nations4, and that before the decoration of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine, there was a x 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 adornments5. This work was undertaken by Constantine after the year 326 a.d.6; and if Cyril spoke from remembrance of what he had himself seen, he could hardly have been less than ten or twelve years old, and so must have been born not later, perhaps a few years earlier, than 315 a.d. The tradition that Cyril had been a monk and an ascetic was probably founded upon the passages in which he seems to speak as one who had himself belonged to the order of Solitaries, and shared the glory of chastity7.  We need not, however, suppose that the “Solit- aries” (μονάζοντες)of whom he speaks were either hermits living in remote and desert places, or monks secluded in a monastery:  they commonly lived in cities, only in separate houses, and frequented the same Churches with ordinary Christians.  To such a life of per- petual chastity, strict asceticism, and works of charity, Cyril may probably, in accordance with the custom of the age, have been devoted from early youth. A more important question is that which relates to the time and circumstances of his ordination as Deacon, and as Priest, matters closely connected with some of the chief troubles of his later life. That he was ordained Deacon by Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, who died in 334 or 335, may be safely inferred from the unfriendly notice of S. Jerome, Chron. ann. 349 (350 a.d.):  “Cyril having been ordained Priest by Maximus, and after his death permitted by Acacius, Bishop of Cæsarea, and the other Arian Bishops, to be made Bishop on condition of repudiating his ordination by Maximus, served in the Church as a Deacon:  and after he had been paid for this impiety by the reward of the Episcopate (Sacerdotii), he by various plots harassed Heraclius, whom Maximus when dying had substituted in his own place, and degraded him from Bishop to Priest.” From this account, incredible as it is in the main, and strongly marked by personal prejudice, we may conclude that Cyril had been ordained Deacon not by Maximus, but by his predecessor Macarius; for otherwise he would have been compelled to renounce his Deacon’s Orders, as well as his Priesthood. 4 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.” 5 Cat. xiv. 9. 6 Eusebius; Vita Const. iii. 29 ff. 7 Cat. xii. 1, 33, 34.  Compare iv. 24, note 8. 5 Life of S. Cyril.