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ER 1296

The people of Rome asks the Emperor Constantius in AD 357 for the return of their exiled bishop, Liberius, and the emperor agrees.The rival bishop Felix installs himself in the Basilica Julia. After his death in AD 365 Liberius forgives his clerical supporters. Account of the schism between Liberius and Felix, written in the 5th/6th c. and included in the Collectio Avellana compiled in the second half of the 6th c.

I. QUAE GESTA SUNT INTER LIBERIUM ET FELICEM EPISCOPOS.

Paragraph (1) shortly relates the story of expulsion of Liberius of Rome, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Cagliari by Emperor the Constantius. In the meantime, the clergy of Rome chooses another bishop, Felix, see [1295].

(3) Post annos duos uenit Romam Constantius imperator; pro Liberio rogatur a populo. Qui mox annuens ait "habetis Liberium, qui, qualis a uobis profectus est, melior reuertetur". Hoc autem de consensu eius, quo manus perfidiae dederat, indicabat. Tertio anno redit Liberius, cui obuiam cum gaudio populus Romanus exiuit. Felix notatus a senatu vel populo de urbe propellitur. Et post parum temporis impulsu clericorum, qui periuraverant, inrumpit in urbem et stationem in <basilica> Iuli trans Tiberim dare praesumit. Quem omnis multitudo fidelium et proceres de urbe iterum cum magno dedecore proiecerunt.

(4) Post annos octo Ualentiniano et Ualente consulibus X Kalendarum Decembrium die defunctus est Felix. Liberius misericordiam fecit in clericos, qui peiurauerant, eosque locis propriis suscepit. Itemque octauo Kalendas Octobr. Gratiano et Dagalaifo consulibus Liberius humanis rebus eximitur.

(ed. Guenther 1895: 1-2)

I. THAT WHICH OCCURRED BETWEEN BISHOPS LIBERIUS AND FELIX

3. After two years, the emperor Constantius came to Rome. The people asked for Liberius's return. He soon agreed, saying, "You may have Liberius, who will return to you better than he was when he departed." But this revealed that by his agreement he was extending the hand of treachery. In the third year, Liberius returned, and the Roman people went out to meet him with great joy. Felix, censured either by the Senate or by the people themselves, was forced out of the city. But after a little time, at the instigation of the clergy, who broke their oaths, he broke into the city again and dared to set himself up in the Basilica of Iulius across the Tiber. The entire population of the city, along with the nobility, again threw him out of the city with great shame.

4. After 8 years, in the consulship of Valentinian and Valens, on the 10th day before the Kalends of December, Felix died. Liberius had mercy on the clergy who had broken their oaths, and received them into their former positions. Likewise on the 8th day before the Kalends of October in the consulship of Gratian and Dagalais, Liberius was removed from worldly cares.

(trans. A.J. West http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/avellana-1-english accessed 17.01.2017)

Discussion:

The installment of Felix took place in AD 355, thus the Emperor Constantius came to Rome in AD 357. Felix died eight years after the events of AD 357, that is in AD 365.

Place of event:

Region

Rome

About the source:

Title: Collectio Avellana
Origin: Rome
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

Collectio Avellana is a collection containing 244 letters issued by emperors, imperial magistrates and popes. The earliest item is dated to AD 367, the latest to AD 553. Hence, the compilator worked most probably in the second half of the 6th century. Two hundred documents of the Collectio are not known from any other collection. The editor of the Collectio, Günther noticed that it can be divided into five thematic parts (Gunther 1896: 3-96; Steinacker 1902: 14-15; Blaudeau 2013: 4):

1) no. 1-40 is an independent collection making use of the records of the prefecture of the city of Rome concerning two episcopal elections;

2) no. 41-50 that are derived from the records of the bishopric in Carthage, and consist of the letters of Innocentius I and Zosimus;

3) no. 51-55, the late letters of Leo I not known from any other source, regarding the exile of Bishop Timothy II of Alexandria;

4) no. 56-104 the group of letters from the pontificates of Simplicius, Gelasius, Symmachus, John, Agapet, and Vigilius;

5) no. 105-243 the letters from the records of Hormisdas.

The modern name of the collection derives from the codex Vaticanus Latinus 4961 copied in the monastery Sancti Crucis in fonte Avellana that was considered the oldest by the brothers Ballerini who edited the Collectio in 1787.

The first item in the collection is not a letter but a narrative account of the schisms between Liberius and Felix, and between Ursinus and Damasus (it has a title "Quae gesta sunt inter Liberium et Felicem episcopos", in the literature it is sometimes referred to as Praefatio or Gesta Liberii). The text mentions two churches (basilica in lucinis and basilica Liberii) that almost certainly did not yet exist in the 4th c. and were built in the late 5th or even in the 6th c. Thus the text was composed after the construction of those basilicas (Blair-Dixon 2007: 71-73).

Edition:

O. Guenther ed., Epistolae Imperatorum Pontificum Aliorum Inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque DLIII datae Avellana Quae Dicitur Collectio, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 35/1, 35/2, Prague, Vienna, and Leipzig 1895

Translation:

A.J. West trans., The Collectio Avellana, document 1, The Fourth Century Christianity

Bibliography:

K. Blair-Dixon, "Memory and authority in sixth-century Rome: the Liber Pontificalis and the Collectio Avellana”, [in :] Religion, dynasty, and patronage in early Christian Rome, 300-900, ed. K. Cooper, J. Hillner, Cambridge 2007, 59–76.

P. Blaudeau, "Un point de contact entre collectio Avellana et collectio Thessalonicensis?”, Millennium Yearbook / Millenium Jahrbuch 10 (2013), 1–12.

O. Günther, Avellana-Studien, Wien 1896.

H. Steinacker, "Ueber das älteste päpstliche Registerwesen”, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 23 (1902), 1–49.

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus

Ecclesiastical administration - Election of Church authorities

Conflict

Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1296, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1296