orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus est50.”  Early in the following year, 360 a.d., through the influence of Acacius a new Synod was held at Constantinople, in which, among other Semi- Arian Bishops, Cyril also was deposed on the charge of having held communion with Eu- stathius of Sebaste, Basil of Ancyra, and George of Laodicea.  Cyril, as we have seen, had become acquainted with these Bishops during his residence at Tarsus in 358, at which time they were all zealous opponents of Acacius and his party, but differed widely in other respects. George of Laodicea was a profligate in morals, and an Arian at heart, whose opposition to Acacius and Eudoxius was prompted by self-interest rather than by sincere conviction.  He had been deposed from the priesthood by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, both on that ground of false doctrine, and of the open and habitual irregularities of his life.  Athanasius styles him “the most wicked of all the Arians,” reprobated even by his own party for his grossly dissolute conduct51. Basil of Ancyra was a man of high moral character, great learning, and powerful intellect, a consistent opponent both of the Sabellianism of Marcellus, and of every form of Arian and Anomœan heresy, a chief among those of whom Athanasius wrote52, “We discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean, and dispute only about the word (ὁμοούσιος)….Now such is Basil who wrote from Ancyra concerning the Faith” (358 a.d., the same year in which Cyril met him at Tarsus). Eustathius is described as a man unstable in doctrine, vacillating from party to party, subscribing readily to Creeds of various tendency, yet commanding the respect even of his enemies by a life of extraordinary holiness, in which active benevolence was combined with extreme austerity.  “He was a man,” says Mr. Gwatkin53, “too active to be ignored, too un- stable to be trusted, too famous for ascetic piety to be lightly made an open enemy.” S. Basil the Great, when travelling from place to place, to observe the highest forms of ascetic life, had met with Eustathius at Tarsus, and formed a lasting friendship with a man whom he describes as “exhibiting something above human excellence,” and of whom, after the painful dissensions which embittered Basil’s later life, that great saint could say, that from childhood to extreme old age he (Eustathius) had watched over himself with the greatest care, the result of his self-discipline being seen in his life and character54. Of any intimate friendship between Cyril, and these Semi-Arian leaders, we have no evidence in the vague charges of Acacius:  their common fault was that they condemned him in the Synod of Seleucia.  The true reason of Cyril’s deposition, barely concealed by the 50 Hefele, Councils, ii. 271. 51 Dict. Chr. Biogr. 52 De Synodis, § 41. 53 The Arian Controversy, p. 135. 54 Basil, Epist. 244.  Compare Newman, Preface to Catechetical Lectures, p. iv. 14 Life of S. Cyril.