Still more improbable is the charge that Cyril had renounced the priesthood conferred on him by Maximus, and after serving in the Church as a Deacon, had been rewarded by the Episcopate, and then himself degraded Heraclius from Bishop to Priest.  As a solution of these difficulties, it is suggested by Reischl Vol. I. p. xli. note. that Cyril had been designated in the lifetime of Maximus as his successor, and after his decease had been duly and canonically consecrated, but had incurred the calumnious charges of the party opposed to Acacius and the Eusebians, because he was supposed to have bound himself to them by accepting consecration at their hands.  This view is in some measure confirmed by the fact that “in the great controversy of the day Cyril belonged to the Asiatic party, Jerome to that of Rome.  In the Meletian schism also they took opposite sides, Cyril supporting Meletius, Jerome being a warm adherent of Paulinus Dict. Chr. Biogr. “Cyrillus,” p. 761:  and for the Meletian Schism, see “Meletius,” “Paulinus,” “Vitalius.”,” by whom he had been recently ordained Priest.  It is also worthy of notice that Jerome’s continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius was written at Constantinople in 380–381, the very time when the many injurious charges fabricated by Cyril’s bitter enemies were most industriously circulated in popular rumour on the eve of a judicial inquiry by the second general Council which met there in 381, under the presidency of Meletius, Cyril, and Gregory of Nazianzum Hefele, ii. 344..  Had Jerome written of Cyril a year or two later, he must have known that these calumnies had been emphatically rejected by the Synod of Constantinople (382) consisting of nearly the same Bishops who had been present at the Council of the preceding year.  In their Synodical letter Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. v. 9. to Pope Damasus they wrote:  “And of the Church in Jerusalem, which is the Mother of all the Churches, we notify that the most reverend and godly Cyril is Bishop:  who was long ago canonically appointed by the Bishops of the Province, and had many conflicts in various places against the Arians.”