Liberatus of Carthage

Liberatus of Carthage was a deacon of the Christian Church in Africa in the 6th century.

Liberatus was a prominent representative of the African communities. In the years 534 and 535, he participated in the embassies of African communities to Pope John Paul II. Later he participated in the Three Chapters controversy, had begun the Emperor Justinian I and his conviction of three theologians ( 540). Liberatus accompanied his bishop in the year 550 by Constantine Reparatus Opel to move the emperor to withdraw the judgment (unsuccessfully).

Like many of his countrymen was Liberatus a staunch opponent of Pope Vigilius, who yielded to the emperor in the Three Chapters controversy. After his death ( 555 ) he wrote 560-566 the Breviarium causae Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum, a summary of the heresy of the Nestorians and Eutychians from the 5th century until his time. Therefore, he used next to the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret, which he, however, used in the Latin translation of Cassiodorus, the acts of synods and letters of various saints. Therefore, its representation is particularly in the area of ​​his own lifetime of great value as sources for the history of the Church of late antiquity.

The Breviarium was handed down along with numerous letters of similar issues in the so-called Collectio Sangermanensis, which dates back to the 7th or 8th century. The oldest surviving manuscripts ( Pari Sinus Latinus 12098, Vindobonensis 397 ) date from the Carolingian period. In the late 12th and 13th centuries, numerous copies of lesser quality have emerged. The Editio princeps made ​​Peter Crabbe at ( Conciliorum omnium tam quam generalium particularium. Band 2, Köln 1538). The output of Lawrence Surius ( Conciliorum omnium tum tum generalium provincialium, Volume 2, Cologne 1567) presented for the first time also based on the Codex Vindobonensis. The first edition, which only contained the Breviarium of Liberatus, published in 1675, Jean Garnier, who also wrote the first detailed commentary and four different manuscripts, including the two oldest used. Garnier's edition remained in use until the 20th century. She was the basis for the impression in Mignes Patrologia Latina ( PL 68, 969-1052 [Paris, 1866 ] ).

The authoritative edition today comes from Eduard Schwartz, who edited the Breviarium 1936 as part of its project Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (ACO 2.5, 98-141 ).