“S. Cyril here describes the state of the Church, when orthodoxy was for a while trodden under foot, its maintainers persecuted, and the varieties of Arianism, which took its place, were quarreling for the ascendancy.  Gibbon quotes two passages, one from a pagan historian of the day, another from a Father of the Church, which fully bear out S. Cyril’s words.  What made the state of things still more deplorable, was the defection of some of the orthodox party, as Marcellus, into opposite errors:  while the subsequent secessions of Apollinaris and Lucifer show what lurking disorders there were within it at the time when S. Cyril wrote.  (Vid. infr. 9.)  The passages referred to are as follows:  ‘The Christian Religion,’ says Ammianus, ‘in itself plain and simple, he (Constantius) confounded by the dotage of superstition.  Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by vain disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited.  The highways were covered with troops of Bishops, galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they called synods; and while they laboured to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.’  Hist. xxi. 16.  S. Hilary of Poictiers thus speaks of Asia Minor, the chief seat of the Arian troubles:  ‘It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily.  The Homoousion is rejected and received and explained away by successive synods.  The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy divines.  Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries.  We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we defended.  We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other’s ruin,’ ad Constant. ii. 4, 5.  Gibbon’s translations are used, which, though diffuse, are faithful in their matter.  What a contrast do these descriptions present to Athanasius’ uniform declaration, that the whole question was really settled at Nicæa, and no other synod or debate was necessary!”—(R.W.C.).  Compare, for example, the account of the seditions in Antioch and in Constantinople, in Socrates, Eccles. Hist. i. 24; i., 12–14, and Athanas. Hist. Arianorum, passim.