Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 7 (Augustine: Gospel and Epistle of John)

This work was undertaken by Constantine after the year 326 A.D.; 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 Ascetics or monks, and shared the glory of chastity. We need not, however, suppose that the "Solitaries" (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 perpetual 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. 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, 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.

Macarius died in or before the year 335; for at the Council of Tyre, assembled in that year to condemn Athanasius, Maximus sat as successor to Macarius in the See of Jerusalem. This date is confirmed by the fact that after the accession of Maximus, a great assembly of Bishops was held at Jerusalem in the year 335, for the dedication of the Church of the Holy Resurrection.

It thus appears that Cyril's ordination as Deacon cannot be put later than 334 or the beginning of 335.

Towards the close of the latter year the Bishops who had deposed Athanasius at the Council of Tyre proceeded to Jerusalem "to celebrate the Tricennalia The thirtieth anniversary of a reign of Constantine's reign by consecrating his grand Church on Mount Calvary." On that occasion "Jerusalem became the gathering point for distinguished prelates from every province, and the whole city was thronged by a vast assemblage of the servants of God... In short, the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia, Phœnicia and Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, and Libya, with the dwellers in the Thebaid, all contributed to swell the mighty concourse of God's ministers, followed as they were by vast numbers from every province. They were attended by an imperial escort, and officers of trust had also been sent from the palace itself, with instructions to heighten the splendour of the festival at the Emperor's expense."