§ 84. THE WORSHIP OF MAETYRS AND SAINTS. 429
of God, washed from the guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, and, notwithstanding all their remaining imperfections and sins, called to perfect holiness. The apostles address their epistles to "the saints," i. e., the Christian believers, "at Tvonie, Corinth, Ephesus," &c.*
After tlie entrance of the heathen masses into the church the title came to be restricted to bishops and councils and to departed heroes of the Christian faith, especially the martyrs of the first three centuries. When, on the cessation of persecution, the martyr's crown, at least within the limits of the Eoman empire, was no longer attainable, extraordinary ascetic piety, great service to the church, and subsequently also the power of miracles, were required as indispensable conditions of reception into the Catholic calendar of saints. The anchorets especially, who, though not persecuted from without, voluntarily crucified their flesh and overcame evil spirits, seemed to stand equal to the martyrs in holiness and in claims to veneration. A tribunal of canonization did not yet exist. The popular voice commonly decided the matter, and passed for the voice of God. Some saints were venerated only in the regions where they lived and died ; others enjoyed a national homage; others, a universal.
The veneration of the saints increased with the decrease of martyrdom, and with the remoteness of the objects of reverence. " Distance lends encliantment to the view ; ■ ' but " familiarity " is apt " to breed contempt." The sins and faults of the heroes of faith were lost in the bright haze of the past, while their virtues shone the more, and furnished to a pious and superstitious fancy the richest material for legendary poesy.
Almost all the catholic saints belong to the higher degrees of the clergy or to the monastic life. And the monks were the chief promoters of the worsliip of saints. At the head of the heavenly chorus stands Mary, crowned as queen by the %ide of her divine Son then come the apostles and evangelista 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 ; Cot 12; vL 1 ; Eph. i. 1, 15, 18 ; iv. 12 ; PhU. i. 1 ; iv. 21, 22 ; Rev. xiii. 7, 10, &c.
430 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
martyrs of the firyt three centuries; tlie patriarchs and prophets also of the Old Covenant down to John the Baptist; and finally eminent hermits and monks, missionaries, theologians, and bishops, and those, in general, who distinguished themselves above their contemporaries in virtue or in public, service. Tlie measure of ascetic self-denial w'as 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 vidui and viduce into its spiritual nobility.' In this again the close connection of f^aint-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 nations. 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 guardianship and interest of angels appeal was rightly made to several passages of the Old and New Testaments: Dan. X. 13, 20, 21 ; xii. 1 ; Matt, xviii. 10; Luke xv. 7; Ileb. i. 14; Acts xii. 15. But in Col. ii. 18, and Rev. xix. 10 ; xxii. 8, 9, the worship 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 ; elamcs, the patron of Spain ; Andi-ew, 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, i<o late as the year 57, expressly presupposes the opposite, and claims for himseii the right to take with him a sister as a wife on his missionary tours {a.^t\<pT}v 7i-rui- Ka TTfpidyeLv), like the Other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas. 1 Cor. ix. 5. Married saints, hke St. Elisabeth of Hungary and St. Louis of France, are rare exceptions.
' De viduis c. 9 : " Obsccrandi sunt Angeli pro nobis, qui nobis ad pra-iUdiun? dati sunt." Origen had previously commended the invocation of angels.