§ 84. THE WORSHIP OF MARTYES AND SAINTS. 4:35
fcyrs, says he, are not gods ; we build no temples to our martyrs, as to gods ; but we consecrate to them only memorial places, as to departed men, whose spirits live with God; we build altars not to sacrifice to the martyrs, but to sacrifice with them to the one God, who is botli ours and theirs.^
But in spite of all these distinctions and cautions, which must be expected from a man like Augustine, and acknowledged to be a wholesome restraint against excesses, we cannot but see in the martyr- worship, as it was actually practised, a new form of the hero-worship of the pagans. Nor can we wonder in the least. For the great mass of the Christian jdbojile came, in fact, fresh from polytheism, without thorough conversion, and could not divest themselves of their old notions and customs at a stroke. The despotic form of government, the servile subjection of the people, the idolatrous homage which was paid to the Byzantine emperors and their statues, the predicates divina^ sacra^ ccelestia^ which were applied tc the utterances of their will, favored the worship of saints. The heathen emperor Julian sarcastically reproached the Christians with reintroducing polytheism into monotheism, but, on account of the difference of the objects, revolted from the Christian worship of martyrs and relics, as from the " stench of srraves and dead men's bones." The Manichgean taunt we have already mentioned. The Spanish presbyter Yigilantius, in the fifth century, called the worshippers of martyrs and ]-elics, ashes-worshippers and idolaters,^ and taught that, according to the Scriptures, the living only should pray with and for each other. Even some orthodox church teachers admitted the affinity of the saint-worship with heathenism, though with the view of showing that all that is good in the heathen wor-
' De Civit. Dei, xxii. 10 : " Nobis Martyres non suut dii : quia unum eundemque Deum et nostrum scimus et Martyrum. Nee tamen miraculis, quae per Memoriaa nostrorum Martyrum fiunt, ullo modo comparanda sunt miracula, quas facta per terapla perhibentur illorum. Verum si qua similia videntur, sicut a Moyse magi Pharaonis, sic eorum dii victi sunt a Martyribus nostris. . . . Martyribus nostris non ternpla sicut diis, sed Memorias sicut hominibus mortuis, quorum apud Deum vivunt epiritus, fabricamus ; nee ibi erigimus altaria, J a quibus sacrificemus Martyr bus, sed Bni Deo et Martyrum et nostro sacrificium [coi pus Christi] immolar jus,"
• Cinerarias and idohlatras.
4:36 THIKD PKKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
8liip reappears lar better in the Christian. Eusebius cites >. passage from Plato on the worship of hei'oes, denii-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.' The 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. Hercules, -^sculapius, 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. The temples of the gods are destroyed, the philosophers, orators, and emperors are forgotten, but the martyrs are universally known. The feasts of the gods are now replaced by the festivals of Peter, Paul, Marcellus, Leontius, Antonius, Mauricius, and other martyrs, not with pagan pomp and sensual pleasures, but with Christian soberness and decency.''
Yet even this last distinction which Tiieodoret asserts, sometimes disappeared. Augustine laments that in the African 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 tlie 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 Praeparat. Evangelica, xiii. cap. 11, p, 663. Comp. Demostr. Evang. iiU § :i, p. 107.
* Theodoret, Graec. affect, curatio. Disp. viii. (Ed. Schulz, iv. p. 902 sq.)
* " Conimessationes et cbiietates in honorein etiam beatisriiinorum MartjTum-* Ep. 22 and 29.
* Thus, e. g., the fate of the Attic liing's son Ilippolytus, who was dragged ta death bj' horses on the sea shorj, was iraiisfencd to the Christian martyr llippoly 6U8, of tlie beginning of the thii d century. Tlie martyr Phocas, a gardener at SI