The Exile and Return of Liberius

This victorious champion of the truth was sent into Thrace, as the emperor had ordered. Two years later Constantius went to Rome. The women of rank urged their husbands to petition the emperor to restore the shepherd to his flock. They added that if this were not done, they would leave their husbands and go themselves after their great pastor. Their husbands replied that they were afraid of the emperor’s anger. “If we were to ask him,” they went on, “being men, he would count it an unpardonable offense. But if you were to present the petition yourselves, he would at any rate spare you, and would either grant your request or else send you away unharmed.” These noble women took this advice and presented themselves before the emperor in all their usual splendid dress, so that the sovereign, judging their rank from their clothes, might think them worthy of courtesy and kindness. Coming into his presence in this way, they begged him to take pity on the state of so great a city, deprived of its shepherd and made an easy prey to the attacks of wolves. The emperor replied that the flock had a shepherd able to care for it, and that the city needed no other. For after the banishment of the great Liberius, one of his deacons, named Felix, had been appointed bishop. Felix kept unbroken the teachings set out in the Nicene confession of faith, yet he held communion with those who had corrupted that faith. For this reason none of the citizens of Rome would enter the house of prayer while he was in it. The women told the emperor these facts. Their persuasion succeeded. He ordered that the great Liberius be called back from exile, and that the two bishops should govern the church together. The emperor’s edict was read in the circus, and the crowd shouted that the imperial decree was just: the spectators were divided into two factions, each named after its own color, and now each faction would have its own bishop. After mocking the emperor’s edict in this way, they all cried out with one voice, “One God, one Christ, one bishop.” I have thought it right to set down their exact words. Some time after this Christian people had raised these devout and righteous shouts, the holy Liberius returned, and Felix withdrew to another city. [a] For the sake of order I have attached this account to what concerns the proceedings of the bishops at Milan. I will now go back to telling events in their proper order.