§ 84. THE WORSHIP or MARTYKS AND SAINTS. 441
hear our prayers, and ascribes to departed saints a sort of oniiupresence. because, according to Rev. xiv. 4, they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.' He thinks that their prayer? are much more effectual in heaven than they were upon earth. If Moses implored the forgiveness of God for six hundred thousand men, and Stephen, the first martyr, prayed for his murderers after the example of Christ, should they cease to pray, and to be heard, when they are with Christ?
Augustine infers from the interest which the rich man iu hell still had in the fate of his five surviving brothers (Luke xvi. 27), that the pious dead in heaven must have even far more interest in the kindred and friends whom they have left behind.* He also calls the saints our intercessors, yet under Christ, the proper and highest Litercessor, as Peter and the other apostles are shepherds under the great chief Shepherd.' In a memorial discourse on Stephen, he imagines that martyr, and St. Paul who stoned him, to be ]3resent, and begs them for their intercessions with the Lord with whom they reign.'' He attributes miraculous effects, even the raising of the dead, to the intercessions of Stephen." But, on the other hand, he declares, as we have already observed, his inability to solve the difficult question of the way in which the dead can be made acquainted with our wishes and prayers. At all events, in Augustine's practical religion the worship of the saints occupies a subor dinate i^lace. In his " Confessions" and "Soliloquies" he always addresses himself directly to God, not to Mary nor to martyrs.
The Spanish poet Prudentius flees with prayers and confessions of sin to St. Lauren tins, and considers himself unworthy to be heard by Christ Himself.*
' Adv. Vigilant, n. 6 : " Si agnus ubiquc, ergo et hi, qui cum agno sunt, u rique esse credendi sunt." So the heathen also attributed ubiquity to their demons. Heliodus, Opera et dies, v. 121 sqq.
' Epist. 259, n. 5.
» Sermo 285, n. 5.
* Sermo 317, n. 5: "Ambo modo sermonem nostnmi auditis; ambo ro nobi* orate . . orationibus suis commendent nos."
» Serm. 324.
• Hymn. ii. in hoti. S. Laurent, vss. 570-584 :
442 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
The poems of Paulinus of IS'ola are full of direct prayeri for the intercessions of the saints, especially of St. Felix, in whose lionor he erected a basilica, and annually composed an ode, and whom he calls his patron, his father, his lord. He relates that the people came in great ci'owds aronnd the wonderworking relics of this saint on his memorial day, and conld not look on them enough.
Leo the Great, in his sermons, lays great stress oii the powerful intercession of the apostles Peter and Paid, and of the Roman martyr Lauren tius.'
Pope Gregory the Great, at the close of our period, went much farther.
According to this we cannot wonder that the Yirgin Mary and the saints are interwoven also in the prayers of the litnrgies,' and that their merits and intercession stand by tlie side of the merits of Christ as a ground of the acceptance of our prayers.
§ 85. Festivals of the Saints.
The system 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 })rovincial, 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 amusements of the people, like the feasts of the heathen gods and lieroes.
The most important saints' days which come down from
" Indignus agnosco et scio,
Quem Christus ipse exaudiat ; — Sed per patronos martyres Potest iticdclaBT. consequi." ' "Cuius oratione," says he of the latter, "et patrocinio adjuvari nos sine cess*tionc confidimus." Scrm. 85 in Natal. S. Laurent, c. 4.
' E. g., the Liturgies of St. James, St. Mark, St. Basil, St. (^hryaosiom, the Coplie Litu'-gy of St. Cyril, and the Roman Liturgy.