Gesta Liberii Papae

Appendix. The Acts of Pope Liberius. A Note on the Following Acts. (Coust. Append., p. 87) I. In an old collection written in Lombardic letters, the following Acts are placed immediately after the pseudo-constitution of Sylvester. Their author reveals himself from the outset as a liar and an ignoramus, where he calls the emperor who reigned at Rome in the time of Pope Liberius not only Constantine, Constans, and Constantius indiscriminately, but also styles him “the grandson of Constantine the Great,” whereas it is established that Constantius, the son of this emperor, was then ruling at Rome. Next, he repeats what is fabricated in the false acts and pseudo-constitution of Pope Sylvester concerning Constantine’s leprosy and his baptism. Moreover, what Eusebius of Caesarea relates about the baptism of Constantine the Great at Nicomedia, administered by Eusebius, the bishop of that city, he stupidly interprets as the baptism of this fictitious grandson. Nor does he attribute to Constantius any less falsely the heretical opinion concerning several sons of Mary. But who does not perceive that he shamefully blunders when he sets forth either the cause or the place of Liberius’ exile? For Liberius was banished by Constantius not because he mocked or accused him and said to him, “Your kingdom will not be, because you do not fear the Lord,” but because he refused to subscribe to the condemnation of Athanasius. Moreover, no one is ignorant that the same man was exiled not at Noella in the cemetery, only three miles distant from the City, but at Beroea in Syria.

Furthermore, it represents him acting in this cemetery as if he were unaware that Felix had been substituted in his place. It also falsely claims that Damasus was a presbyter at the time when Liberius went into exile, and that he was created his vicar by Liberius before he left Rome; although it is established from the supplications of Marcellinus and Faustinus to the emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius that he was then only a deacon and was one of Liberius’s companions when he departed. For there, on page 2, one reads: “With Liberius, Damasus, his deacon, pretends to set out; whence, fleeing from the journey, he returned to Rome.” Surely, he would have had no legitimate reason for not setting out, or at least for returning sooner, if he had been appointed vicar by Liberius himself. But something entirely different is indicated by what is immediately added in the same supplications: “On the day when Liberius set out for exile, the entire clergy, that is, the presbyters and the archdeacon Felix, and Damasus himself, a deacon... swore under oath that, while Liberius lived, they would by no means have another pontiff. But the clergy, contrary to divine law... received Felix the archdeacon, ordained in place of Liberius.” However, it is tedious to dwell longer on refuting such obvious falsehoods, especially since the rest consists either of fables, or of acts misunderstood, or of events reported in a distorted order.

II. We suspect that the architect of these deeds is none other than the one who fabricated the earlier Gesta of Marcellinus and the pseudo-constitution of Silvester. This is suggested both by the place they occupy in handwritten copies, and by their barbaric manner of speaking, though somewhat more tolerable, and also by a lack of skill equal in devising falsehoods and an equal shamelessness in producing them. Therefore, it will not be useless to add these to the aforementioned matters. This will certainly serve to make known the sources from which the Life of Damasus, copied from a manuscript codex of the archives of the Canons of St. Peter by Abbot Constantine Cajetanus and printed in Paris in the year [1666] by Lud. Billaine along with the other works of Pope Damasus, p. 21, took its beginnings. For the writer of this Life, although not entirely lacking in speech or learning, cannot be denied to have adhered rather incautiously to the statements of those deeds. He corrected many absurd and discordant things; he also brought back some things, abhorrent to historical truth, to its norm: but he did not correct everything so that nothing remained to be corrected. For he did not correct what is read in these acts about the exile of Liberius at the cemetery of Noella, a mile distant from the City. And although he does not conceal that Felix was substituted for him, he nevertheless represents Liberius as if he entrusts his duties to Damasus, and then: "he summons all the catholic ecclesiastical grades" to himself, and in their presence confers baptism many thousands at once and a second time.

We send the same writer the legation of Lucifer, bishop of Calaris, Pancratius, and Hilarius to Constantius, as well as the exiles of the same Lucifer, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Liberius himself, which preceded the Council of Rimini by three or four years, and he believed them to be later than this synod; he confuses Hilarius, bishop of Poitiers, with Hilarius the deacon, who adhered to the Luciferian schism, and other similar matters, of which it is not the place to discuss further here. Let it suffice to have noted here that the writer of these Gesta, which it is impossible to express in a better form, clearly appears to be of a later date. HERE BEGIN THE GESTA OF POPE LIBERIUS. (From the same source, p. 89.) Confession of Faith.— In the year of the reign of King Constantine, grandson of Constantine the Great, there was a certain priest of the City named Liberius, a pious prelate preaching Christ, just as he had been taught by Mark, bishop of the city of Rome, who ordained him deacon in the city in the bosom of the Constantinian basilica, always fixed in the Trinity, preaching the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and praising "God from God and light from light, whole from whole, full from full; not created, but begotten; not from nothing, but from the Father.

of one substance with the Father. The Holy Spirit, our God, neither unbegotten nor begotten, neither created nor made, but proceeding from the Father, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we venerate as coeternal always with the Father and the Son: yet one God, because from the one Father the whole that is of the Father, God, the Son is born, and in the Father the whole that is in him (or, according to one manuscript, that which is) has begotten the Son. The Father, in generating the Son, neither diminished nor lost the fullness of his divinity. But the whole that God the Father is, we most certainly confess that the Son also is, and with the Holy Spirit we most piously confess one God. We believe that Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God, through whom all things were made which are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, descended from heaven for our salvation, who never ceased to be in heaven, and was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. The Word made flesh did not lose what it was, but began to be what it was not, not changed, but remaining God, and also born man, not putatively but truly, not aerial and corporeal, not phantastical but having flesh, bones, blood, sense, and soul; such a true man as a true God, we in no way doubt that the one and the same was a true man, to be confessed.

This same Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified according to the Scriptures, rose from the dead on the third day, was taken up into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and we await him coming from there to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. Constantine cleansed of leprosy. Constans baptized at Nicomedia. Liberius banished to Noella.— When he had read this from an ancient book, instructed by the book of Silvester, bishop of the Romans, because he also preached publicly that (delete "because") in the name of Jesus Christ Constantine, the uncle of Constans, had been cleansed of leprosy by Silvester; for Constans was not a complete Christian, but rather a tester, baptized nevertheless in the Trinity, yet he did not fully confess the Trinity. He was baptized, however, by Eusebius of Nicomedia in Nicomedia at the villa of Aquilo. This man indeed said that [Joseph] had other sons from Mary. When Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, heard this, he began to mock him, and to accuse him in a clear voice, and to say with all his might: "Your kingdom will not endure, because you do not fear your Lord God." When many reported this to King Constantius, he became vehemently angry, and ordered him to live outside the city. He lived, however, one mile from the city of Rome, as an exile in the cemetery of Noella on the Via Salaria.

Liberius appointed Damasus as his vicar, out of love for Peter after the denial. Chrism in the name of the Lord.— When Easter day came, he summoned all the Roman presbyters and deacons, and sat in the same cemetery, and said: “Do not be afraid, because I do not dwell with you in the city of Rome, but you have a vicar; behold, the brother and presbyter Damasus, whose testimony you give me, whom you proclaim with clear voice in body and mind.” Then the presbyter Dionysius answered Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, and said: “Holy prelate, innocent of corruption and strong in the palm of Christ, you know well that the apostle Peter, when he denied, was sick. A fit came, and he denied again. A fever came a third time, and he denied. The fever receded, and he wept bitterly and sweetly. But the physician had not yet come. The physician came after the third crisis, made a remedy, and healed him. He who had failed by denying three times before the passion is restored by loving three times after the resurrection. Consider the remedy of chrism, the sacrament of chrism. Let not that dove accuse us, because you prepare chrism and in the name of him whom you proclaimed with a clear voice. That same voice, because the voice of the Lord cannot be repeated, cannot be changed, can be heard with trembling.

Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, replied and said: "Lords and holy fellow presbyters, do not think about tomorrow. For thus the Master said: 'Tomorrow itself will think of itself' (Matthew 6:34). For we remind you of this. John was baptizing in the desert for penance. Therefore it was a desert, because the author of baptism had not yet come. For when he had come, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and remained upon the waters and upon the author of baptism, and the priest exhibits the sacrament which he received." Baptism in a basin, river, marsh.— Damasus the presbyter replied and said: "Show us how to celebrate Easter. I speak in humility: for the burden which you bear upon yourself, we cannot lift; because you do not know where to baptize. Baptize in the basin where the Master did. That basin is not wood, but the whole world." Liberius received this speech with great honor, and wept for joy, and said to him: "You will be a greater minister, just as he who gave us baptism said to the people: 'He who is your lesser, let him become greater.'" Siricius the deacon replied and said: "Command with my mouth, O bishop, and pour forth favor; our Fathers in the type of baptism passed through the middle of the sea. For in rivers and in marshes it is necessary to be baptized." Bishop Liberius said: "You have spoken justly." For there was there, not far from the cemetery of Noella, the Ostrian cemetery, where the apostle Peter baptized.

At the same time of Easter, he baptized four thousand twelve persons of both sexes: all of whom, whether Romans from afar or others neighboring the Romans, desired to be baptized by him. Constantius’ expedition on the Danube.— But at the same time, a war came upon the Danube, a very great (or immense) part of the barbarians, almost within the octave of Easter. And hearing this, Constans (read: Constantius) said: “Behold this sacrilegious man, because he has done what was never done, he has made a superstition of vanity. Therefore this great plague of the multitude of barbarians comes upon Romania;” and he went to war, and set out with great bitterness, and said, as he was going out of the city gate: “The sacrilegious Liberius, who said my palm was leprous, and that I was baptized by Bishop Sylvester and cleansed, when I have gone against the four-footed beasts of the Danube and cut down the barbarians, returning to the city of Rome, I will offer his flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth; him alone, Liberius, not others: lest they say and affirm that I am a persecutor.” But while in the battle on the Danube, Constantius was hard pressed.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, a mixed crowd of both sexes was pressing to be baptized because of the fear of persecution. Then the presbyter Dionysius said: “Why do you not baptize at the first pontiff of ours, the apostle Peter?” Damasus answered and said: “Do it; for the meaning of Bishop Liberius was obscure, saying: ‘His uncle (in the Acts of Damasus, his father) built this church and constructed it. Because he has the power to give a judgment concerning his uncle. For the water does not flow there either. Men and women of both sexes desire to be reborn, not to die because of me alone.’” The presbyter Dionysius answered and said: “Let them be reborn; and if they die after baptism, they will live better in blood.” Damasus promised springs. Liberius baptizes on Pentecost. — Damasus answered and said: “Let not your heart be saddened, highest prelate, because I will give you a flowing vein of a spring.” Liberius was consoled with joy at this speech, and said to him: “Go, construct with the flowing Spirit; and I, coming with the brothers, will adore him whom Christ left for us, who is the shepherd for us.” And on the third day Damasus came, Siricius came, Innocentius came, and the deacons Priscus and Urbanus came to the blessed apostle Peter. For there were fortifications there, and it floated upon the water. He acted, however, as if with them (Read:).

Damasus took counsel and said: "Give me the service of the ministry, so that this water may be cleansed from the corpses of men above." And he made two channels, and emptied that place which is on the right of those entering the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter. For he had there a font which was not sufficient. And Damasus cut the mountain with his own hand. And more water entered than was customary. And I constructed the font. And all these reported to Bishop Liberius what had been done. And he ordered all the presbyters, the clergy, and all from every rank and the faithful to assemble. And with a clear voice he said: "Peter calls his sheep. Behold, a man keeping faith, hearing Christ and me a sinner, has made a sheepfold for the sheep, and has given to my speech the sweetness of honey: for which I rejoice, because Peter did not allow the wolf to enter and devastate his sheep. Know that I am baptizing in the basilica of the apostle Peter." All received this with joy. For the day of Pentecost was near. He ordered the monasteries and the holy people of Christ to assemble. And with litanies he came to the blessed apostle Peter.

When he had entered, he offered this prayer: "God, who sent your Son and showed the Creator to the creature, look upon this vine and cleanse it of thorns and thistles, and bring forth its branches into strength, and give them the fruit of truth through our Lord and God Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, who lives with the omnipotent God the Father from the ages and now and unto the ages of ages." And the whole people answered: "Amen." And they entered on the Sabbath of Pentecost, and the font pleased Liberius and he wept for joy, not at all bitterly, but it seemed like honey to all. From the ninth hour he catechized everyone, and from about the time of sunset until the Lord's Day of Pentecost he did not cease to baptize. For many were pressing to be baptized, so that on the Lord's Day of Pentecost the Masses of the Sabbath were celebrated at about the eighth hour. And those baptized, of both sexes, were nearly eight thousand eight hundred and ten. Many at the same time desired to touch the vestments of Bishop Liberius.

The next day, which is Monday, the whole people heard that Constans, having indeed achieved victory, was saying, with a mind clouded by others, "I will go to Nicomedia," and he went as far as Nicomedia, and at the villa of Aquilo, where he was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, he turned to the Arian dogma. In the same place he died and was buried in the consulship of Constans III and Constantius Augustus and Bassus, on the 9th day before the Kalends of May. And he occupied the same see of the Apostle Peter for 17 years, 13 months, and 8 days. In his time, an apse was built in the city of Rome in the fifth region, and he rested in peace. CENSORSHIP OF THE LETTER TO THE EASTERN BISHOPS. (Coust. Append., p. 93.) I. The antiquity of this letter is proved to us by the fragments of Hilary transmitted to us, and by the commentaries of the same bishop appended to it. But its falsity is betrayed by its very first words. For if we listen to this, Liberius, upon entering the pontificate, upon receiving the letters of the Easterners concerning the name of Athanasius, immediately sent legates to Alexandria, summoned Athanasius to Rome, and, when he refused to come, separated him from the communion of the Roman Church. That this is so false is proven by the genuine letter of Liberius to the Easterners, about whose truth no one ever doubted, that the Easterners themselves complained before Constantius that Liberius had given no credence to those earlier letters of theirs and had completely suppressed them, "lest the crimes of the man they were said to have condemned be revealed to all.

For what place would there have been for this calumny, if he had truly done what this letter reports him to have done? Indeed, it would have been easy for Liberius to demonstrate the injustice of this complaint, if, moved by the letters of the Easterners, he had summoned Athanasius to Rome and soon after separated him from his communion. For from that it would follow that he had now suppressed and not scorned their letters, but had held their greatest authority in high regard. But Liberius, conscious that this fault was far from him—that he would either rashly condemn Athanasius or suppress the letters written to him by the Easterners—first testifies that he "made known the letters of the Easterners, read them to the church, read them to the council, and replied to the Easterners themselves"; then he gives this reason why he refused to grant their demand for the condemnation of Athanasius: because "at the same time, the judgment of eighty Egyptian bishops concerning Athanasius" contradicted their petition, and "it seemed contrary to divine law, since the number of bishops in favor of Athanasius was greater than the number of those who opposed him," and he would not "lend consent to them in any part.

II. Are we to say that the Easterners so prepossessed Liberius’s mind that they induced him to condemn Athanasius before the letters of the Egyptian bishops had reached Rome? Yet Liberius himself testifies that these letters were delivered to him “at the same time” as he received the letters of the Easterners. But even if we were to suppose that the Easterners were more diligent in this matter than the Egyptian bishops, nothing at all would be established thereby, unless it were also granted that Liberius, after receiving the letters of the Easterners, sent legates to Alexandria, and that these legates returned to Rome from Alexandria before the letters of the Egyptians were delivered to Liberius. Moreover, even then this pope would not have been able to say that he was prevented by the letters of the Egyptians from “lending his consent” to the Easterners, but rather that he was induced by them to revoke the consent already given. We pass over the fact that Athanasius writes that Liberius, as long as he was free, could never be bent to condemn him; that the dialogue of the Emperor Constantius with Liberius, preserved to this day, bears witness that Athanasius was not condemned by him; and finally, that Liberius himself, when already cast down from his zeal for defending Athanasius, shows that he had been steadfast in defending him up to that point, giving this reason for his constancy: “Because the bishop of blessed memory, my predecessor Julius, had undertaken his cause; I feared lest I be judged a prevaricator by anyone.

Arguments of this kind, set forth at greater length, along with certain others that demonstrate the falsity of the following letter, may be seen in Hilarius, fragment iv. And indeed Hilarius, in the annotations he subjoined to this letter, speaks of it in such a way that he believed it to have been composed by Potamius and Epitectus, and then sent by Fortunatianus of Aquileia to various bishops. Hence it follows that it was not published in the year 362, when Liberius entered upon his pontificate, but after the Council of Milan, celebrated in the year in which Fortunatianus fell from his former repute. LETTER IN WHICH ATHANASIUS IS REPRESENTED AS HAVING BEEN SUMMONED TO ROME AND SEPARATED FROM THE COMMUNION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, THE EASTERNERS THEMSELVES, HIS ADVERSARIES, HAVING BEEN ADMITTED BY LIBERIUS INTO HIS COMMUNION. (Coust. Append., p. 95.) To our most beloved brothers and fellow bishops throughout the East, Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, sends eternal greeting.

Studious of peace and concord among the churches, after I received the letters of your charity concerning the name of Athanasius and the others, addressed to Julius of blessed memory, the bishop, I, following the tradition of my predecessors, sent the presbyters of the city of Rome, Lucius, Paula, and Helianus, from my side to Alexandria to the aforementioned Athanasius, so that he might come to the city of Rome: so that in his presence that which the discipline of the Church requires might be established concerning him. I also gave letters to him through the aforementioned presbyters, which contained that if he did not come, he should know himself to be alienated from the communion of the Roman Church. Therefore, the presbyters, having returned, announced that he had refused to come. Finally, following the letters of your charity, which you gave to us concerning the name of the aforementioned Athanasius, know by these letters, which I have given to our unanimity, that I have peace with all of you and with all the bishops of the Catholic Church: but that the aforementioned Athanasius is alienated from my communion, or that of the Roman Church, and from the fellowship of ecclesiastical letters.

WARNING ON THE EXCHANGE LETTERS OF LIBERIUS AND ATHANASIUS. (Coust. Appendix, p. 95.) I. In the newest edition of the works of Athanasius, vol. ii, p. 667, our editors have warned that those two letters do indeed exist in very ancient codices of Athanasius; but, as may be conjectured from the wording, they seem to be the work of one and the same unskilled little Greek; certainly what is there preached concerning the Trinity is foreign to the customary forms of expression used by Athanasius: nor is that a slight argument for forgery—that in so great a disturbance of affairs, with which the whole Church was being shaken at the beginning of Liberius’s pontificate, no mention is made of the iniquity of the times: finally, the first letter, as is indicated by a marginal note of the Coislinian codex, in which is written “Seek the beginning,” lacks a beginning; the other bears no form of a letter, but is like some inept and tangled exposition of the faith.

II. We add that on the front of each is set forth as title and argument: “That God the Word assumed a perfect man”; whereas in neither of these letters does the author touch upon that argument; and in the first he is content to speak of God the Word “who assumed a perfect man without sin,” while in the second he makes no mention at all of the perfect man assumed. Hence it is confirmed that both are mutilated. Moreover, the lengthy argument itself, by which the Apollinarian heresy is refuted, is easily proven to be utterly unsuitable to the times of Liberius, especially since this heresy began to become known and spread in the West only under Pope Damasus. But even if it had become known earlier, why would Athanasius, who was never suspected of the Apollinarian heresy, require a profession of the perfect man assumed by the Word? Indeed, what is the meaning of: “Write back to me whether you think as we do in the true faith, so that I may confidently and without risk grant what you ask”? For although Liberius was forced for a time to defect from communion with Athanasius, he never doubted his correct faith, neither at the beginning of his pontificate (instructed as he was both by what had happened under Julius and by the letters of the eighty Egyptian bishops), nor at any other time. Nor does that elaborate assertion of the divine nature of the Holy Spirit, which appears in the first letter, smack of Liberius.

For he who in the last times of his life required of those who were later called Macedonians no other profession concerning the Holy Spirit than that which is set forth in the Nicene Creed, would have been all the more content with that same profession at the beginning of his pontificate.