Liberatus, Deacon of Carthage (LIBERATO, DIACONO DI CARTAGINE) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, p. 756

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

LIBERATO, deacon of CARTAGINE. - Famous for his Breviarium causae Nestorianorum Eutychianorum. In 535 he was a member of an African embassy which went to Pope Giovanni II for information; later he was in Constantinople and Alexandria.

During these journeys he gathered the material for his book, intending to prove that Giustiniano’s condemnation of the Three Chapters was mistaken. The book appeared around 560. His sources were Cassiodoro’s Historia ecclesiastica tripertita (perhaps he had received the Historia tripertita from the author himself, since he sends his Breviarium to Cassiodoro; V. P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident, Parigi 1943, p. 363, n. 1), the Gesta synodalia (acts of the Council of Chalcedon), the ecclesiastical history of Zacharia retore (?), and the letters of the popes. L. is also the first Western witness to the appearance of the writings of Pseudo-Dionigi.

BIBL.: Editions: PL 68, 969-1052; Acta Concil. Oecumen., ed. S. Schwartz, II, v; Collectio Sangermanensis, Berlino 1936. On the sources: G. Krüger, Monophysitische Streitigkeiten im Zusammenhang mit der Reichspolitik, Jena 1884, pp. 32-37; id., in Schanz, IV, II, p. 383. Studies: E. Schwartz, Kyrillan von Skythopolis (Texte und Untersuchungen, 49, II), Lipsia 1939, p. 404 sg.; A. Siegmund, Die Überlieferung der griech. christl. Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche, Monaco 1949, p. 154. On L. and the works of Pseudo-Dionigi: H. Ch. Puech, Libéré et la date de l'apparition des écrits diouysiens, in Annuaire de l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des sciences, 1930-31, pp. 3-30; and the critique by I. Stiglmayr, in Byzantium, 8 (1933), pp. 658-65.