ities. Hence it came to pass in the days
of _Julian_, A.C. 362, that _Athanasius_ by a prophetic spirit, as
_Ruffinus_ tells us, hid the bones of _John_ the Baptist from the Heathens,
not in the ground to be forgotten, but in the hollow wall of a Church
before proper witnesses, that they might _be profitable to future
generations_. Hence also came the invocation of the Saints for doing such
miracles, and for assisting men in their devotions, and mediating with God.
For _Athanasius_, even from his youth, looked upon the dead Saints and
Martyrs as mediators of our prayers: in his Epistle to _Marcellinus_,
written in the days of _Constantine_ the great, he saith that the words of
the _Psalms_ are not to be transposed or any wise changed, but to be
recited and sung without any artifice, as they are written, _that the holy
men who delivered them, knowing them to be their own words, may pray with
us; or rather, that the Holy Ghost who spake in the holy men, seeing his
own words with which he inspired them, may join_ with them _in assisting
us_.

Whilst _Egypt_ abounded with Monks above any other country, the veneration
of the Saints began sooner, and spred faster there than in other places.
_Palladius_ going into _Egypt_ in the year 388 to visit the Monasteries,
and the sepulchres of _Apollonius_ and other Martyrs of _Thebais_ who had
suffered under _Maximinus_, saith of them: _Iis omnibus Christiani fecerunt
aedem unam, ubi nunc multae virtutes peraguntur. Tanta autem fuit viri
gratia, ut de iis quae esset precatus statim exaudiretur, eum sic honorante
servatore: quem etiam nos in martyrio precati vidimus, cum iis qui cum ipso
fuerunt martyrio affecti; & Deum adorantes, eorum corpora salutavimus._
_Eunapius_ also, a heathen, yet a competent witness of what was done in his
own times, relating how the soldiers delivered the temples of _Egypt_ into
the hands of the Monks, which was done in the year 389, rails thus in an
impious manner at the Martyrs, as succeeding in the room of the old Gods of
_Egypt_. _Illi ipsi, _milites_, Monachos Canobi quoque collocarunt, ut pro
Diis qui animo cernuntur, servos & quidem flagitiosos divinis honoribus
percolerent, hominum mentibus ad cultum ceremoniasque obligatis. Ii namque
condita & salita eorum capita, qui ob scelerum multitudinem a judicibus
extremo judicio fuerant affecti, pro Divis ostentabant; iis genua
submittebant, eos in Deorum numerum receptabant, ad illorum sepulchra
pulvere sord