Second and Third Synod of Sirmium.

 

This was, for instance, the case at the second great Synod of Sirmium, which was held about the middle of 357, during the stay of the Emperor Constantius in that city. The members of this Synod were all “Western bishops” of whom, however, only Ursaeius of Singidunum, Valens of Mursa, Germinius of Sirmium (the successor of Photinus), and Potamius of Lisbon, in Portugal, are mentioned by name. The confession of faith there drawn up, and which is known as “the Second Sirmian”, is given in the original Latin by Hilary, and a Greek translation by Athanasius and Socrates.  Hilary mentions Potamius of Lisbon as the author of this formula; but the introduction itself mentions as the heads of the assembly, Ursacius, Valens, and Germiniius, three bishops, who were especial favourites of the Emperor Constantius. The formula, in its principal points, runs thus: “We believe in His only Son Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Redeemer, begotten by Him before all ages. But two Gods may not and shall not be taught. As, however, the omooúsios and the omoioúsios have raised scruples in the minds of some, no more mention shall be made of the point, and no one shall teach it more, because it is not contained in the Holy Scriptures, and it is beyond human knowledge; and no one, as says Isaiah, can declare the generation of the Son. There is no doubt that the Father is greater than the Son, and surpasses Him in honour, dignity, dominion, majesty, and even by the name of Father, as the Son Himself confesses in S. John XIV. 28 : ‘He who sent Me is greater than Me’. And all know that the Catholic doctrine is this: there are two Persons, the Father and the Son, the Father greater, the Son subject to Him, with all that the Father has made subject to the Son. But the Holy Ghost is through the Son, and came, according to promise, to teach and sanctify the apostles and all the faithful”.

It is no wonder that Hilary called a formula, in which Arianism was so undisguisedly put forward, blasphemous; but he certainly does Hosius an injustice in declaring him, with Potamius of Lisbon, to be the author. That which Socrates and Sozomen, and in part also Athanasius, relate, is far more probable, i.e. that Hosius, then nearly a hundred years old, was at last compelled, by the violent acts of the Emperor, by a year’s imprisonment, and vexations of every kind, to sign this formula; but that soon afterwards, at the approach of death, he again anathematized the Arian heresy, and declared as it were in his will the great force that had been put on him.

Synod at Antioch.

It was natural that those of Anomoean views in Asia should joyfully agree to this second formula of Sirmium. This took place at a Synod held at Antioch in 358, under Eudoxius, the patriarch of that city, one of the heads of the Anomoeans. Besides him, Acacius of Caesarea and Uranius of Tyre were present. The two expressions omooúsios and omoioúsios were rejected, and a letter of thanks was issued to Ursacius, Valens, and Germinius, for having brought back the Westerns to the true faith. But the "Westerns themselves were of a different opinion. Thus, Hilary relates that in Gaul the second Sirmian formula was rejected immediately on its appearance, and a work then written against it by Bishop Phoebadius of Agen has come down to us.

 

Synod of Ancyra in 358, and the Third Sirmian Synod and Creed.

 

The Semi-Arian bishops of Asia, however, showed no less zeal; the Anomoeans especially rapidly sought to spread their doctrine everywhere, and Antioch was nearly falling completely into their hands. Aetius himself had now taken up his abode there, and was held in high esteem by Bishop Eudoxius, who gave away most of the Church appointments to pupils of Aetius. One of the greatest Semi-Arians, George of Laodicea, therefore invited the bishops of like views with himself to a Synod; and as a new church was just then to be consecrated at Ancyra in Galatia, and it was usual for Synods to take place at such festivals, the desired Semi-Arian assembly was actually held at Ancyra, before Easter 358. Its head was Basil of Ancyra; its members, the Bishops Eustathius of Sebaste, Hyperechius, Letojus, Heoiticus, Gymnasius, Memnonius, Eutyches, Severinus, Eutychius, Alcimedes, and Alexander.

The introduction to the very circumstantial Synodal Letter which we possess says, with reference to the Anomoeans, that it had been supposed that after the Synods of Constantinople (against Marcellus of Ancyra), Antioch, Sardica (really Philippopolis), and Sirmium (against Photinus), the Church would at last be allowed to enjoy peace; but that the devil had sown fresh impieties, and new objections to the true Sonship of the Lord had been devised. The assembled bishops had therefore decided to add to the former confessions of faith, those of Antioch in encoenis and Sardica, which were also accepted at Sirmium, stricter and more accurate declarations concerning the Holy Trinity. The sense of the long explanations that follow is briefly this: “The very expression ‘Father’ shows that He is the Cause of a Substance like Himself; the idea of creature is thereby excluded, for the relation of Father and Son is quite different from that of Creator and creature, and if the likeness of the Son to the Father is abandoned, the idea and expression ‘Son’ must also be given up. For if from the idea of Son all finite characteristics are removed, there remains only the characteristic of likeness, as alone applicable to the incorporeal Son. That ether beings, in no way like God, are called in the Holy Scriptures son of God, forms no objection, for this was spoken figuratively, but the Logos is Son of God in the proper sense”. They here make use of a philological simile, i.e. that  “in a literal sense only a vessel made from a box-tree is a box; but in a looser sense this expression is also applied to other vessels, and it is just so with the expression ‘Son of God’, which in its first and (literal sense applies only to the Logos, but is also used for other beings”. Then follows a scriptural proof of the Son’s similarity of substance, and lastly come eighteen anathemas, which are almost always placed two and two, so that one anathematizes the strict Arian and Anomoean separation of the Father and the Son, and the other the identification of the Father and the Son, the Sabellian niopator. The censure of Anomoean doctrines is especially prominent in the fifth anathema: “Whoever calls the only begotten God Logos ... anomios”; the ninth: “Whoever says that the Son is unlike the Father as to oúsia”; the tenth :  “Whoever calls the Son only a Ktisma”; the eleventh: “Whoever attributes to the Son a likeness to God in activity, but not in substance”; the fifteenth : “Whoever believes that the Father in time (at a certain fixed time) became the Father of the Son”; and the eighteenth : “Whoever says the Son is only of the power (that is, of the will of the Father), not of the power and substance of the Father together”; also, "”Whoever calls the Son omooúsios  ot taftooósios—let all these be anathema”. S. Hilary has adopted twelve of these eighteen anathemas (leaving out the first live and the last) in his work De Synodic, and interprets them in an orthodox sense.

The assembly of Ancyra sent with the above-mentioned Synodal Letter, the Bishops Basil, Eustathius, Eleusius (of Cyzicus), besides the priest Leontius, who was one of the Court ecclesiastics, to the Court at Sirmium, to break down the influence which the Anomoeans had gained over the Emperor. At their arrival there, they also met the Antiochian priest Asphalius, a zealous Aetian, who had already obtained from the Emperor letters in favour of the Anomoeans. Now, however, the matter took another turn. Constantius was once more won over to the Semi-Arian side; he required Asphalius to return the letters, and published instead another to the Antiochians, in which he declared strongly against the Anomoean heresy, ordered its adherents to be excommunicated, and proclaimed the likeness of the Son to the Father.

Constantius at once organized a new Synod at Sirmium itself, the third great Simian Synod in the year 358, in which the Eastern deputies before mentioned, and all the other bishops then at the Court, took part. This new Sirmian Synod, however, is so closely connected with the affair of Pope Liberius, that we must first once more turn our attention to the latter.

As we saw above, Liberius had been exiled to Beroea in Thrace by the Emperor Constantius, sometime after the Synod of Milan, on account of his steadfast confession of the orthodox faith. While he was there enduring much misery, Constantius came to Rome in 357, before repairing to the second Sirmian Synod already mentioned.

 

Pope Liberius and the Third Sirmian Formula.

 

During the presence of the Emperor at Rome, the community of that city earnestly begged for the reinstatement of Liberius, and women of the noblest houses undertook to present the petition. Constantius at first flatly refused them, because Felix was then bishop of Rome; but when he learned that his service was scarcely attended by any one, he determined, in part at least, to grant the request, and said that Liberius might return, but that he should be bishop with Felix, and that each should lead only his own adherents. When this edict was read, the people exclaimed in scorn: “It is indeed quite fitting; in the Circus also there are two parties, and now each may have a bishop for its head”. Ridicule was followed by indignation, and the disturbance became so threatening, that the Emperor at last agreed to recall Liberius. Nearly a year, however, elapsed before his actual arrival in Rome, and he had to purchase his return by a step which made many suspect him of apostasy. The question is, whether Liberius gave his signature to an Arian confession of faith or not.

The defenders of Liberius, especially the learned Jesuit Stilting, in the work of the Bollandlists, the Italian, Franz Anton Zaccaria, and Professor Palma of Rome, appeal first of all to Theodoret, Socrates, and Sulpicius Severus, who very simply relate the return of Liberius to Rome, without mentioning any conditions then imposed on him, or attributing to him any weakness in the matter. Athanasius, on the other hand, undeniably speaks in two places of a weak yielding of Liberius. In his Historia Arianorum ad Monachos he says : “Liberius was banished; after two years he yielded, and from fear of the death with which they threatened him, he signed”. Against this testimony, the Bollandist Stilting, and lately Professor Reinerding of Fulda, have raised the objection that the Historia Arianorum ad Monachos was composed during the lifetime of Leontius Castratus of Antioch, therefore before the supposed fall of Liberius, and consequently that the passage relating to it is a later addition This is certainly true but it does not therefore follow that this addition is spurious, and not the work of Athanasius himself. The Historia was written by Athanasius before the fall of Liberius, and sent to the monks for whom it was destined; but he demanded and received his manuscript back again: Some time later, Bishop Serapion of Thmuis wrote to him, begging that he would give him some account of the Arian heresy, and of his own fortunes, as well as of the death of Arius. To meet the two first requests, Athanasius sent his friend the Historia Arianorum ad Monachos; while, to fulfill the third wish, he wrote the little book, De Morte Arii. Between the original composition of the History and its dispatch to Serapon, a considerable time elapsed, during which the affair of Liber, is took place, which seems to have led Athanasius to make a little addition.

In another work, the Apologia contra Arianos, Athanasius again says of Liberius: “Even if he did not endure the miseries of exile to the end, still he remained two years in banishment”. It is surely useless trouble to try and find any other meaning in the words, “he did not endure the miseries of exile to the end”, than this, “He did not hold out—did not remain entirely steadfast”, especially when we remember the former passage. Stilting, however, remarks that this Apologia of Athanasius was also written before the supposed fall of Liberius, as early as 349, and that the chapters 89 and 90 (in which the passage quoted is found) are only a later addition. This, again, is certainly true; but this addition also, like the appendix to the Historia Arianorum ad Monachos, was from the pen of Athanasius himself. The Apologia is a collection of pieces which he put together about as early as 350, but which in course of time he enlarged and supplemented. They repeatedly passed through his hands, and, together with the Historia Arianorum, he first submitted them to the perusal of the monks, and some time later to Bishop Serapion of Thmuis. There is therefore no sufficient ground for rejecting, as have Stilting and lately Reinerding, the evidence of these two passages against Liberius in the works of Athanasius. On the contrary, they prove to us that Liberius, yielding to violence, did sign a certain document; what document it not precisely stated.

S. Hilary of Poitiers also, in his work Contra Constantium Imperatorem, says much the same as Athanasius, i.e. “that he did not know which was the greater presumption on the part of the Emperor, the banishment of Liberius, or his recall to Rome”. It is here intimated that the recall of Liberius was not altogether void of blame, and that Constantius had only allowed it under very oppressive conditions. I am aware that Zaccaria, Talma, and lately Reinerding take Hilary’s words to mean that Constantius had annoyed the Pope upon his return in various ways, not that he had extorted from him an improper subscription. This is so far true, that Hilary does not in so many words actually say this, but it is undeniably implied in his emphatic words which point to a then well-known fact.

Sozomen relates further, that during his stay at Sirmium the Emperor summoned Liberius from Beroea, for the purpose of inducing him to renounce the omooúsios. To this end, he says that Constantius assembled the delegates of the Synod of Ancyra, who had arrived from the east, and also the bishops present at the Court, hi a new Synod (the third at Sirmium), and was principally supported in his conduct towards Liberius by the three Semi-Arians, Basil of Ancyra, Eustathius of Sebaste, and Eleusius of Cyzicus. They collected all the decisions, against Paul of Samosata and Photinus of Sirmium, as well as the symbol of the An­tiochian Synod of 341, together in one book (as did the Synod just held at Antioch, which had renewed the old decrees, and only added more precise explanations), assured Liberius that the omooúsios was only a cloak for heretical views (as was indeed the case with Photinus), and at last brought him together with four African bishops to assent to this document. But, on the other hand, Liberius declared that, “whoever did not allow that the Son was like the Father in substance and in all things, should be shut out from the Church”, believing himself obliged to add this, “because Eudoxius of Antioch was spreading the report that Liberius and Hosius had rejected the omoioúsios and accepted the anómios”.

Putting the accounts from these various sources together, the result is:—

(1.) That Liberius was summoned to the third Sirmian Synod.

(2.) That at this Synod the Semi-Arian views triumphed over the Anomoean, and the second (Anomoean) Sirmian formula was again suppressed.

(3.) That at the third Sirmian Synod no new confession of faith was drawn up, but only the old Eusebian decree of faith (namely, that of Antioch in 341) was renewed and signed indeed by Liberius also.

(4.) That Liberius thus, indeed, renounced the formula omooúsios, not because he had in any way fallen from orthodoxy, but because he had been made to believe that formula to be the cloak of Sabellianism and Photinism.

(5.) That, on the other hand, he still more energetically insisted upon the acknowledgment that the Son was in everything, in substance also, like the Father, whereby, with regard to what is said in No. 4, he departed from the orthodox formula in words only, not in real inward belief, as is confirmed by his subsequently coming forward on the side of orthodoxy.

S. Jerome says that Fortunatian had advised Pope Liberius to this weakness when he was first going into exile, and subsequently, after his return to Sirmium, actually seduced him into it. That Hilary here speaks of an heretical formula as signed by Liberius need not surprise us; for even if the formulas compiled and drawn up at the third Sirmian Synod contained nothing positively heretical, yet they were meant to serve Semi-Arian purposes, and were drawn up with Anti-Nicene views. The words of S. Jerome, therefore, in no way oblige us to accuse Liberius of a heavier crime than that of giving his consent to the second Sirmian formula; but neither, on the other hand, can we allow Stilting, Palma, and Reinerding to be right in representing these statements of S. Jerome as entirely devoid of truth. Reinerding especially tried to prove that Jerome had been deceived by false reports spread by the Arians. He thinks the same must be assumed as regards Athanasius also, if the expressions mentioned above and unfavourable to Liberius are to be considered genuine.

Against this conclusion two seemingly powerful witnesses unfavourable to Liberius present themselves, namely, himself, in three letters of his, and S. Hilary, who is said to have taken these letters into his sixth fragment and accompanied them with a few remarks. The first of these letters of Liberius, beginning with the words, Pro deifico timore, is addressed to the Oriental (Arianizing) bishops, and says : “Your holy faith is known to God and the world. I do not defend Athanasius, but because my predecessor Julius had received him, I also acted in the same way. But when I came to see the justice of your condemnation of him, I immediately agreed in this your sentence, and sent a letter on the subject by Bishop Fortunatian of Aquileia to the Emperor Constantius. Now that Athanasius is put out of communion by us all, I declare that I am at peace and unity with you all, and with the Oriental bishops in all provinces. Bishop Demophilus of Beroea has explained to me this your Catholic faith, which has been examined and accepted at Sirmium by several brothers and fellow-bishops, and I have willingly and without opposition accepted and agreed to it. I pray you now, so work together chat I may be released from exile, and may return to the See entrusted to me by God”.

The second letter is addressed to Ursacius, Valens, and Germinius; and he writes, that “from love of peace, which he preferred to martyrdom, he had already condemned Athanasius before he dispatched the letters of the Oriental bishops (probably the answer to the former letter) to the Emperor. Athanasius was rejected by the Roman Church, as the whole presbytery of Rome could testify. He had sent Fortunatian to the Emperor to request permission to return (as we already know); he was at peace and unity with Ursacius, Valens, and others; they ought now again to obtain peace for the Roman Church, and should, moreover, tell Epictetus and Auxentius (of Milan) that he held communion with them also”.

Lastly, the third letter is addressed to Vincent of Capua, and is as surprising as it is brief. It runs: “I do not instruct but only exhort your holy soul, because evil communications corrupt good manners. The cunning of the wicked is well known to you, which is the cause of my present misery. Pray to God that He may help me to bear it. I have given up the contest for Athanasius, and have communicated this by letter to the Orientals. Tell the bishops of Campania to write to the Emperor, and to enclose my letter, that I may be freed from this misery. That I shall be absolved by God, you may see; if you let me perish in exile, God will be the judge between you and me”.

The above mentioned fragment, ascribed to S. Hilary, introduces these letters with the words : “Liberius forfeited all his former excellence by writing to the sinful, heretical Arians, who had passed an unjust sentence upon the holy Athanasius”. Moreover, the author of this fragment interrupts the first of the letters in question by three exclamations, in which he calls the Sirmian formula, which Liberius is said to have signed, a perfidia Ariana, and Liberius himself an apostata and prcevaricator, and three times anathematizes him. The same occurs at the end of the second letter. The fragmentist finally adds the observation that this Sirmian formula was the work of Narcissus, Theodorus, Basil, Eudoxius, Demophilus, Cecropius, Silvanus, Ursacius, Valens, Evagrius, Hyrenoeus, Exuperantius, Terentianus, Bassus, Gau-dentius, Macedonius, Martinis (or Marcus), Acticus, Julias, Surinus, Simplicius, and Junior.

According to this, (1.) it was not first at Sirmium in 358 that Liberius renounced communion with Athanasius, and entered into communion with the Semi-Arians; he had already done so at Beroca while still in exile.

(2.) He had already at Boroea signed the first or second Sirmian formula.

(3.) The Bishop Demophilus of Beroea, a man well known in the history of Arianism, had explained this formula to him.

(4.) To this formula Liberius had willingly and without opposition consented.

(5.) He had sent a letter concerning his renunciation of Athanasius by Bishop Fortunatian of Aquileia to the Emperor.

(6.) He was, notwithstanding, retained in banishment.

(7.) He therefore appealed to the Arian bishops to intercede with the Emperor for him.

(8.) Lastly, in the second letter it is said that not only Liberius, but the whole Roman Church, had renounced communion with Athanasius.

1.-That this contradicts our previous conclusion is undeniable; but, at the same time, doubts of the genuineness of these three letters and of the fragment ascribed to S. Hilary force themselves upon us from all sides.

Sozomen says that lies were circulated at the expense of Pope Liberius, namely, that he gave his sanction to the Anomoean doctrine. Neither can it be denied that spurious letters were ascribed to him as well as to S. Athanasius : to this class belongs, first of all, the correspondence between Liberius and Athanasius, unconditionally acknowledged to be spurious, and, what is of still more importance to us, a letter from Liberius to the Oriental bishops, contained in the same fragment of Hilary, and beginning with the words studens paci. That this must of necessity be spurious, we have already said, and it was so recognized by Baronius; the Benedictine editors of S. Hilary and the Bollandist, P. Stilting, have also proved it in detail.

Now there is an undoubted resemblance between this decidedly spurious document and the three other letters said to proceed from Liberius, with which we are here concerned; all four are evidently the work of one author, and, as the saying is, worked on one pattern. Language, style, and manner are alike in all four, and indeed equally bad. The language is barbarous Latin, and is not only wanting in all refinement and elegance, but shows such great awkwardness and poverty of expression (the same half-barbarous terms and phrases occur again and again), that it is impossible that these letters could have been the work of a well-educated man, whose mother tongue was Latin. The style is no better than the language. The several clauses are placed side by side without connecting link, or natural transition, and are only united by juxtaposition. But most striking of all is their poverty of thought; we see plainly that the author had only two or three sentences at his command, which he gives in all their bareness, quite in the manner of one who is obliged to write only one letter a year. Thence the dullness and feebleness of these letters, which show no trace of feeling or life, but are rather cold, dry, and lame,—while, as we well know, misfortune, which Liberius was then experiencing, gives warmth and eloquence to the speaker. It is impossible that one who could write from exile letters so cold, poor, and feeble, could have felt the misery of banishment.

Other letters ascribed to Pope Liberius, and which bear in themselves the stamp of genuineness, have quite another character, as for instance his letter to Constantius, and his eloquent Dialogue with the Emperor, as well as the speech which Ambrose has preserved to us in the third book De Virginibus.

2.- The three letters of Liberius in question suggest further grounds for doubts as to their genuineness. (a) It is there said that Liberius had sent the Bishop Fortunatian of Aquileia to the Emperor with his letter relating to Athanasius, etc. Now, if Constantius was already at Sirmium, Aquileia was twice as far from Beroea (where Liberius then was) as Sirmium itself, and the way to Aquileia lay through Sirmium, not vice versa. Even if the Emperor had then been still at Rome, neither in that case would Aquileia have been the middle station between that city and Beroea. This objection can only be evaded by supposing that Fortunatian had been without interruption in the company of Liberius at Beroea, and that he now sent him, quasi a latere, to the Emperor, which is certainly incorrect. It is, however, easy to see that the falsified or pseudo-Liberius introduced Bishop Fortunatian into those letters, because he read in Jerome that the former had seduced Liberius into the weakness of signing an Arian formula. But Jerome never makes Fortunatian the chamberlain and messenger of Liberius, as does this forger.

(b.) According to the three letters, Liberius, even after having done all in his power,—anathematized Athanasius, signed an Arian formula, and entered humbly and sorrowfully into communion with the Arians,—still did not receive permission to return for a long time. This is unlikely, and after the events at Beroea, and the promise the Emperor had there made, entirely incredible.

(c.) These three letters contain all kinds of incongruities: the second says, for instance, that the whole Roman Church had long since condemned Athanasius, as all the Roman priests could testify, and that this condemnation had been long since carried out. This is certainly untrue; Athanasius, on the contrary, always enjoyed the protection of Rome. According to the reading in pseudo-Liberius most approved by critics, Athanasius was already anathematized by the Roman Church, before Liberius was summoned to the Imperial palace in 355. This is evidently false, and is indeed the same lie with which we are already acquainted in the false letter, Studens paci, so that Baronius acknowledged the spuriousness of this letter also. Moreover, the first half of this second letter is so unclear, that what follows after sola haec causa fuit, if it ever had a meaning consistent with the context, cannot now be rightly understood.

The last letter, however, of them all contains the most absurdities. The very first sentence, non doceo, sed admoneo, has here no sense, for the letter is really no exhortation, but a petition; there is no mention whatever of any advice. To this is added, quite irrelevantly, the quotation from 1 Cor. XV. 33 : “Evil communications corrupt good manners”, which has no connection whatever, and here no sense. The conclusion of this letter is just as unreasonable : me ad Deum absolvi vos videritis; si volueritis me in exilio deficere, erit Dens judex inter me et vos.

(d.) Lastly, the tone of these letters is so pitiful, and they represent Liberius as so cringingly begging the intercession of his enemies with the Emperor, as to be quite irreconcilable with the whole character of the man, his former conduct, his frankness with the Emperor, and his subsequent behaviour, especially as shown after the Synod of Seleucia-Rimini.

On account of all this, and because of the impossibility of reconciling these letters with well-authenticated history (the conclusion before mentioned), I have as little doubt of their spuriousness as have Baronius, Stilting, Petrus, Pallerini, Massari, Palma, and others, and conclude that they were written in the Anomoean interest, by some Greekling who had very little knowledge of the Latin tongue. Such a false­hood and forgery need not, however, so much surprise us, as we know false letters ascribed to Athanasius were also circulated by the Arian party; and Sozomen expressly relates that the Anomoeans (strict Arians) in Asia had spread false reports concerning Liberius, representing him as having embraced their views, signed the second Sirmian formula, and rejected the teaching of the Church. Might not these three letters have been the very means employed to spread these false reports?

3. The remarks and additions of the fragmentist, in which we cannot recognize S. Hilary, appear to us no less suspicious than the letters.  As is known, Hilary of Poitiers wrote a work against Ursacius and Valens, containing a history of the Synod of Rimini, which has not come down to us, of which, in the opinion of the Benedictines, the fifteen fragments first published by Nicholas Faber are remains. As two of these fragments bear the name of Hilary at the top or on the margin, Constant, the Benedictine editor of the works of S. Hilary, concluded that all these fragments were written by him. Stilting, in the work of the Bullandists, has proved in detail that such a conclusion is incorrect and bold in the extreme. This sixth fragment especially, which contains the oft-mentioned three letters of pseudo-Liberius, has no other mark whatever of having proceeded from Hilary, except that in one place in the margin of the codex in which it is found, the words, Sanctus Hilarius anathema, illi (Liberio) dicit, appear.

This very weak evidence is abundantly outweighed by counterproofs. (a.) Above all, the violent and passionate exclamations in which the fragmentist abuses and anathematizes Liberius are utterly unworthy of a Hilary, and much more betray the spirit of a fiery Luciferian. (b.) It is indeed impossible that they can proceed from Hilary, for he only wrote the work from which the fragments are said to come, after the Synod of Seleucia-Rimini; therefore at a time when Liberius had atoned for his temporary weakness, and shown himself a champion of orthodoxy. Moreover, Liberius was then universally recognized as the true Pope, and therefore Hilary was In communion with him.

(4.) The three letters of pseudo-Liberius do not say which Sirmian formula the Pope had signed; the fragmentist, however, adds that it was the one composed by the bishops Narcissus, Theodorus, Basil, Eudoxius, and others. According to this, Liberius cannot possibly have signed the second Sirmian formula, for

(a.) At the time of the second Sirmian Synod, Theodore of Heracles, who is here, as often elsewhere, mentioned with Narcissus of Neronias or Irenopolis, was no longer living. Pope Liberius himself is the witness to this in his interview with the Emperor Constantius, given in Theodoret.

(b.) Further, the second Synod of Sirmium, as appears from Sozomen was entirely composed of Westerns; but here the authors of the formula in question, mentioned by the fragmentist, are almost all Orientals.

(c.) Among these he reckons, tertio loco, Basil of Ancyra, who however was, as we know, a most decided opponent, and by no means one of the authors of the second Sirmian formula.

(d.) We can, moreover, appeal to the fact, first, that Hilary, in his genuine works, never places the weakness of Liberius on the same footing with that of Hosius, and thus in his De Synodis assigns to Hosius, on account of his lapsus, an entirely singular position; secondly, that the real Arians, on the other hand, as Phoebadius shows, appealed only to Hosius, and by no means to Liberius.

But may not the fragmentist, in introducing the names of those bishops, intend to signify that Liberius had signed the first Sirmian formula of 351, when Theodore was still living, and when all the bishops mentioned might possibly have taken part in its composition? We would gladly accept this conjecture, which makes the fault of Liberius appear very small, were we not hindered by Hilary himself. For in his genuine works he judges the first Sirmian formula (and that of Antioch in 351) so mildly, and interprets it in such an orthodox sense, that it is impossible to believe that he (supposing him to be the author of the sixth fragment) should in another place have called it a perfidia Ariana, and anathematized him who signed it as an apostate. Hilary himself, indeed, during his exile, long stood on friendly terms with the Semi-Arians.

Lastly, the fragmentist can no more have meant the third Sirmian formula than the second, for (a) not only was Theodore of Heraclea dead at the time of the third as of the second Sirmian Synod, but Eudoxius (the friend of the Aetians) was so far from being a member of the third Sirmian Synod, that the latter was rather directed against him and his Antiochian assembly. (b) But what alone would decide the question is, that these letters of pseudo-Liberius represent Liberius as having already signed a Sirmian formula during his exile, while still at Beroea, therefore before the third Sirmian Synod was held.

If we have now come to the conclusion that Liberius signed the third Sirmian formula, the objections raised by Palma and Stilting cannot move us from this opinion. Both start from the belief that the third Sirmian Synod had drawn up no creed, but only twelve anathemas, those twelve, namely, of the eighteen anathemas of Ancyra which Hilary brings forward, and in which precisely those theses of the Synod of Ancyra which are suspicious, especially the last, which directly anathematizes the omooúsios, are left out. But Sozomen expressly says that Liberius had been brought to agree to the (Eusebian) decrees of faith, compiled by the Semi-Arians, against Paul of Samosata, Photinus of Sirmium, and the Synod of Antioch in 341. And this very compilation, together with the twelve anathemas of Ancyra, received at the third Sirmian Synod, we are justified in calling the third Sirmian formula.

Hilary supplies materials for a further objection. As is known, he judged several Semi-Arian formulas very mildly, and was also during his exile in Phrygia in friendly intercourse with the Semi-Arians. How could he then, if Liberius only signed a Semi-Arian formula, write to the Emperor Constantius with reference to him: Nescio utrum majore imputate (eum) relegareris quam remiseris? Does not the blame contained in these words imply that Liberius allowed a real Arian formula to be forced upon him? I do not think so; for, in the first place, Hilary never sanctioned full communion with the Semi-Arians, especially never allowed participation with them in their Eucharist, and excused by the circumstances of the time rather than sanctioned all other communion with them. And, in the second place, Hilary in those words blames the Emperor far more than Liberius, and with full justice, for Constantius had in fact used violence towards Liberius, and in so doing had been guilty of a fresh crime towards him.

We therefore conclude without doubt that Liberius, yielding to force, and sinking under many years of confinement and exile, signed the so-called third Sirmian formula, that is, the collection of older formulas of faith accepted at the third Sirmian Synod of 358. He did not do this without scruples, for the Semi-Arian character and origin of these formulas were not unknown to him; but, as they contained no direct or express rejection of the orthodox faith, and as it was represented to him, on the other side, that the Nicene omooúsios formed a cloak for Sabellianism and Photinism, he allowed himself to be persuaded to accept the third Sirmian confession. But by so doing he only renounced the letter of the Nicene faith, not the orthodox faith itself, as not only his former but his later stand against heresy testifies, as well as the addition which he made to his signature of the Sirmian formula, and in which he interprets the formula itself in an orthodox sense.

The Semi-Arians now made use of their victory as far as possible for the annihilation of their opponents, the strict Arians. Eudoxius of Antioch was banished to his fatherland Armenia, Aetius to Pepuza in Phrygia (made so celebrated by the Montanists), his pupil Eunomius to Midaium also in Phrygia, Theophilus, the former missionary to the Homerites, to Heraclea in Pontus, others to other places, in all seventy Anomoeans; and, indeed, as Philostorgius maintains, this was done chiefly at the instigation of Basil of Ancyra, who was supported by the ladies of the Imperial Court. Many, in consequence, who had hitherto belonged more to strict Arianism, now turned to the Semi-Arian side, especially Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, the head of the subsequent Pneumatomachians. Many of the violent measures practised by Basil and his friends were, however, unknown to the Emperor; and when Bishop Patrophilus of Scythopolis, and Narcissus of Irenopolis (Neronias), made him acquainted with their acts, he at once recalled the exiles and commanded another Synod to be held.