that his body should be buried in an unknown place. Athanasius relates this with approbation,' and he caused several relics which had been given to him to be fastened up, that they might be out of the reach of idolatry.^ But the opposition soon ceased, or became confined to inferior or heretical authors, like Yigilantius and Eunomius, or to heathen of)ponents like Porphyry and Julian. Julian charges the Christians, on this point, with apostasy from their own Master, and sarcastically reminds them of His denunciation of the Pharisees, who were like whited sepul- chres, beautiful without, but within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.^ This opposition, of course, made no im- pression, and was attributed to sheer impiety. Even heretics and schismatics, with few exceptions, embraced this form of superstition, though the Catholic church denied the genuine- ness of their relics and the miraculous virtue of them The most and the best of the church teachers of our period, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelu- sium, Theodoret, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Leo, even those Avho combated the worship of images on this point, were carried along by the spirit of the time, and gave the weight of their countenance to the worship of relics, which thus became an essential constituent of the Greek and Roman Catholic religion. They went quite as far as the council of Trent,* which expresses itself more cautiously, on the wor- ship of relics as well as of saints, than the church fathers of for holy relics in the East (confessi sunt, quod ilia ossa ad Grseciam essent tamquam Sanctoriun reliquias portaturi). ' In his Vita Antonii, Opera Athan. ii. 502. - Rufinus, Hist. Eccl. ii. 28. ^ Cyrillus Alex. Adv. Jul. I. x. torn. vi. p. 356. * Sessio x\v. De Invocat. Sanet., etc. § 87. WORSHIP OF EELICS. DOGMA OF THE KESDEEECTION. 457 the Nicene age. With the good intent to promote popular piety by sensible stimulants and tangible supports, they be- came promoters of dangerous errors and gross superstition. To cite some of the most important testimonies : Gregory Nazianzen thinks the bodies of the saints can as well perform miracles, as their spirits, and that tlie smallest parts of the body or of the symbols of their passion are as efficacious as the whole body.* Chrysostom values the dust and ashes of the martyrs more highly than gold or jewels, and ascribes to them the power of healing diseases and putting death to flight.^ In his festal dis- course on the translation of the relics of the Egyptian martyrs from Alexandria to Constantinople, he extols the bodies of the saints in eloquent strains as the best ramparts of the city against all visible enemies and invisible demons, mightier than walls, moats, weapons, and armies.^ "Let others," says Ambrose, "heap up silver and gold; we gather the nails wherewith the martyrs were pierced, and their victorious blood, and the wood of their cross." ^ He himself relates at