The Benedictine Editor tries to find another proof of the date of the Lectures in Cyril’s description of the state of the Church in Cat. xv. §7:  “If thou hear that Bishops advance against Bishops, and clergy against clergy, and laity against laity, even unto blood, be not troubled.”  Touttée refers this account to the fierce dissensions which followed the Synod of Sardica, where Athanasius and Marcellus were declared innocent and received into communion, while the Encyclical of the dissentient Bishops, who had withdrawn to Philippopolis, condemned them both.  But it is now ascertained that the Synod of Sardica was held not in 347, as Touttée supposed, but in 344 Dict. Chr. Biogr. “Athanasius,” p. 190, note; Hefele, Councils, §§ 58, 66, 67.:  and Cyril’s description may unhappily be applied to the state of the Church at almost any time from the Council of Tyre, by which Athanasius had been deposed in 335, until long after any date which can possibly be assigned to Cyril’s Lectures.