n days dedicated to them, and accounted all these
practices pious and religious, and anathematized those men as arrogant who
opposed them, or prayed in the _Martyries_ of the hereticks. They also
lighted torches to the Martyrs in the day-time, as the heathens did to
their Gods; which custom, before the end of the fourth century, prevailed
much in the _West_. They sprinkled the worshipers of the Martyrs with
holy-water, as the heathens did the worshipers of their Gods; and went in
pilgrimage to see _Jerusalem_ and other holy places, as if those places
conferred sanctity on the visiters. From the custom of praying in the
_Coemeteries_ and _Martyries_, came the custom of translating the bodies of
the Saints and Martyrs into such Churches as were new built: the Emperor
_Constantius_ began this practice about the year 359, causing the bodies of
_Andrew_ the Apostle, _Luke_ and _Timothy_, to be translated into a new
Church at _Constantinople_: and before this act of _Constantius_, the
_Egyptians_ kept the bodies of their Martyrs and Saints unburied upon beds
in their private houses, and told stories of their souls appearing after
death and ascending up to heaven, as _Athanasius_ relates in the life of
_Antony_. All which gave occasion to the Emperor _Julian_, as _Cyril_
relates, to accuse the _Christians_ in this manner: _Your adding to that
antient dead man, Jesus, many new dead men, who can sufficiently abominate?
You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments, altho you are no
where bidden to prostrate yourselves to sepulchres, and to respect them
officiously._ And a little after: _Since _Jesus_ said that sepulchres are
full of filthiness, how do you invoke God upon them_? and in another place
he saith, that if _Christians_ had adhered to the precepts of the
_Hebrews_, _they would have worshiped one God instead of many, and not a
man, or rather not many unhappy men_: And that they _adored the wood of the
cross, making its images on their foreheads, and before their houses_.

After the sepulchres of Saints and Martyrs were thus converted into places
of worship like the heathen temples, and the Churches into sepulchres, and
a certain sort of sanctity attributed to the dead bodies of the Saints and
Martyrs buried in them, and annual festivals were kept to them, with
sacrifices offered to God in their name; the next step towards the
invocation of Saints, was the attributing to their dead bodies, bones and
other relique