We learn from a letter of Basil the Great that he had visited Jerusalem about the year 357, when he had been recently baptized, and was preparing to adopt a life of strict asceticism.  He speaks of the many saints whom he had there embraced, and of the many who had fallen on their knees before him, and touched his hands as holy Epist. iv. p. 12.,—signs, as Touttée suggests, of a flourishing state of religion and piety.  Cyril’s care for the poor, and his personal poverty, were manifested by an incident, of which the substantial truth is proved by the malicious use to which it was afterwards perverted.  “Jerusalem and the neighbouring region being visited with a famine, the poor in great multitudes, being destitute of necessary food, turned their eyes upon Cyril as their Bishop.  As he had no money to succour them in their need, he sold the treasures and sacred veils of the Church.  It is said, therefore, that some one recognised an offering of his own as worn by an actress on the stage, and made it his business to inquire whence she had it, and found that it had been sold to her by a merchant, and to the merchant by the Bishop Sozom. H. E. iv. 25..”