§ 84. THE WOESHIP oF MAKTYKS AND SAINTS. ■iV'l
theologians ; Luke, of painters ; subsequently Pliocas, of seamen ; Ivo, of jurists; Anthony, a protector against pestilence; Apollonia, against tooth-aclies ; &c.
These different orders of saints and angels form a heavenly hierarchy, reflected in the ecclesiastical hierarchy on earth. Dionysius the Areopagite, a fantastical Christian Platonist oi the fifth century, exhibited the whole relation of man to God on the basis of the hierarchy ; dividing the hierarchy into two branches, heavenly and earthly, and each of these again into several degrees, of which every higher one was the mediator of salvation to the one below it.
These are the outlines of the saint-worship of our period. Now to the exposition and estimate of it, and then the proofs.
The worship of saints proceeded originally, without doubt, from a pure and truly Christian source, to wit : a very deep and lively sense of the communion of saints, which extends over death and the grave, and embraces even the blessed in heaven. It was closely connected with love to Christ, and with gratitude for everything great and good which he has done through his instruments for the welfare of posterity. The church fulfilled a simple and natural duty of gratitude, when, in the consciousness of unbroken fellowship with the church triumphant, she honored the memory of the martyrs and confessors, who had ofi'ered their life for tlieir faith, and had achieved victory for it over all its enemies. She performed a duty of fidelity to her own children, when she held up for admiration and imitation the noble virtues and services of their fathers. She honored and glorified Christ Himself when she surrounded Him with an innumerable company of followers, contemplated the reflection of His glory in them, and sang to llis praise in the Ambrosian Te Deum :
"The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee; The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee; The noble army of Martyrs praise thee ;
The holy church throughout all the world dotli acknowledge thee, The Father, of an infinite majesty; Thine adorable, true, and only Son ;
432 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Also the IToly Ghost, the Comforter.
Thou art tlio King of glory, O Christ;
Thou art the everlasting Son of ihe Father.
When thou tookcst upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhoi
the Virgin's womb; ' "When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open
the kingdom of heaven to all believers."'
In the first three centuries the veneration of the martyrs hi general restricted itself to the thankful remembrance of their virtues and the celebration of the day of their death as the day of their heavenly birth.' This celebration usually took place at their graves. So the chui'ch of Smyrna annually commemorated its bishop Polycarp, and valued his bones more than gold and gems, though with the express distinction: "Christ we worship as the Son of God ; the martyrs we love and honor as disciples and successors of the Lord, on account of their insurpassable love to their King and Master, as also we wish to be their companions and fellow disciples." " Here we find this veneration as yet in its innocent simplicity.
But in the Niccne age it advanced to a formal invocation of the saints as our patrons (patroni) and intercessors (interces- Kores, mediatores) before the throne of grace, and degenerated into a form of refined polytheism and idolatry. The saints came into the place of the demigods, Penates and Lares, the ])atrons of the domestic hearth and of the country. As once temples and altars to the heroes, so now churches and chapels* came to be built over the graves of the martyrs, and consecrated to their names (or more precisely to God through them). People laid in them, as they used to do in the temple of ^sculapius, the sick that they might be healed, and hung in them as in the temples of the gods, sacred gifts of silver and gold.
' " Non horruisti Virginis nterum." The translation in the American Episcopal Liturgy has softened this expression thus : " Thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin."
' Natalitia, y ( vt^ \iu.
' In the Epistle of the church of Smyrna Do Martyr. Polycarpi, cap. 17 (Patre» Apost. ed. Dressel, p. 404): Tovrov ixiv "yap vlvf uvra toC &iov TT poor Kvrov mv ' Tov% 5« fidpTvpat, uis fia^Tjra? Kal fxtjxrjrai toD Kupiov ay air aijxt v a^tut, K.r.K.
* Memoriae, ^oprupia.