Did Pope Liberius teach heresy about Arianism?

his arti­cle is a com­pan­ion piece to an ear­li­er one from 2017, about Pope Hon­o­rius I; and one from last year, about Pope John XXII. These are the three popes peo­ple will often cite to prove that popes can be heretics. Some­times anti-Catholic Protes­tants are look­ing for an exam­ple of why infal­li­bil­i­ty can’t be true and the papa­cy is a tra­di­tion of men. Oth­er times, anti-Catholic Catholics (for they too exist) are look­ing for a prece­dent as they seek to jus­ti­fy them­selves in their belief that Pope Fran­cis is a heretic.

Liberius was pope dur­ing the Ari­an cri­sis, from 352–366 A.D. The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing him has to do with two things he did dur­ing his papacy—specifically, while he was in exile:

• He excom­mu­ni­cat­ed St. Athana­sius, defend­er of the Coun­cil of Nicaea against Arius
• He signed on to an Ari­an state­ment

Ari­an­ism is a Chris­to­log­i­cal heresy, which taught that Jesus was a cre­at­ed being, an off­spring of God the Father. Ari­ans, how­ev­er, did not aban­don wor­ship of Jesus, which reduced him from God the Son (coequal and coeter­nal with the Father) to a kind of demigod. Thus Ari­an­ism was at once a denial of the Trin­i­ty and a form of poly­the­ism. As a result of the spread of Ari­an­ism, the Coun­cil of Nicaea was called to set­tle the issue. It pro­nounced canon­i­cal anath­e­mas against Ari­an­ism and craft­ed the Nicene Creed, which affirms the Trin­i­ty and declares Christ to be of the same sub­stance as the Father (homo-ousios, con­sub­stan­tial).

That was in 325 A.D., a quar­ter cen­tu­ry before Liberius became pope. But Ari­an­ism con­tin­ued to flour­ish; Mr. James Swan, an anti-Catholic writer who spends a large part of his time deny­ing Luther said things attrib­uted to him, describes the extent of the prob­lem:

Dur­ing the six decades between the Coun­cil of Nicea and the Coun­cil of Con­stan­tino­ple in 381, Ari­an­ism expe­ri­enced many vic­to­ries. There were peri­ods where Ari­an bish­ops con­sti­tut­ed the major­i­ty of the vis­i­ble eccle­si­as­ti­cal hier­ar­chy. Pri­mar­i­ly through the force of polit­i­cal pow­er, Ari­an sym­pa­thiz­ers soon took to undo­ing the con­dem­na­tion of Arius and his the­ol­o­gy. Euse­bius of Nico­me­dia and oth­ers attempt­ed to over­turn Nicea, and for a num­ber of decades it looked as if they might suc­ceed. Con­stan­tine adopt­ed a com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion under the influ­ence of var­i­ous sources, includ­ing Euse­bius of Cae­sarea and a polit­i­cal­ly word­ed “con­fes­sion” from Arius. Con­stan­tine put lit­tle stock in the def­i­n­i­tion of Nicea itself: he was a politi­cian to the last. Upon his death, his sec­ond son Con­stan­tius ruled in the East, and he gave great aid and com­fort to Ari­an­ism. Unit­ed by their rejec­tion of the homoou­sion, semi-Ari­ans and Ari­ans worked to unseat a com­mon ene­my, almost always pro­ceed­ing with polit­i­cal pow­er on their side.

That Ari­an­ism had “the force of polit­i­cal pow­er” on its side helps us bet­ter under­stand Pope Liberius’s part in the con­tro­ver­sy. After he became pope, the Emper­or Con­stan­tius II — who was sym­pa­thet­ic to Ari­an­ism — attempt­ed to per­suade him to accept the heresy. The Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia says:

Con­stan­tius was not sat­is­fied by the renewed con­dem­na­tion of Athana­sius by the Ital­ian bish­ops who had lapsed at Milan under pres­sure. He knew that the pope was the only eccle­si­as­ti­cal supe­ri­or of the Bish­op of Alexan­dria, and he “strove with burn­ing desire”, says the pagan Ammi­anus, “that the sen­tence should be con­firmed by the high­er author­i­ty of the bish­op of the eter­nal city”. St. Athana­sius assures us that from the begin­ning the Ari­ans did not spare Liberius, for they cal­cu­lat­ed that, if they could but per­suade him, they would soon get hold of all the rest.

When Liberius would not bend, the emper­or sent him into exile:

The emper­or gave the pope three days for con­sid­er­a­tion, and then ban­ished him to Beroea in Thrace, send­ing him five hun­dred gold pieces for his expens­es; but he refused them, say­ing Con­stan­tius need­ed them to pay his sol­diers. The empress sent him the same amount, but he sent it to the emper­or, say­ing: “If he does not need it, let him give it to Aux­en­tius or Epicte­tus, who want such things.” Euse­bius the eunuch brought him yet more mon­ey: “You have laid waste the Church­es of the world”, the pope broke out, “and do you bring me alms as to a con­demned man? Go and first become a Chris­t­ian.”

Liberius cer­tain­ly under­stood — with the free use of his rea­son — that Ari­an­ism was a heresy. Liberius was, in fact, a strong defend­er of ortho­doxy, going as far as to for­mal­ly anath­e­ma­tize the Ari­ans. In Rome, after the pope’s exile, Con­stan­tius installed an antipope, Felix II. The Roman peo­ple them­selves ignored Felix. “There is no rea­son to sup­pose,” says the CE,

that Felix was rec­og­nized by any bish­ops out­side Rome, unless by the court par­ty and a few extreme Ari­ans, and the uncom­pro­mis­ing atti­tude of Liberius through at least the greater part of his ban­ish­ment must have done more harm to the cause the emper­or had at heart than his con­stan­cy had done when left at Rome in peace.

“One God, one Christ, one bish­op!” the Roman peo­ple would cry. Accord­ing to the ear­ly Church his­to­ri­an Socrates (not to be con­fused with the Greek philoso­pher), they drove Felix out of Rome and Con­stan­tius was oblig­ed to bring Liberius back. But by the end of his exile, Liberius, under duress, had excom­mu­ni­cat­ed St. Athana­sius and signed an ambigu­ous Ari­an state­ment that could be inter­pret­ed in either a hereti­cal or an ortho­dox light.

St. Jerome says that Liberius returned to Rome “con­quered by the tedi­um of exile and sub­scrib­ing to hereti­cal wicked­ness.” St. Athana­sius adds: “Liberius, hav­ing been exiled, gave in after two years, and, in fear of the death with which he was threat­ened, signed.”

Com­pli­cat­ing the mat­ter fur­ther are the exis­tence of sev­er­al let­ters, pur­port­ed to be from Liberius but which we now know to have been forged. The main point, though, is that, what­ev­er Liberius did do, he did under duress. It was nei­ther a free act nor a Mag­is­te­r­i­al act as bish­op of Rome. Again from the CE:

No one pre­tends that, if Liberius signed the most Ari­an for­mulæ in exile, he did it freely; so that no ques­tion of his infal­li­bil­i­ty is involved. It is admit­ted on all sides that his noble atti­tude of resis­tance before his exile and dur­ing his exile was not belied by any act of his after his return, that he was in no way sul­lied when so many failed at the Coun­cil of Rim­i­ni, and that he act­ed vig­or­ous­ly for the heal­ing of ortho­doxy through­out the West from the griev­ous wound. If he real­ly con­sort­ed with heretics, con­demned Athana­sius, or even denied the Son of God, it was a momen­tary human weak­ness which no more com­pro­mis­es the papa­cy than does that of St. Peter.

Know­ing all this, St. Athana­sius nev­er believed that his excom­mu­ni­ca­tion (lat­er lift­ed) was valid in the first place. Polemi­cists like to cite Liberius — who actu­al­ly anath­e­ma­tized Ari­an­ism pri­or to the two-year duress of his exile — as a “gotcha” when dis­cus­sions of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty, or pos­si­ble papal heresy, come up. But the facts don’t bear it out.