Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/253

 UBsanni 220 ubebius

one bishop *\ The Arian historian Philostorgius also mentions the presence of Western bishops, and this

speaks of the Romans having eagerly demanded the suits 357; he says that Eudoxius spread the rumour

return of their pope, and so does Runnus. St. Sulpi- that Liberius had signed the second Sirmian formula,

cius Severus, on the other hand, gives the cause as se- and this suits 357 and not the time of Semi-Arian

ditions at Rome, and Sozomen agrees. Socrates is more ascendancy. Further, the formula "in all things

precise, and declares that the Romans rose against like" was not the Semir Arian badge in 358, but was

Felix and drove him out, and that the emperor was forced upon them in 359, after which they adopted it,

obli^ to acquiesce. The reading in St. Jerome's declaring that it included their special formula* 'like in

"Chronicle" is doubtful. He says that a year after substance". Now Sozomen is certainly following

the Roman clergy had perjured themselves they were here the lost compilation of the Maceclonian (L e.

driven out togetner with Felix, until (or because) Li- Semi-Arian) Sabinus, whom we know to have been

berius had re-entered the city in triumph. If we read imtrustworthy wherever his sect was concerned.

" until ", we shall understand that after Liberius's re- Sabinus seems simply to have had the Arian story be-

turn the forsworn clergy returned to their allegiance, fore him, but regarded it, probably rightly, as an in-

If we read "because", with the oldest MS., it will seem vention of the party of Eudoxius; he thinks the

rather that the expulsion of Felix was subsequent to truth must have been that, if Liberius signed a Sirmian

and consequent on the return of Liberius. St. Pros- formula, it was the harmless one of Sbl; if he con-

per seems to have understood Jerome in the latter demned the ** Homoousion", it was only in the sense

sense. The preface to the " Liber Precum " mentions in which it had been condemned at Antioch; he makes

two expulsions of Felix, but does not say that either of him accept the Dedication Creed (which was that of

them was previous to the return of Liberius. the Semi-Arians and all the moderates of the I^ut),

On the other hand, the Arian Philostorgius related and force upon the court bishops the Semi-Arian

that Liberius was restored only when he had con- formula of 359 and after. He adds that the bishops

sented to sign the second formula of Sirmium, which at Sirmium wrote to Felix and to the Roman clergy,

was drawn up after the summer of 357 by the court asking that Liberius and Felix should both be accented

bishops, Germinius, Ursacius, Valens; it rejected the as bishops. It is quite incredible that men like BasO

terms homoouaioa and homoiousios; and was some- and his party should have done this, times called the " formula of Hosius", who was forced Later Years of Liberius. — At the time of his re-

to accept it in this same year, thoueh St. Hilary is turn, the Romans cannot have known that Liberius

surely wrong in calling him its author. The same had fallen, for St. Jerome (who is so fond of tellins us

story of the pope's fall is supported by three letters of the simplicity of their faith and the delicacy oftneir

attnbuted to him in the so-called "Historical Frag- pious ears) says he entered Rome as a conqueror. It

ments" (*' Fragmenta ex Opere Historico" in P. L., A, was clearly not supposed that he had been conquered

678 sqq.) of St. Hilary, but Sozomen tells us it was a by Constantius. There is no s^ of his ever having

he, propagated by the Arian Eudoxius, who had just admitted that he had fallen. In 359 were held the

invadea uie See of Antioch. St. Jerome seems to simultaneous Councils of Seleucia and RiminL At the

have believed it, as in his "Chronicle" he says that latter, where most of the bishops were orthodox, the

Liberius "conquered by the tedium of exile and sub- pressure and delay, and the underhand machinations

scribine to heretical wickedness entered Rome in of the court party entrapped the bishops into error,

triumpn". The preface to the " Liber Precum" also The pope was not there, nor did he send legates. After

speaks of his yielding to heresy. St. Athajiasius, the council his disapproval was soon known, and after

writing apparently at the end of 357, says: " Liberius, the death of Constantius at the end of 361 he was able

having been exiled, gave in after two years, and, in publicly to annul it, and to decide, much as a council

fear of the death with which he was threatened, under Athanasius at Alexandria decided, that the

signed", i. e. the condemnation of Athanasius himself bishoi)s who had fallen could be restored on condition

(Hist. Ar.,xli); and again: "If he did not endure the of their proving the sincerity of their repentance by

tribulation to the end yet he remained in his exile for their zeal against the Arians. About 366 he received

two years knowing the conspiracy against me." St. a deputation of the Semi-Arians led by Eustathius; he

Hilary, writing at Constantinople in 360, addresses treated them first as Arians (which he could not have

Constantius thus: "I know not whether it was with done had he ever joined them), and insisted on their

greater impiety that you exiled him than that you accepting the Nicene formula before he would receive

restored him" (Contra Const., II). them to communion; he was unaware that many of

Sozomen tells a story which finds no echo in any them were to turn out later to be unsound on the ques- other writer. He makes Constantius, after his return tion of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. We learn also from Rome, summon Liberius to Sirmium (357), and from St. Siricius that, after annulling the Council of there the pope is forced by the Semi-Arian leaders, Rimini, Liberius issued a decree forbidding the re- Basil of Ancyra, Eustathius, and Eleusius, to condemn baptism of those baptized by Arians, which was being the " Homoousion"; he is induced to sign a combina- practised by the Luciferian Bchismatica. tion of three formulae: that of the Catholic Council of Forged Letters. — In the fragments of St. Hilary Antioch of 267 against Paul of Samosato (in which are embedded a number of letters of Liberius. Frag- homoousios was said to have been rejected as Sa- ment IV contains a letter, "Studens paci", together bcllian in tendency), that of the Sirmian assembly with a very corrupt comment upon it by St. Hilary, which condemned Photinus in 351, and the Creed of the The letter nas usually been considered a forgery since Dedication Council of Antioch of 341. These formula) Baronius (2nd ed.), and Duchesne expressed the corn- were not precisely heretical, and Liberius is said to have mon view when he said in his "Histoire ancienne de exacted from Ursacius and Valens a confession that TEglise" (1907) that St. Hilary meant us to under- the Son is " in all things similar to the Father' ' . Hence stand that it is spurious. But its authenticity was de- Sozomcn's story has neen very generally accepted as fended by Tillemont, and has been recently upheld by giving a moderate account of Lit^rius's fall, admitting Schiktanz and Duchesne (1908), all Catholic writers, it to Ixj a fact, vet explaining why so many writers Hermant (cited by Coustant), followed by Savio, be- implicitly deny it. But the date soon after Con- lieved that the letter was inserted by a foi^gcr in the stantius w^as at Rome is impossible, as the Semi- place of a genuine letter, and he took the first words of Arians only united at the beginning of 358, and their St. Hilary s comment to be serious and not ironical: short-lived influence over the emperor began in the "What in this letter does not proceed from piety and middle of that year; hence Duchesne and many others from the fear of God?" In this document Liberius is hold (in spite of the clear witness of St. Athanasius) made to address the Arian bishops of the East, and to that Liberius returned only in 358. Yet Sozomen declare that on receiving an epistle against St. Atha*