perhibentur illorum. Varum si qua similia videntur, sicut a Moyse magi Phar.i- onis, sic eorum dii victi sunt a Martyi-ibus nostris. . . . Martyribus nostris non tern- pla sicut diis, sed Memorias sicut hominibus mortuis, quorum apud Deum vivunt spiritus, fabricamus ; nee ibi erigimus altaria, in quibus sacrificemus Martyribus, sed uni Deo et Martyrum et nostro sacrificium [corpus Christi] immolamus." ' Cinerarios and idoMairaa. 436 THIED PERIOD, A.D. 311-590. ship reappears far better in the Christian. Eusebins cites a passage from Plato on the worship of heroes, demi-gods, and their graves, and then applies it to the veneration of friends of God and champions of true religion ; so that the Christians did well to visit their graves, to honor their memory there, and to offer their prayers.' Tiie Greeks, Theodoret thinks, have the least reason to be offended at what takes place at the graves of the martyrs ; for the libations and expiations, the demi-gods and deified men, originated with themselves. Her- cules, JEsculapius, Bacchus, the Dioscuri, and the like, are deified men ; consequently it cannot be a reproach to the Christians that they — not deify, but — honor their martyrs as witnesses and servants of God. The ancients saw nothing censurable in such worship of the dead. The saints, our helpers and patrons, are far more worthy of such honor. Tlie temples of the gods are destroyed, the philosophers, ora- tors, and emperors are forgotten, but the martyrs are univer- sally known. The feasts of the gods are now replaced by the festivals of Peter, Paul, Marcellus, Leontius, Antonius, Mauri- cius, and other martyrs, not with pagan pomp and sensual pleasures, but with Christian soberness and decency.^ Yet even this last distinction which Theodoret asserts, sometimes disappeared. Augustine laments that in the Afri- can church banqueting and revelling were daily practised in honor of the martyrs,^ but thinks that this weakness must be for the time indulged from regard to the ancient customs of the pagans. In connection with the new hero-worship a new mythology also arose, which filled up the gaps of the history of the saints, and sometimes even transformed the pagan myths of gods and heroes into Christian legends/ The superstitious imagination, ' In his Prfcparat. Evangelica, xiii. cap. 11, p, 663. Comp. Demostr. Evang. iii. § 3, p. 107. " Theodoret, Graee. affect, curatio. Disp. viii. (Ed. Schulz, iv. p. 902 sq.) ^ " Commessationes et ebrietates in honorem etiam beatissimorum Martyrum." Ep. 22 and 29. * Thus, e. g., the fate of the Attic king's son Hippolytus, who was dragged to death by horses on the sea shore, was transferred to the Christian martyr Hippoly- tus, of the beginning of the third century. The martyr Phocas, a gardener at Si- § 84. THE WORSHIP OF MARTYRS AND SAINTS. 43'7 visions, and dreams, and pious fraud furnished abundant con- tributions to tlie Christian legendary poesy. The worship of the saints found eloquent vindication and encouragement not only in poets