[A letter] directed to the emperor Anastasius through the bishops Cresconius and Germanus, which is supported by so great an authority of the heavenly Scriptures that whoever reads it through with an attentive mind in godly fear will recognize that the schism so wicked between the churches of the East and of Italy has hitherto endured to no purpose. LII. Symmachus sat fifteen years, seven months, twenty-seven days. With him, however, Laurentius, a presbyter of the Roman Church, had been ordained bishop, and so deadly a discord had seized the clergy and people of Rome that neither the consideration of God nor the fear of the king restrained the parties from mutual collision. Then both, namely Symmachus and Laurentius, were forced to seek the royal court, intending to undergo the king's judgment.
There Symmachus prevailed by much money; Laurentius, compelled by very many threats and promises, was directed to Nuceria, a city of Campania, to govern its church. After some years, however, Symmachus was accused before the king of many crimes. The king, on the occasion of Easter—which he had not celebrated together with the whole body—summoned him to court to give an account for the discord over so great a festival; and he made him reside at Ariminum. And while he tarried there for a while with his clerics, walking in the afternoon hours along the seashore, he saw passing by the women with whom he was accused of crime, who were seeking the court by the king's command.
Pretending therefore not to know what he had seen, in the middle of the night, while all were sleeping, fleeing with but one confidant, he returned to Rome and shut himself within the precincts of blessed Peter the apostle. Then the presbyters and deacons, as well as the rest of the clerics whom he had brought with him, went to the king and testified that Symmachus had fled without their knowledge. Through them the king transmitted, both to the senate and to the clergy, decrees concerning his condemnation in a certain manner. He was also accused by the whole Roman clergy of having squandered the estates of the Church contrary to the decree observed by his predecessors, and of having thereby entangled himself in the bonds of anathema.
Now during the Easter days, by almost everyone the venerable man Peter, bishop of Altinum, was demanded from the king as visitor of the Roman Church; and after the holy festival a synod, at the wish of the senate and clergy and by the king's command, assembled in the city of Rome to judge concerning his excesses. And it was urged by some bishops and senators only—lest Symmachus be subjected to the hearing—who openly cried out in his defense that no Roman pontiff could be put on trial by anyone, even if he were such as he was accused of being. But the more select prelates, both out of regard for religion and because of the king's command, held that the business of so great a matter, which had been spread abroad almost everywhere, ought by no means to be abandoned without examination.
And when the synod, amid this discord, furnished more fuel for strife between the parties, at length it determined that the petition which the accusers of Symmachus offered should be received and solemnly laid open among the official acts. When this was done, soon afterward Symmachus was summoned through the bishops to come to the judgment. But when his appearance was refused through the clerics who guarded him, he was admonished by the prelates a second and a third time, according to the rules, to come to the synodal hearing; yet he deigned to give no answer. Then certain bishops, seeing that they were accomplishing nothing in the case, admonished once and again the clergy who had withdrawn from the company of Symmachus to return to him, the examination being set aside.
He replied that he could by no means do this until, being assailed by so great crimes, he should either be absolved by a canonical investigation, if he were innocent, or, if he proved guilty, be deposed from the priesthood. But the bishops, not enduring the delays, when they saw that the zeal for division was growing more and more, decided upon what seemed to them useful for the person of Symmachus, and so left the city in the utmost confusion.
The clergy therefore and the more select part of the senate, who had shunned the company of Symmachus, directed a petition to the king on behalf of the person of Laurentius—who at that time was residing at Ravenna, avoiding the violence and persecution of Symmachus—that he himself might preside over the Roman Church, where long before he had been ordained supreme pontiff; for this too was fixed by the canons, that each one should remain there where he was first consecrated bishop, or, if by certain contrivances he had been removed thence, that he should by all means be recalled. Thus Laurentius, coming to the city, held the Roman Church for about four years. Through which times what civil wars were waged and how great murders were perpetrated, this is not to be set forth in the present account.
And while the parties clashed in mutual dissension and frequently demanded royal protection for their own causes, at last Symmachus directed a petition to the king through Dioscorus, an Alexandrian deacon, asserting that great prejudice was being done to him, and especially concerning the title-churches within the city which Laurentius held. At this representation the king's mind, softened, sent decrees to the patrician Festus, admonishing that all the title-churches be restored to Symmachus and that he suffer there to be but one pontiff at Rome. When Laurentius learned this, he was unwilling that the city should be vexed by prolonged struggle, and of his own accord withdrew without delay to the estates of the said patrician Festus, and there, under immense abstinence, he obtained the end of his life.
But Symmachus afterward, though victor in many matters, was discolored by a rather foul rumor, and especially concerning that woman whom they commonly called Conditaria, and also concerning the ecclesiastical ordinations which he openly dispensed in exchange for money received. For which things, until the end of his life, the Roman Church remained in schism. This man, building and adorning the church of blessed Martin beside Saint Sylvester with the money of Palatinus, an illustrious man, dedicated it while that man was urging it on. He also renewed several cemeteries, and especially that of Saint Pancras, building there many new things as well. LIII. Hormisdas sat nine years, seventeen days. LIV. John sat two years, nine months, sixteen days. LV. Felix sat four years, two months, twelve days.
LVI. Boniface sat two years, twenty-six days. LVII. John sat two years, four months, six days. LVIII. Agapitus sat eleven months, eight days. LIX. Silverius sat nine months. LX. Vigilius sat eighteen years, two months, nine days. He died at Syracuse on the second feria, in the night of the seventh day before the Ides of June, in the third indiction.