any miraculous interposition.  According to the account of Rufinus59, “lime and cement had been brought, and all was ready for destroying the old foundations and laying new on the next day.  But Cyril remained undismayed, and after careful consideration either of what he had read in Daniel’s prophecy concerning the ‘times,’ or of our Lord’s predictions in the Gospels, persisted that it was impossible that one stone should ever there be laid upon an- other by the Jews.”  This account of Cyril’s expectation, though probable enough in itself, seems to be little more than a conjecture founded on his statement (Cat. xv. 15), that “Anti- christ will come at the time when there shall not be left one stone upon another in the Temple of the Jews.”  That doom was not completed in Cyril’s time, nor did he expect it to be fulfilled until the coming of the Jewish Antichrist, who was to restore the Temple shortly before the end of the world.  It was impossible for Cyril to see in Julian such an Antichrist as he has described; and therefore, without any gift or pretence of prophecy, he might very well express a firm conviction that the attempted restoration at that time must fail.  Though Gibbon is even more cynical and contemptuous than usual in his examination of the alleged miracles, he does not attempt to deny the main facts of the story60:  with their miraculous character we are not here concerned, but only with Cyril’s conduct on so remarkable an occasion. In the same year, a.d. 363, Julian was killed in his Persian campaign on the 26th of June, and was succeeded by Jovian, whose universal tolerance, and personal profession of the xviii Nicene faith, though discredited by the looseness of his morals, gave an interval of compar- ative rest to the Church.  In his reign Athanasius was recalled, and Acacius and his friends subscribed the Nicene Creed, with an explanation of the sense in which they accepted the word ὁμοούσιον61.  As Cyril’s name is not mentioned in any of the records of Jovian’s short reign of seven months, we may infer that he dwelt in peace at Jerusalem. Jovian died on the 17th of February, 364, and was succeeded by Valentinian, who in the following March gave over the Eastern provinces of the Empire to his brother Valens.  During the first two years of the new reign we hear nothing of Cyril:  but at the beginning of the year 366, on the death of his old enemy Acacius, Cyril assumed the right to nominate his successor in the See of Cæsarea, and appointed a certain Philumenus62.  Whether this assumption of authority was in accordance with the 7th Canon of Nicæa may be doubted:  Cyril’s choice of his nephew was, however, in after times abundantly justified by the conduct and character of Gelasius, who is described by Theodoret as a man “distinguished by the 59 Hist. i. 37. 60 See Gibbon’s remarks on the testimony of Ammianus, “a contemporary and a Pagan,” and on the explan- ation from natural causes suggested by Michaelis. 61 Socr. iii. 25; Sozom. vi. 4. 62 Epiphanius, Hær. 73, § 37. 16 Life of S. Cyril.