Liberius

Liberius, a Roman deacon elected on 17 May 352, spent his reign in the grip of an emperor. Constantius II, sole ruler from 353 and sympathetic to the Arians, was determined that the West should condemn Athanasius. His legates yielded at Arles in 353; at Milan in 355 they refused and were exiled; Liberius, summoned to court and refusing to sign, was sent to Beroea in Thrace. The Roman clergy had sworn to accept no other bishop while he lived; within weeks the archdeacon Felix was consecrated in his place by three Arian bishops.

Two years in exile broke him, or so contemporaries believed. Athanasius, Jerome, and Hilary of Poitiers all record that he signed a creed acceptable to the Arians and condemned Athanasius to secure his return; Hilary preserves the letters and calls him a "prevaricator." In 357 the Roman matrons petitioned Constantius during his visit, and in 358 he sent Liberius home to rule jointly with Felix. Rome would not have it: the crowd chanted for one God, one Christ, one bishop, and drove Felix out to Porto, where he died in 365.

He built the basilica on the Esquiline that Sixtus III would rebuild as Santa Maria Maggiore, and the Roman list of bishops compiled in 354 bears his name. He died on 24 September 366. Because Felix was long counted a legitimate pope, the next two Felixes are numbered III and IV.