Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
LIBERATUS, deacon of Carthage. — Famous for his *Breviarium causae Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum*. In 535 he was a member of an African embassy sent to obtain information from Pope John II; later he went to Constantinople and Alexandria.
During these journeys he gathered material for his book, with the intention of proving that Justinian’s condemnation of the Three Chapters was wrong. The book appeared around 560. His sources were Cassiodorus’s *Historia ecclesiastica tripertita* (he may have received the *Historia tripertita* from the author himself, as he sent his *Breviarium* to Cassiodorus; V. P. Courcelle, *Les lettres grecques en Occident*, Paris 1943, p. 363, n. 1), the *Gestae synodalia* (acts of the Council of Chalcedon), the ecclesiastical history of Zacharias the Rhetor (?), and the letters of the popes. L. is also the first Western witness to the appearance of the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius.
BIBL.: Editions: PL 68, 969–1052; *Acta Concil. Oecumen.*, ed. S. Schwartz, II, s.v.; *Collectio Sangermanensis*, Berlin 1936. On the sources: G. Krüger, *Monophysitische Streitigkeiten im Zusammenhang mit der Reichspolitik*, Jena 1884, pp. 32–37; id., in Schanz, IV, 11, p. 583. Studies: E. Schwartz, *Kyriaios von Skythopolis* (*Texte und Untersuchungen*, 49, no. 1), Leipzig 1939, pp. 404 ff.; A. Siegmund, *Die Überlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche*, Munich 1949, p. 154. On L. and the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius: H. Ch. Puech, *Libri et la date de l’apparition des écrits diionysiens*, in *Annuaire de l’École pratique des Hautes Études*, Section des sciences, 1930–31, pp. 3–39; and the critique by I. Stiglmayr, in *Byzantion*, 8 (1933), pp. 658–62.
