He was chosen bishop in A.D. 366, because of the position he had taken with reference to the controversy which then agitated the diocese, and because of the firmness and weight of character he had displayed in the troubles of the years before his election. The great Christological controversy was agitating the Church of both East and West. The West was substantially in agreement with Athanasius, against both the Arians and the semi-Arians, and would have been entirely so but for the influence exerted by semi-Arian or Arian emperors and the courtly bishops of their party. Constantius, the last surviving son of Constantine the Great, was exceedingly zealous for the semi-Arian doctrine, which rejected the statement of our Lord’s substantial identity with His Father, but was willing to assert His substantial likeness. It was only the difference of an iota in a Greek word—ὁµοουσιος or ὁµοιουσιος—but if there ever was a case in which neither jot nor tittle must be allowed to pass away, it was this. Liberius, who was elected Bishop of Rome in 352, was the victim of Constantius’s policy. In 353 the East and West were united under his rule, and that year at Arles, as in 355 at Milan, councils were called, in which the condemnation of Athanasius was procured by imperial blandishments. In the former the presbyter sent by Liberius to represent the Roman see subscribed with the majority. But in the second his three representatives obeyed their instructions, and accepted disfavor and exile rather than subscribe. Then Liberius himself was summoned to Milan, and the weight of imperial threats and persuasions was brought to bear upon him. He withstood both manfully, and demanded as a preliminary to any discussion of the charges against Athanasius, that the Nicene Creed should be subscribed by all parties, and the banished bishops returned to their sees. When given his choice between submission and exile, he chose the latter. The Emperor now sought among the Roman clergy for a man to put into Liberius’s place. In Rome, as in most of the cities of the West, Arians were not to be found. But in the Deacon Felix the court party obtained a candidate who, while himself a Trinitarian, was willing to hold communion with the Arians, and presumably to condemn Athanasius. Of the details of his election and ordination little is known, but we find him installed in the Roman see with the vigorous support of the civil authority, although not with the assent of the Roman people. The great body of the Christians in Rome are said to have refused communion with him because he was tainted by communion with heretics; and when Constantius came to visit the city, he was besieged by the Christian ladies of the city with appeals for the restoration of Liberius.