LIBERIUS, POPE. — Nothing certain is known about his life before the papacy: according to the *Liber Pontificalis* he was of Roman origin; according to the epitaph, which is not certain to be his, he was a lector and then a deacon for several years.
I. THE PONTIFICATE
The beginning of his pontificate, which lasted from 17 May 352 to 23 September 366, coincided with the campaign launched by Emperor Constantius II to impose on all bishops the repudiation of omission and the condemnation of Athanasius. Liberius did not remain inactive. He invited Athanasius to Rome, who instead sent a memorandum signed by 80 Egyptian bishops. Liberius had it examined in a synod and declared himself in solidarity with Athanasius. At the same time, he sent an embassy to Constantius at Arles, to implore the convocation of a general council at Aquileia. The Emperor had him detained in his residence at Arles (353) and succeeded in having Athanasius condemned even by the Roman legates. Only Paulinus of Trier refused and was exiled. Saddened by the defection of his legates, Liberius requested a new council, which the Emperor set at Milan (355). But once again, violence and threats prevailed over the assembled bishops, except for the Roman legates, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Dionysius of Milan, who were exiled and their sees occupied by compliant bishops. Liberius consoled them with a letter, in which he commended them to their prayers for the trial that awaited him. Indeed, shortly afterward, the eunuch Eusebius arrived in Rome with the task of inducing Liberius to condemn Athanasius, and when he failed, he had him abducted at night and taken to the imperial court at Milan.
There too, Liberius conducted himself with admirable fortitude and dignity, so much so that Constantius exiled him to Beroea in Thrace (355) and installed the archdeacon Felix in his place. Toward the end of 357, Liberius was brought to the court at Sirmium, where he worked with Basil of Ancyra to turn imperial favor away from the Arian faction to the moderate one. During 358, Liberius was able to return to Rome, welcomed with joy and affection by the faithful, who refused to acknowledge a double pontificate, Liberius and Felix, so that the latter, after a futile attempt to regain power, withdrew definitively. Liberius did not participate nor send legates to the Council of Rimini (359), which later allowed him to condemn its decisions, associate himself with the conciliatory initiatives taken at the Synod of Alexandria (362), and instruct the Italian bishops to forgive their brothers who had sincerely returned to the Nicene faith, thereby preventing the Luciferian schism from taking root in Italy. In 366, three bishops arrived in Rome as envoys of 64 Homoian bishops, to restore communion with the Apostolic See. Liberius required them to accept in writing the Nicene faith, condemn the formula of Rimini and all errors contrary to it, and recognize papal rights in case of disputes. Once this was obtained, he granted them communion and sent letters to the 64 bishops and to all the orthodox of the East, which were read and approved at the Council of Tyana and would have effected a full reconciliation had not Emperor Valens intervened to prevent II. Meanwhile, however, Liberius had already died. To him is attributed the construction of the Liberian Basilica, later renovated by Sixtus III (Santa Maria Maggiore). His name was inscribed in the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*, while it was excluded from the Roman *Martyrologium*, not so much because of the calumnies of the *Liber Pontificalis*, which portrays him as a heretical persecutor of Catholics, but because of the weakness with which he allegedly purchased his return to Rome.
II. HIS FALL
This is a matter of controversy. Among the Church Fathers, St. Athanasius refers to it twice: in the *Apologia contra Arianos*, written in 350 and expanded around 360, he mentions Liberius among the bishops favorable to him; yet he adds that Liberius did not endure to the end the hardships of exile (ch. 8); in the *Historia Arianorum ad monachos*, written toward the end of 357, he says that after two years of exile, overcome by death threats, Liberius wavered and subscribed (ch. 41). Both passages seem to indicate, in their context, that this consisted in abandoning Athanasius. St. Hilary, in the invective launched in 360 against Constantius, writes that he does not know whether the Emperor committed greater impiety in exiling Liberius or in sending him back (Contra Constantium, ch. 2).St. Jerome, both in the *Chronicon* (Ad an. Abr., 2365 — a. 352) and in the *De viris illustribus* (ch. 97), speaks of a subscription to a heretical formula. The first document of the *Collectio Avellana*, in reporting Constantius’s reply to the Romans’ requests—“You have Liberius better than when he left”—comments: “This indicated the consent with which he had yielded to perfidy.” Rufinus, finally, reports, without endorsing either version, the two prevailing accounts: that Liberius’s return was purchased by submitting to imperial will, or that it was due to Constantius’s indulgence toward the requests of the Roman people (Hist. eccl., I, 27).
It is evident that at the time of Liberius’s return to Rome
Hilary; should we treat Liberius less well? For the moment Constantius was grateful that he had cooperated in a peace whose conditions were believed to be secure and stable” (La paix constantinienne et le catholicisme, Paris 1914, pp. 465 ff.).