head of the heavenly chorus stands Maiy, crowTied as cjueen by the side of her divine Son ; then come the apostles and evangelists who died a violent death, the protomartyr Stephen, and the ' Comp. Acts ix. 13, 32, 41 ; xxvi. 10 ; Rom. i. 7 ; xii. 13 ; xv. 25, 26 ; 1 Cor. i. 2 ; vi. 1 ; Eph. i. 1, 15, IS ; iv. 12 ; Phil. i. 1 ; iv. 21, 22 ; Rev. xui. 7, 10, &c. 430 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. martyrs of the first three centuries ; the patriarchs and pro- phets also, of the Old Covenant down to John the Baptist ; and finally eminent hermits and monks, missionaries, theolo- gians, and bishops, and those, in general, who distinguished themselves above their contemporaries in virtue or in public service. Tlie measure of ascetic self-denial was the measure of Christian virtue. Though many of the greatest saints of the Bible, from the patriarch Abraham to Peter, the prince of the apostles, lived in marriage, the Romish ethics, from the time of Ambrose and Jerome, can allow no genuine holiness •within the bonds of matrimony, and receives only virgines and some few mdui and viduce into its spiritual nobility.' In this again the close connection of saint-worship with monasticism is apparent. To the saints, about the same period, were added angels as objects of worship. To angels there was ascribed in the church from the beginning a peculiar concern with the fortunes of the militant church, and a certain oversight of all lands and na- tions. But Ambrose is the first who expressly exhorts to the invocation of our patron angels, and represents it as a duty.* In favor of the guardianshij) and interest of angels appeal was rightly made to several passages of the Old and New Testa- ments : Dan. x. 13, 20, 21 ; xii. 1 ; Matt, xviii. 10 ; Luke xv. 7; Heb. i. 14; Acts xii. 15. But in Col. ii. 18, and Bev. xix. 10 ; xxii. 8, 9, the worsMj) of angels is distinctly rebuked. Out of the old Biblical notion of guardian angels arose also the idea of patron saints for particular countries, cities, churches, and classes, and against particular evils and dangers. Peter and Paul and Laurentius became the patrons of Rome ; James, the patron of Spain ; Andrew, of Greece ; John, of ' To reconcile this perverted view with the Bible, the Roman tradition arbitrari- ly assumes that Peter separated from his wife after his conversion ; whereas Paul, so late as the year 57, expressly presupposes the opposite, and claims for himself the right to take with him a sister as a wife on his missionary tours (cSeAc-^i/ -yMvai- Ko. Trepioyeij'), like the Other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas. 1 Cor. ix. 5. Married saints, like St. Elisabeth of Hungary and St. Louis of France, are rare exceptions. ^ De viduis c.