, already filled the whole
world, being carried everywhere by those who, full of devotion, cut of
littie chips, (p. 146.) We learn from Rufin, (Hist. b. 1, c. 10,) that
the holy cross was covered by St. Helena with a silver case; and from S.
Paulinus, (Ep. 31, n. 6,) that it was kept in an inner treasury in the
church, into which the passage lay through a portico or gallery, as
appears from the Spiritual Meadow. (C. 105.) A lamp burned before the
cross, by the oil whereof St. Sabas and St. Cyriacus wrought many
miracles, as we read in their lives. A priest was appointed by the
bishop to be the guardian of this sacred treasury, which honor was
conferred on St. Porphyry of Gaza, soon after St. Cyril's death; and
then the case of the cross was of gold. St. Paulmus rays, it was exposed
to the public veneration of the people once a year, at Easter, which
some think to have been on Good Friday. St. Sophronius of Jerusalem,
(Or. 1,) besides other days, in his time, says it was on Easter Monday.
At extraordinary times the bishop gave leave for it to be shown to
pilgrims to be venerated, and for them to cut off small chips, by which,
miraculously, the cross never diminished, as St. Paulinus wrote seventy
{616} years after its invention. The devotion of St. Cyril to the holy
cross, was doubtless more inflamed by the sacred place in which he made
all his sermons, which was the church built by St. Helena and
Constantine, sometimes called of the Holy Cross, which was kept in it;
sometimes of the Resurrection, because it contained in it the sepulchre,
out of which Christ arose from death. It is curiously described as it
stood, before it was destroyed by the Saracens, in 1011, by Dom Touttee,
in a particular dissertation in the end of St. Cyril's works, (p. 423.)
It was since rebuilt, but not exactly in the same place.

St. Cyril inculcates also an honor due to the relics of saints, which he
proves (Cat. 17, n. 30, 31) from the Holy Ghost performing miracles by
the handkerchiefs of St. Paul, how much more by the saints' bodies? This
he shows (Cat. 18, n. 16, p. 293) by the man raised to life by touching
the dead body of Eliseus. (4 Reg. xiii. 21.) He gives the Blessed Virgin
the title of Mother of God, [Greek: theotokos]. (Cat. 10, n. 19, p.
146.) He is very clear in explaining the eternity and consubstantiality
of God the Son, (Cat. 4, 10, 11, 15,) which would alone justify him from
all suspicion of semi-Arianism. He is no less explic