The Persecution and Fall of Liberius

It would have been better if Constantius had never become involved with this heresy at all from the first; or, having become involved, if he had not given in so far to those impious men; or, having given in, if he had stood by them only this far, so that judgment might come on them all for these atrocities alone. But it seems that, like madmen, they have fastened themselves in the chains of impiety and are drawing a heavier judgment down on their own heads. So from the first they did not spare even Liberius, bishop of Rome, but stretched their fury even to those parts. They had no respect for his bishopric, though it was an apostolic throne. They felt no reverence for Rome, though she is the chief city of the Roman Empire. They did not remember that in their own letters they had once spoken of her bishops as apostolic men. Confusing everything together, they forgot it all at once and cared only to show their zeal on behalf of impiety. When they saw that he was orthodox and hated the Arian heresy, and was earnestly trying to persuade everyone to renounce it and withdraw from it, these impious men reasoned among themselves: “If we can persuade Liberius, we will soon win over everyone.” So they accused him falsely before the emperor. And the emperor, expecting to draw everyone easily to his side by means of Liberius, wrote to him and sent a eunuch named Eusebius with letters and offerings, to coax him with the gifts and to threaten him with the letters. The eunuch went to Rome and first proposed that Liberius sign against Athanasius and be in communion with the Arians, saying: “The emperor wishes it, and commands you to do it.” Then, showing him the offerings, he took him by the hand and pleaded with him again: “Obey the emperor, and accept these.” [a]

But the bishop tried to convince him, reasoning with him this way: “How can I do this against Athanasius? How can we condemn a man whom not one council only but a second, gathered from every part of the world, has fairly acquitted, and whom the church of the Romans sent away in peace? Who will approve of what we do if we reject, in his absence, a man whose presence among us we gladly welcomed, and whom we admitted to our communion? This is no rule of the church. No such tradition has been handed down to us from the fathers, who in their turn received theirs from the great and blessed apostle Peter. But if the emperor is truly concerned for the peace of the church, if he requires our letters about Athanasius to be reversed, then let their proceedings against him and against all the others be reversed too. Then let a council of the church be called far from the court, where the emperor will not be present, no count will be admitted, and no magistrate will be there to threaten us, but where only the fear of God and the rule of the apostles will prevail. In that way, first, the faith of the church may be made secure, as the fathers defined it at the Council of Nicaea, and the supporters of the Arian doctrines may be cast out and their heresy anathematized. Then after that, let an inquiry be made into the charges brought against Athanasius and anyone else, and also into the things the other party is accused of. Let the guilty be cast out, and let the innocent be encouraged and supported. For it is impossible that men who hold an impious creed should be admitted as members of a council, and it is not right that an inquiry into conduct should come before the inquiry about the faith. Every difference of opinion on points of faith must first be rooted out, and then the inquiry into conduct can be made. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not heal the afflicted until they showed and declared what faith they had in him. These things we have received from the fathers. Report them to the emperor, for they are both profitable to him and build up the church. But do not let Ursacius and Valens be listened to, for they have retracted their former statements, and what they say now cannot be trusted.” [c]

These were the words of Bishop Liberius. The eunuch was vexed, not so much because Liberius would not sign as because he found him an enemy of the heresy. Forgetting that he was in the presence of a bishop, he threatened him severely and went away with the offerings. Next he committed an offense foreign to a Christian and too bold for a eunuch. Imitating the transgression of Saul, he went to the shrine of the apostle Peter and presented the offerings there. But when Liberius learned of it, he was very angry with the keeper of the place for not stopping him, and he threw out the offerings as an unlawful sacrifice. This made the mutilated creature still angrier with him. So he stirred up the emperor against him, saying: “What concerns us now is no longer getting Liberius’s signature, but the fact that he is so firmly opposed to the heresy that he anathematizes the Arians by name.” He also stirred up the other eunuchs to say the same. For many of those around Constantius, or rather all of them, are eunuchs. They keep all the influence with him for themselves, and nothing can be done there without them. So the emperor wrote to Rome, and again palace officials, notaries and counts were sent off with letters to the prefect, so that they might either lure Liberius away from Rome by a trick and send him to the emperor at court, or else persecute him by force. [f]

Since that was what the letters said, fear and treachery quickly spread through the whole city there too. How many families were threatened! How many were promised great rewards if they would act against Liberius! How many bishops hid themselves when they saw these things! How many noblewomen withdrew to the country because of the slanders of the enemies of Christ! How many ascetics were made the targets of their plots! How many who were staying there and had made that city their home did they have persecuted! How often and how closely did they guard the harbor and the approaches to the gates, so that no orthodox person could get in and visit Liberius! Rome too had a taste of the enemies of Christ, and now experienced what she would not believe before, when she heard how the other churches in every city were ravaged by them. It was the eunuchs who set these proceedings going against everyone. And the most remarkable thing in the matter is this: the Arian heresy, which denies the Son of God, gets its support from eunuchs, who, since their bodies are fruitless and their souls barren of virtue, cannot bear even to hear the name of son. The Ethiopian eunuch, it is true, though he did not understand what he was reading, believed the words of Philip when Philip taught him about the Savior. But the eunuchs of Constantius cannot endure the confession of Peter. They turn away when the Father reveals the Son, and they rage madly against those who say that the Son of God is his genuine Son, so claiming as a heresy of eunuchs that the Father has no genuine and true offspring. That is why the law forbids such persons to be admitted to any council of the church. Yet now they have treated these men as competent judges of church cases. Whatever seems good to them, Constantius decrees, while men who bear the name of bishops pretend to go along with them. Oh, who will write their history? Who will hand down the record of these things to another generation? Who indeed would believe it on hearing it: that eunuchs, who are hardly trusted with household duties (for theirs is a pleasure-loving race, with no serious concern except to hinder in others what nature has taken from them), that these, I say, now hold authority in church matters, and that Constantius, submitting to their will, treacherously plotted against everyone and banished Liberius! [h]

For the emperor wrote to Rome many times, threatened, sent commissioners and devised schemes. Then, when the persecution afterward broke out at Alexandria, Liberius was dragged before him, and he spoke to him with great boldness. He said: “Stop persecuting the Christians. Do not try to bring impiety into the church by means of me. We are ready to suffer anything rather than be called Arian madmen. We are Christians; do not force us to become enemies of Christ. We also give you this advice: do not fight against him who gave you this empire, and do not show him impiety in place of thankfulness. Do not persecute those who believe in him, or you too may hear the words, ‘It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Indeed, I wish you would hear them, so that you might obey, as the holy Paul did. Look, here we are. We have come before they invent charges. That is why we hurried here, knowing that banishment awaits us at your hands: so that we might suffer before any charge meets us, and so that everyone may see clearly that all the others too have suffered as we will suffer, and that the charges brought against them were inventions of their enemies, and all their proceedings were nothing but slander and lies.” [l]

These were the words Liberius spoke at that time, and everyone admired him for them. But the emperor, instead of answering, only gave orders for their banishment, separating each of them from the rest, as he had done in the earlier cases. He himself had devised this plan for the banishments he imposed, so that his punishments might be more severe than those of earlier tyrants and persecutors. In the former persecution Maximian, who was then emperor, ordered a number of confessors to be banished together, and so lightened their punishment by the comfort he allowed them in one another’s company. But this man was more savage than he. He separated those who had spoken boldly and confessed together; he parted those who were united by the bond of faith, so that when they came to die they might not see one another. He thought that separating their bodies could also divide the affections of their minds, and that once cut off from one another they would forget the harmony and oneness of mind that existed among them. He did not know that however far apart each one may be from the rest, he still has with him that Lord whom they confessed together as one body. The Lord will also see to it, as he did in the case of the prophet Elisha, that more will be with each of them than there are soldiers with Constantius. Truly, wickedness is blind. For in thinking to afflict the confessors by separating them from one another, they brought great harm on themselves instead. Had the confessors stayed in one another’s company and lived together, the defilements of those impious men would have been proclaimed from one place only. But now, by parting them, they have made their impious heresy and wickedness spread abroad and become known everywhere. [n]

Who, hearing what they did in the course of these proceedings, will take them for Christians at all? When Liberius sent Eutropius, a presbyter, and Hilarius, a deacon, with letters to the emperor, at the time when Lucifer and his companions made their confession, they banished the presbyter on the spot. As for Hilarius the deacon, they stripped him and scourged him on the back, and then banished him too, shouting at him: “Why didn’t you resist Liberius, instead of carrying letters for him?” Ursacius and Valens, with the eunuchs who sided with them, were the authors of this outrage. While he was being scourged, the deacon praised the Lord, remembering his words, ‘I gave my back to the smiters.’ But they laughed and mocked him as they scourged him, feeling no shame at insulting a Levite. Indeed, they were only acting in character when they laughed while he went on praising God. For it is the part of Christians to endure the lash, but to scourge Christians is the outrage of a Pilate or a Caiaphas. So at first they tried to corrupt the church of the Romans, wishing to bring impiety into it as into the others. But Liberius, after he had been in banishment two years, gave way, and signed out of fear of the death he was threatened with. Yet even this only shows their violent conduct, and Liberius’s hatred of the heresy, and his support of Athanasius, as long as he was allowed to choose freely. For what men are forced by torture to do against their first judgment should not be counted the willing act of those who are afraid, but rather the act of their tormentors. They, however, tried everything in support of their heresy, while the people in every church kept the faith they had learned, waited for the return of their teachers, and condemned the antichristian heresy; and they all shun it as they would a serpent. [p]