deigned in his benevolence to expound to me the true Catholic faith which was treated, expounded, and received at Sirmium by many brethren and fellow-bishops of ours. (This is the Arian perfidy:—This I have noted, not the apostate:—the following are the words of Liberius.) This I have received with a willing mind (I say anathema to thee, Liberius, and thy companions), and in no respect contradict; I have given my assent, I follow and hold it. (Once more, and a third time, anathema to thee, prevaricator Liberius!) Seeing that you now perceive me to be in agreement with you in all things, I have thought it right to beseech your holinesses to deign by your common counsel and efforts to labour for my release from exile and my restoration to the see divinely entrusted to me." Another is to Ursacius, Valens, and Germinius, begging their good offices, and excusing his apparent delay in writing, as above, to the Oriental bishops. Before sending that letter he had already, he says, condemned Athanasius, as the whole presbytery of Rome could testify, to whom he seems to have previously sent letters intended for the emperor’s eye. He concludes, "You should know, most dear brethren, by this letter, written with a plain and simple mind, that I have peace with all of you, bishops of the Catholic church. And I desire you to make known to our brethren and fellow-bishops Epictetus and Auxentius that with them I have peace and ecclesiastical communion. Whoever may dissent from this our peace and concord, let him know that he is separated from our communion." In giving this letter, Hilary again expresses his indignation in a note: "Anathema, I say to thee, prevaricator, together with the Arians." A third is to Vincentius of Capua, the bishop whose defection at Milan he had once so much deplored. In this he announces that he had given up his contention for Athanasius, and had written to say so to the Oriental bishops, and requests Vincentius to assemble the bishops of Campania and get them to join in an address to the emperor, "that I may be delivered from my great sadness." He concludes, "God keep thee safe, brother. We have peace with all the Eastern bishops, and I with you. I have absolved myself to God; see you to it: if you have the will to fail me in my banishment, God will be judge between me and you."
No sufficient grounds exist for doubting the genuineness of the fragment of Hilary which contains these letters, or of the letters themselves. It is resolutely denied by Hefele (Conciliengeschichte, Bd. v. § 81) and by the Jesuit Stilting in the work of the Bollandists (Acts SS. Sept. t. vi. on Liberius), but their arguments are weak, resting chiefly on alleged historical difficulties and on the style of the letters. All the great Protestant critics accept them; and among the Roman Catholics Natalis Alexander, Tillemont, Fleury, Dupin, Ceillier, Montfaucon, Constant, and Möhler. Dr. Döllinger does the same. Dr. Newman also (Arians of the Fourth Century) quotes them without any note of suspicion. Baronius accepts the letters to the Eastern bishops and to Vincentius, but rejects that to Valens and Ursacius, though only on the ground of its implied statement that Athanasius had been excommunicated by the Roman church. A refutation of Hefele’s arguments is contained in P. le Page Renouf’s Condemnation of Pope Honorius (Longmans, 1868), from which an extract, bearing on the subject, is given in Appendix to the Eng. trans. of Hefele’s work (Clark, Edin. 1876). Even if the fragment of Hilary could be shewn to be spurious, the general fact of the fall of Liberius would remain indisputable, being attested by Athanasius (Hist. Arian. 41; Apol. contr. Arian. 89), Hilary (contra Const. Imp. 11), Sozomen (iv. 15), and Jerome (Chron. et de Vir. Illustr. 97). It was never questioned till comparatively recent times, when a few papal partisans—especially Stilting (loc. cit.), Franz Anton Zaccaria (Dissert. de Commentitio Liberii lapsu), Professor Palma (Praelect. Histor. Eccles. t. i. pt. ii. Romae, 1838)—have taken up his defence, relying primarily on the silence of Theodoret, Socrates, and Sulpicius Severus on his fall. Others, as Hefele, endeavour to extenuate its extent and culpability.
In the letter to the Eastern bishops Liberius speaks of having already accepted the exposition of the faith agreed upon "by many brethren and fellow-bishops" at Sirmium. It is a little uncertain what confession is here meant. There had been two noted synods of Sirmium and both had issued expositions of doctrine. The first in 351, assembled by the Eusebians, adopted a confession which asserted against Photinus and Marcellus of Ancyra the pre-existent divinity of the Son before His human birth and, but for its omission of the term consubstantial, was not heretical. Hilary of Poictiers (de Syn. 38 sqq.) allows it to be orthodox. Baronius and the Benedictine editors of Hilary (with whom agrees Dr. Döllinger in his Papst-fabeln des Mittelalters) maintain that this was the creed accepted by Liberius at Beroea. The formula of the second Sirmian synod, assembled in 357 by Constantius at the instance of the Anomaeans, prohibited both the definitions, homoousios and homoiousios, as being beyond the language of Scripture, and declared the Father to be in honour, dignity, and majesty greater than the Son, and, by implication, that the Father alone may be defined as without beginning, invisible, immortal, impassible. The doctrine expressed was essentially that of the Homoeans, though the phrase "like unto the Father," from which they got their name, was not yet adopted. This may have been the creed accepted by Liberius at Beroea. His credit is not much saved by supposing it to have been the former one, since his letters are sufficient evidence of his pliability. Whichever it was, his acceptance was not enough to satisfy the emperor, who, having gone from Rome to Sirmium, summoned him thither, where he was required to sign a new formula, apparently prepared for the occasion. This was, according to Sozomen, concocted from three sources: first, the creed of the old Antiochene council of 269, in which the term consubstantial, alleged to be used heretically so as to compromise the Son’s Personality by Paul of Samosta, was condemned; secondly, one of the creeds issued by the Eusebian council at Antioch in 341, which omitted
