s, a power of working miracles, by means of the separate
souls, who were supposed to know what we do or say, and to be able to do us
good or hurt, and to work those miracles. This was the very notion the
heathens had of the separate souls of their antient Kings and Heroes, whom
they worshiped under the names of _Saturn_, _Rhea_, _Jupiter_, _Juno_,
_Mars_, _Venus_, _Bacchus_, _Ceres_, _Osiris_, _Isis_, _Apollo_, _Diana_,
and the rest of their Gods. For these Gods being male and female, husband
and wife, son and daughter, brother and sister, are thereby discovered to
be antient men and women. Now as the first step towards the invocation of
Saints was set on foot by the persecution of _Decius_, and the second by
the persecution of _Dioclesian_; so this third seems to have been owing to
the proceedings of _Constantius_ and _Julian_ the Apostate. When _Julian_
began to restore the worship of the heathen Gods, and to vilify the Saints
and Martyrs; the _Christians_ of _Syria_ and _Egypt_ seem to have made a
great noise about the miracles done by the reliques of the _Christian_
Saints and Martyrs, in opposition to the powers attributed by _Julian_ and
the heathens to their Idols. For _Sozomen_ and _Ruffinus_ tell us, that
when he opened the heathen Temples, and consulted the Oracle of _Apollo
Daphnaeus_ in the suburbs of _Antioch_, and pressed by many sacrifices for
an answer; the Oracle at length told him that the bones of the Martyr
_Babylas_ which were buried there hinder'd him from speaking. By which
answer we may understand, that some _Christian_ was got into the place
where the heathen Priests used to speak thro' a pipe in delivering their
Oracles: and before this, _Hilary_ in his book against _Constantius_,
written in the last year of that Emperor, makes the following mention of
what was then doing in the _East_ where he was. _Sine martyrio persequeris.
Plus crudelitati vestrae _Nero_, _Deci_, _Maximiane_, debemus. Diabolum enim
per vos vicimus. Sanctus ubique beatorum martyrum sanguis exceptus est, dum
in his Daemones mugiunt, dum aegritudines depelluntur, dum miraculorum opera
cernuntur, elevari sine laqueis corpora, & dispensis pede faeminis vestes
non defluere in faciem, uri sine ignibus spiritus, confiteri sine
interrogantis incremento fidei_. And _Gregory Nazianzen_, in his first
Oration against the Emperor _Julian_ then reigning, writes thus: _Martyres
non extimuisti quibus praeclari honores & festa constituta, a quib