That Cyril, whether a native of Jerusalem or not, had passed a portion of his childhood there, is rendered probable by his allusions to the condition of the Holy Places before they were cleared and adorned by Constantine and Helena.  He seems to speak as an eye-witness of their former state, when he says that a few years before the place of the Nativity at Bethlehem had been wooded Cat. xii. 20.  The wood had been cleared away about sixteen years before this Lecture was delivered., that the place where Christ was crucified and buried was a garden, of which traces were still remaining Cat. xiii. 32; xiv. 5., that the wood of the Cross had been distributed to all nations Cat. iv. 10; x. 19; xiii. 4.  Gregor. Nyss. Baptism of Christ, p. 520, in this Series:  “The wood of the Cross is of saving efficacy for all men, though it is, as I am informed, a piece of a poor tree, less valuable than most trees are.”, and that before the decoration of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine, there was a cleft or cave before the door of the Sepulchre, hewn out of the rock itself, but now no longer to be seen, because the outer cave had been cut away for the sake of the recent adornments Cat. xiv. 9..