that term; and thirdly, the first Sirmian creed, above described. Sozomen adds that he signed also a condemnation of those who denied the Son to be like the Father according to substance and in all respects. When Liberius is said by some writers to have been summoned from Beroea to the third synod of Sirmium, and to have signed the third Sirmian confession, we must not understand those sometimes so called, viz. of May 359 (when a distinctly Homoean formula, prepared by bp. Mark of Arethusa, was subscribed), but the compilation above described.
Liberius was now allowed to return to Rome. Felix was compelled by the populace to retire from the city after tumults and bloodshed. Attempting afterwards to obtain a church beyond the Tiber, he was again expelled.
Two ways have been resorted to of excusing, in some degree, the compliance of Liberius. One, taken by Baronius and Hefele, is that the formulae he subscribed were capable of being understood in an orthodox sense, and so subscribed by him, though otherwise intended by the emperor: that "Liberius renounced the formula ὁμοουσιος, not because he had fallen from orthodoxy, but because he had been made to believe that formula to be the cloak of Sabellianism and Photinism" (Hefele). Baronius, however, condemns him so far as to say that his envy of Felix and his longing for the adulation to which he had been used at Rome led to his weakness. The other way is that of Bellarmine, who acknowledges his external but denies his internal assent to heresy: a view which saves his infallibility at the expense of his morality. The facts remain that in his letters from Beroea he proclaimed his renunciation of Athanasius and his entire agreement and communion with the Easterns, and that at Sirmium he signed a confession drawn up by semi-Arians, which was intended to express rejection of the orthodoxy for which he had once contended. Athanasius, Sozomen, Hilary, and Jerome all allude to his temporary compliance with heresy in some form as a known and undoubted fact. Athanasius, however, unlike Hilary, speaks of it with noble tolerance. He says, "But they (i.e. certain great bishops] not only supported me with arguments, but also endured exile; among them being Liberius of Rome. For, if he did not endure the affliction of his exile to the end, nevertheless he remained in banishment for two years, knowing the conspiracy against me" (Apol. contra Arian. 89). Again, "Moreover Liberius, having been banished, after two years gave way, and under fear of threatened death subscribed. But even this proves only their [i.e. the Arians’] violence, and his hatred of heresy; for he supported me as long as he had free choice" (Hist. Arian. ad Monach. 41). Once in possession of his see and surrounded by his orthodox supporters, Liberius appears to have resumed his old position of resolute orthodoxy. In 359 were held the two councils at Ariminum in the West and Seleucia in the East, resulting in the almost universal acceptance for a time of the Homoean formula, which Constantius was now persuaded to force upon the church in the hope of reconciling disputants. This called forth the famous expression of Jerome (Dial. adv. Lucifer. 19), "The whole world groaned, and wondered to find itself Arian." Liberius was not present at Ariminum, nor is there any reason to suppose that he assented to the now dominant confession. Jerome’s language is rhetorical, and, on the other hand, Theodoret (H. E. ii. 22) gives a letter from a synod of Italian and Gallican bishops held at Rome under pope Damasus, stating that the Ariminian formula had the assent neither of the bp. of Rome, whose judgment was beyond all others to be expected, nor of Vincentius, nor of others besides.
The death of Constantius (a.d. 361) and the accession of Julian the Apostate having left the orthodox free from direct persecution, Athanasius returned once more in triumph to Alexandria (a.d. 362). In the council, famous for its reassertion of orthodoxy, then held at Alexandria, Liberius seems to have taken no prominent part. The glory of restoring orthodoxy and peace to the church is mainly due, not to the bp. of Rome, but to Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Hilary of Poictiers.
Liberius comes next under notice in the last year of his episcopate, and during the reign of Valentinian and Valens, who became, at the beginning of 364, emperors of the West and East respectively, Valentinian being a Catholic, Valens an extreme and persecuting Arian. His persecutions extending to the semi-Arians as well as to the orthodox, caused the former to incline to union with the latter and to the position that the difference between them was one rather of words than of doctrine. They came about this time to be called Macedonians, and now turned to the Western emperor and the Roman bishop for support in their distress, sending three bishops as a deputation to Valentinian and Liberius, with instructions to communicate with the church of Rome and to accept the term "consubstantial." Valentinian was absent in Gaul, but Liberius received them (a.d. 366). At first he rejected their overtures because of their implication in heresy. They replied that they had now repented, and had already acknowledged the Son to be in all things like unto the Father, and that this expression meant the same as "consubstantial." He required a written confession of their faith. They gave him one, in which they referred to the letters brought by them from the Eastern bishops to him and the other Western bishops; anathematized Arius, the Sabellians, Patripassians, Marcionists, Photinians, Marcellianists, and the followers of Paul of Samosata; condemned the creed of Ariminum as entirely repugnant to the Nicene faith; and declared their entire assent to the Nicene creed. They concluded by saying that if any one had any charge against them, they were willing it should be heard before such orthodox bishops as Liberius might approve. Liberius now admitted them to communion, and dismissed them with letters, in the name of himself and the other Western bishops, to the bishops of the East who had sent the embassy.
Liberius died in the autumn of 366 (Marcell. and Faust.), having thus had a notable opportunity of atoning by his latest official act for his previous vacillation.
His extant writings are the letters referred
