He
wrote to the Arian bishops and priests in the East denying that he had ever
supported Athanasius:
I
did not defend Athanasius, but because my predecessor Julius, of good memory,
had received him, I was afraid lest I might be judged a dissembler of some
sort. But when, by God’s will, I realized that you had justly condemned him, I
at once assented to your opinions…So then, Athanasius being removed from
communion with all of us, and since I am not even to receive his letters, I say
that I am quite at peace with all of you… (Pope Liberius, To the Eastern
Presbyters and Bishops)
It
is generally acknowledged that Pope Liberius condemned Athanasius and accepted
Arianism only under severe duress from the Emperor Constantius II. The Orthodox
Church reveres Pope Liberius as a saint and regards from not as a heretic, but
as a defender of Orthodoxy. So his disavowal of Athanasius and entry into
communion with Arian bishops is no argument against papal prerogatives as Roman
Catholics define them today.
However,
his letter once again reveals a completely different ecclesiastical world from
that in which the Holy Father in Rome makes judgments and the Church accepts
them. Liberius writes to the Eusebians describing how he “assented” to their
opinions; he appears to take for granted that he is one of a group of bishops,
and that general agreement among bishops is a positive good, even if it is
obtained by his coming around to agreement with a group, rather than the
bishops, and all the faithful, need to come around to agreement with him, ad
that judgment is reserved to him.
What’s
more, Liberius’ lapse from Orthodoxy, whether or not it was under duress, led
to no discussion in the Church of his time about what his actions meant, or did
not mean, for papal authority and infallibility. Athanasius, in his History
of the Arians, describes Liberius’ initial heroism in standing up to
pressure and then how, “from fear of threatened death, he subscribed” to the
heresy (St. Athanasius, History of the Arians, 41). Yet, Athanasius adds,
“although the ungodly had done all this, yet they thought they had accomplished
nothing, so long as the great Hosius escaped their knavish tricks” (Athanasius,
History of the Arians, 12).
This
is an extraordinary statement. The Arians had captured the pope, yet “they
thought they had accomplished nothing” unless they also turned Hosius, the
venerable Bishop of Cordoba, who was one of the most compelling advocates for
the Athanasian theology that the Orthodox had recognized as the true doctrine.
Athanasius reveals in this that he has no conception of the pope’s authority as
anything close to what Roman Catholics today professes it to be; he takes for
granted that Liberius was, like Hosius, a key defender of Orthodoxy, and that
is why he was of value to the Arians if he could be forced to endorse their
position. If Liberius had been the people the way Pius IX or John Paul II, or
Francis were popes, there would have been no need for the Arians to try to
force Hosius to align with them as well. (Robert Spencer, The Church and The
Pope: The Case for Orthodoxy [Uncut Mountain Press, 2022], 42-43)