5. * Sermo 317, n. 5: "Ambo modo sermonem nostrum auditis; ambo pro nobis orate . . . orationibus suis commendent nos." ' Serm. 324. * Hymn. ii. in hon. S. Laurent. t?s. 570-584 : 442 THIED PERIOD. A.D, 311-590. The poems of Panlinns of ISTola are full of direct ]-)rayer8 for tlie intercessions of the saints, especially of St. Felix, in whose honor he erected a basilica, and annually composed an ode, and whom he calls his patron, his father, his lord. He re- lates that the people came in great crowds around the "wonder- working relics of this saint on his memorial day, and could not look on them enough. Leo the Great, in his sermons, lays great stress on the powerful intercession of the apostles Peter and Paul, and of the Poman martyr Laurentius,' Pope Gregory the Great, at the close of our period, went mnch farther. According to this we cannot wonder that the Virgin Mary and the saints are interwoven also in the prayers of the litur- gies," and that their merits and intercession stand by the side of the merits of Christ as a ground of the acceptance of our prayers. § 85. Festivals of the Saints. Tlie sj'stem of saint-worship, like that of the worship of Mary, became embodied in a series of religious festivals, of which many had only a local character, some a provincial, some a universal. To each saint a day of the year, the day of his death, or his heavenly birthday, was dedicated, and it was celebrated with a memorial oration and exercises of divine worship, but in many cases desecrated by unrestrained amuse- ments of the people, like the feasts of the heathen gods and heroes. The most important saints' days which come down fi*om "Indignus agnosco et scio, Quem Christus ipse exaudiat ; — Sed per patronos martyres Potest medelam consequi." * " Cuius oratione," says he of the latter, " et patroeinio adjuvari nos sine ccssa- tione coufidiinus." Serm. 85 in Natal. S. Laurent, c. 4. ^ E. g., the Liturgies of St. James, St. Mark, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, the Cop- tic Liturgy of St. Cyril, and the Roman Liturgy. § 85. FESTIVALS OF THE SAINTS. 443 the early church, and bear a universal character, are the fol- lowing : 1. The least of the two cliief apostles Peter and Paul,' od the twenty-ninth of June, the day of their martyrdom. It is with the Latins and the Greeks the most important of the feasts of the apostles, and, as the homilies for the day by Greg- ory Xazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and Leo the Gi-eat show, was generally introduced as early as the fourth century. 2. Besides this, the Poman church has observed since the fifth century a special feast in honor of the prince of the apos- tles and for the glorification of the papal office : the feast of THE See of Petee '^ on the twenty-second of February, the day