city, We have sent Our colleagues to the most ample senate a second time, exhorting them with the apostle’s words: If it be possible, as much as in you lies, have peace with all men; not avenging yourselves, dearly beloved, but rather give place (Rom. 12:18-19); for it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Nor have we failed in our admonition to the clerics, whom we wish to subvene by the canonical norm; yet they have despised even our salutary admonition. Therefore it will be of your imperium, by the nod of God, to provide for the Church’s restoration, the Roman city’s quiet, and the provinces’.
From various provinces We caused [bishops] to be summoned, that — under the divine fear of judgment — the dispositions of the whole struggle’s cause might cross over with you, and that to our city, with God favoring through your concord, [peace] might be returned. Now indeed the same things which formerly, with the present oracles intimating them, We — absolving Ourselves before God and men — have committed to your most ample congregation, hoping for peace from the clergy, just as has appeared to your love, [so] We have ordered. Nor is your right to be expected from Us; rather, [it is to be expected] how you ordain. Whether the case is discussed or undiscussed, bring forth a sentence, of which you will be returned by reason to the divine judgment — provided that, just as We have often said, this deliberation provide for the senate, and that peace may be restored to the senate and to the Roman people from all confusion, lest, which God forbid, after the judgment a crowd or some discord remain in the city. But if, according to Our mandates, concord shall have been restored to the most sacred city by you, then the universality may know that the just judgment of your sacred order has stood. Pray for us, holy and venerable fathers!
Given on the day of the Kalends of October, in the reign of the abovesaid happily.
IV. Theodoric’s Anagnosticum to the Synod at Rome
The bishops are first to be saluted, and the following to be told to them.
12. The case which is being treated, if it had seemed right to me, or had been a matter of justice, that I myself should have heard it with the magnates of my palace, [I] could have treated and judged it — and this would have been pleasing to God and not ungrateful to posterity. But because the case is God’s and the clergy’s, I have therefore now caused bishops to convene from various cities, at the petition of the senate and clergy. As if with God in the middle — just as is read in the Gospel, and in the apostle to the Corinthians — follow this; and whether the case is to be discussed or undiscussed, judge as it shall have seemed right to you. Do not fear my person; you must give a reckoning before God’s sight. Dismiss the clergy and people pacified, and what you shall have judged, write to me. For we shall thus prove that you have ordained well, if you restore peace, integral, to the people, the senate, and the clergy. But if you shall do little, we shall judge that you have favored one party. And let no one have any person before his eyes; though if anyone wishes to violently impose on you what is unjust, the custodians of justice should keep you safe from these things. For many bishops, both of your religion and of ours, have suffered for the causes of God and concerning the churches and concerning their own things — and yet they live. I do not impose only, but ask, that you may do what God prescribes, and what you have read in the gospel and the apostle. If however you discuss the case, or under any color you judge it the better; but if you dismiss it undiscussed, you have given an example to the priests altogether of being badly governed. When he had said these things, he proposed a similitude.
13. Aspar was once told by the senate, it is said, that he himself should be made emperor. He gave this kind of response: “I fear, lest through me a custom be born in the kingdom.” So I say also: that the holy fathers may not be angry with us — that through them, when they have not discussed and so judged, a custom of sinning may not be born generally for all priests. Likewise, if they will discuss the case, that they may go out securely; Arigernus, Gudila, and Bedeulphus shall offer them the sacraments. Concerning the threshing-floor or the Lateran house, just as it shall have been judged, let the same synod return [it]. Concerning the vengeance which they hope for after the discussion, if it shall please them, let either themselves avenge it, or let us depute those who shall pursue the offenses by the laws.
Footnotes
- ↩ Theodoric is announcing his decision to reconvene the synod on 1 September 501 — the Third Synod, which would itself fail (disrupted by the mob violence in which Arigernus was wounded). The bishops’ patient response to the king’s earlier order is contrasted with the disorder of those who had departed: they should have remained in Rome and waited, as the bishops addressed here had done. The reader should observe how Theodoric’s intervention here works within the two-powers framework: the king reconvokes the synod and provides for its security, but the substantive judgment remains with the bishops.
- ↩ 8 August 501. Theodoric’s letter to the bishops marks the formal announcement that the synod would reconvene on 1 September — the Third Synod, which would itself fail because of the Laurentian mob violence.
- ↩ This is Theodoric’s framing of the synod’s competence in his fourth praeceptio: he has summoned the bishops to deal with the Pope’s case; the case has, in his view, been long pending; and the synod’s judgment will result either in the Pope’s absolution (if innocent) or his subjection to guilt (if convicted). The reader should observe that this royal framing assumes synodal authority over the substantive question, in tension with the bishops’ eventual ruling in Letter V that the case is reserved to divine judgment alone. The Synodus Palmaris’s reservation to divine judgment can be read as a deliberate response to this royal framing — the bishops chose not to follow Theodoric’s invitation to pronounce on the substance, but instead reserved the question to God.
- ↩ This is the substantive royal grant of jurisdictional latitude to the synod. Theodoric is telling the bishops that they may either examine the case substantively or pass it without examination, as they judge appropriate — provided that peace be restored to the Roman city. The two options he offers are precisely the framework within which the Synodus Palmaris will operate: the bishops will choose the second course (passing the matter without substantive judgment) and reserve the case to divine judgment. The reader should observe that Theodoric himself has framed this as a permissible course; the synod’s eventual reservation is therefore not in defiance of the royal will but within the latitude the king has explicitly granted.
- ↩ These are the same Gudila and Bedeulphus and Arigernus whose wounds in the mob violence are described in Letter V chapter V, section 6. Theodoric here records that he had specifically dispatched them to ensure Symmachus’s safe conduct to the synod — but the violence intervened. The reader should observe how the political-historical sequence fits together: the king sends royal officers to escort the Pope; the Laurentian mob attacks the procession; the officers are wounded; the Pope withdraws to St. Peter’s. The fourth synod (Letter V) was convoked precisely because this royal effort to bring the Pope to the synod had failed under violent assault.
- ↩ 27 August 501. Theodoric’s Praeceptio IV is therefore from approximately one month before the Synodus Palmaris (23 October 501). It is the formal royal communication that established the framework within which the Synodus Palmaris would meet — including the explicit royal grant of latitude to the synod to either examine the case or pass it without examination.
- ↩ The bishops’ opening doxology to Theodoric performs important editorial work. They acknowledge the king as ruling by God’s gift, his clemency as proceeding from God’s piety, and his actions as conducted under divine ordination. This is the two-powers framework operating from the ecclesiastical side: the king is honored, his providential role is acknowledged, but everything is framed within God’s sovereign ordering. The reader should observe that the bishops are not flattering the king — they are placing his role within the theological framework that governs the relation between civil and ecclesiastical authority, which is the same framework Gelasius articulated in Duo Sunt.
- ↩ The Latin reading is auctoritatem synodo dedi — “I gave authority to the synod.” Symmachus is enumerating the cooperative gestures he had made when first summoned: he came at once, he set aside his canonical privileges, and he himself granted the synod the authority to proceed. The Pope is asserting, in effect, that whatever competence the synod had to act on his case derived from his own grant of it, not from any pre-existing canonical authority over him. This is the procedural foundation of the canonical principle that the bishops articulate in section 10: the See’s competence in such matters is original; lower bishops do not have inherent jurisdiction over the See’s case, and only by the See’s own act could a synod proceed at all. Thiel notes manuscript variants here (auctoritate synodo, auctoritati synodo); the Thielian reading is the one most coherent with the surrounding context.
- ↩ The Latin is Deinde quum convenirem cum clero meo, crudeliter demactatus sum. Symmachus is referring to the violent attack on his procession en route to the third synod, described in Letter V chapter V section 6: Laurentian partisans attacked the Pope’s procession in the streets, the count Arigernus and the household chiefs Gudila and Bedeulphus were wounded, and several of Symmachus’s accompanying clergy were killed. The verb demactatus sum (literally “I was slaughtered”) is being used hyperbolically — Symmachus is alive and giving this statement weeks later through legates — to convey the savagery of the assault. Several of his clergy were killed; the Pope himself was attacked but survived. The translation “cruelly assaulted” preserves the force of the expression without the literal sense of being killed.
- ↩ This is the central jurisdictional statement of the Appendix, and arguably the operative statement on which the Synodus Palmaris’s reservation to divine judgment turns. The bishops are reporting to Theodoric what Symmachus said when they sent legates to him four times to ask him to come to the synod for judgment. The Pope’s response, quoted directly, has three movements. First, he recalls his initial cooperation: he came to Rome at the king’s request, submitted his privileges, gave the synod authority to proceed, and asked only that the restoration of his churches be canonically conducted — but received no result. Second, he recalls the violence at the third synod: when he came to the synod with his clergy, he was cruelly assaulted. Third — and this is the operative declaration — he refuses to commit himself to further synodal examination. The reasoning he gives: the matter is in the power of God and of the lord king to ordain. The reader should observe what this presupposes. Symmachus does not deny that the king has authority to convoke; he does not deny that the bishops have proper synodal functions in their sphere. What he denies is that he himself, as Pope, can be subjected to the synod’s examination — because the matter is reserved to God and to the king’s civil authority, not to the synod’s adjudication. This is the procedural claim that prepares the substantive theological reservation in the Synodus Palmaris (Letter V), which moves the case explicitly to divine judgment alone, removing it even from the king’s competence over its substance.
- ↩ This is the canonical principle on which the bishops rest their procedural impasse. The Latin invokes the canonical principle that appeals from all bishops are committed to the Apostolic See — precisely the principle that Gelasius had articulated as foundational. The bishops at the Third Synod are observing that, by this principle, the Pope is the See to which others appeal, and therefore his own case cannot be heard by lesser bishops. The reader should observe what this presupposes: the canonical structure of the Church places the Apostolic See at the apex of the appellate hierarchy. To require the See to submit to lesser bishops’ judgment would invert that structure. Footnote 10 in Thiel’s apparatus quotes Gelasius’s foundational statement of this principle from his Letter 26: “The whole Church throughout the world knows that the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle has the right of loosing what has been bound by the sentences of any pontiffs whatsoever — inasmuch as it has the right of judging concerning the whole Church, and it is not lawful for anyone to judge of its judgment: for the canons would have appeals to it from any part of the world, but no one is permitted to appeal from it.” This is the foundational statement of papal appellate supremacy that the Synodus Palmaris implicitly invokes.
- ↩ 1 October 501. The bishops’ Relatio to the king is therefore from three weeks before the Synodus Palmaris (23 October 501). It is the formal report from the bishops to the king of the failure of the Third Synod to produce a substantive judgment, containing both the bishops’ canonical reasoning for why they cannot proceed and Symmachus’s own procedural reservation. The operative procedural framework that the Synodus Palmaris will adopt — committing the case to God’s judgment, leaving to the king the question of how to proceed — is articulated here three weeks before the decisive synod meets.
- ↩ This is the locus classicus of Theodoric’s two-powers framing. The Latin is quia causa est Dei et clericorum — “because the case is God’s and the clergy’s.” The Arian Ostrogothic king explicitly identifies the case as belonging to God and to the clergy, not to himself or his civil authority. He could have judged it (he is, after all, the legitimate ruler of Italy), but because the case is ecclesiastical in nature, he has committed it to the bishops. The reader should observe that this is the structural complement to Duo Sunt from the civil side: just as Gelasius articulated the principle that civil rulers should not encroach on the ecclesiastical sphere, Theodoric here voluntarily refuses to encroach on what is properly the bishops’ sphere. The two-powers doctrine is operating from both directions in the Symmachan synodal sequence — Gelasius articulating it from Rome, Theodoric implementing it from Ravenna.
- ↩ Theodoric is here distinguishing between two outcomes the bishops could choose: substantive examination of the case (which he prefers) or dismissal without examination. He explicitly endorses the first as the better course but acknowledges the second as within the bishops’ competence. The reader should observe how this royal framing differs from the eventual outcome: the bishops at the Synodus Palmaris chose neither course exactly as Theodoric framed them — they did not “discuss” the case substantively (which would have required canonically inadmissible testimony) nor “dismiss it undiscussed” (which would have left the matter unresolved). Instead, they took a third course Theodoric had not anticipated: they reserved the case to divine judgment, declaring it beyond synodal cognizance, while restoring the Pope to full exercise of his see.
- ↩ Aspar (d. 471) was a Germanic-origin Roman general and patrician who exercised great influence at the Eastern court but, as an Arian, declined to accept the imperial dignity for himself. Theodoric is invoking him as a model of self-restraint by political authority: just as Aspar refused to set a precedent by becoming emperor, Theodoric is here refusing to set a precedent by judging an ecclesiastical case that belongs properly to the bishops. The Aspar parallel is Theodoric’s way of explicitly framing his own self-restraint within the two-powers doctrine.
Historical Commentary