The terrible defeat and miserable death of Valens in the great battle against the Goths at Adrianople (a.d. 378) brought a respite to the defenders of the Nicene doctrine.  For Gratian “disapproved of the late persecution that had been carried on for the purpose of checking the diversities in religious Creeds, and recalled all those who had been banished on account of their religion Soz. vii. 1..”  Gratian associated Theodosius with himself in the Empire on the 19th of January, 379; and “at this period,” says Sozomen Ib. 2., “all the Churches of the East, with the exception of that of Jerusalem, were in the hands of the Arians.”  Cyril, therefore, had been one of the first to return to his own See.  During his long absence the Church of Jerusalem had been the prey both of Arianism and of the new heresy of Apollinarius, which had spread among the monks who were settled on Mount Olivet.  Egyptian Bishops, banished for their orthodoxy, having taken refuge in Palestine, there found themselves excluded from communion.  Jerusalem was given over to heresy and schism, to the violent strife of rival factions, and to extreme licentiousness of morals.