[64] Canon VII. "Since a custom and old tradition has obtained, that the bishop of Ælia (Jerusalem) should receive honour, let him hold the second place, the metropolitan (of Cæsarea) being secured in his own dignity." Acacius now summoned a small council of bishops of his own party, which Cyril declined to attend. This was regarded as contumacy; and he was gravely accused of having committed an offence in selling some of the church ornaments to provide food for the famine-stricken poor. Sozomen says that he sold Church treasures and sacred veils. Theodoret mentions a vestment of cloth of gold presented by Constantine to be worn by the bishop when baptizing. Such an accusation does Cyril honour, and ranks him with other illustrious prelates, Ambrose, Augustine, Exuperius, Gregory the Great, Ethelwold of Winchester, who all in like manner sanctioned the principle that the law of love is the highest law of all. It is worth remark that in this case, as in that of S. John Chrysostom, the alliance of a narrow formalism was found, not with orthodoxy, but with heresy. By the synod convened by Acacius, Cyril was condemned and expelled from Jerusalem. He appealed, with more formality, as it appears, than had been usual in such cases, to "a higher court;" proceeded to Antioch, where he found that the patriarch Leontius was dead, and that no one had been appointed his successor; and ultimately found a welcome at Tarsus, where Silvanus, the bishop, one of the best of the semi-Arians, received him, in disregard of the remonstrances from Acacius. This circumstance brought Cyril, for the next few years, into connection with the semi-Arian party; and he illustrates the fact that it contained men of whom Athanasius could say, in his noble readiness to discern substantial unity under verbal difference, "We do not treat as enemies those who accept everything else that was defined at Nicæa, and scruple only about the word consubstantial; for we do not attack them as raging Arians, nor as men who fight against the fathers, but we discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean, and differ only about the word."