. Before being exorcised, however, the demons, who were
supposed to have supernatural and indubitable knowledge, declared that
the relics were genuine; that St. Ambrose was the deadly enemy of
hell; that the doctrine of the Trinity was true; and that those who
rejected it would certainly be damned. To be sure that the testimony
of the demons should have its proper weight in the controversy, on the
following day St. Ambrose delivered an invective against all who
questioned the miracle.[25]

Late researches concerning the Catacombs of Rome have thrown much
light upon the early use of relics. The former opinion of the
Catacombs was that they were used for secret worship by the persecuted
Christians, but now we know that they were burial-places under the
protection of Roman law, with entrances opening on the public roads.
Their chapels and altars were for memorial and communion services.
Great reverence was felt for the bodies of all Christians, so that for
the first seven centuries the bodies were not disturbed, and relics,
in the modern sense of the word, were unknown. People prayed at the
tombs, or if they wished to take something away, they touched the tomb
with a handkerchief, or else they took some oil from the lamps which
marked the tombs. These mementos were regarded as true relics, so that
when the Lombard Queen, Theodelinda, sent the abbot John for relics to
put in her cathedral at Monza, he came back with over seventy little
vials of oil, each with the name of the saint from whose tomb the oil
was procured, and many of them are still preserved.

The oil from altar lamps was of therapeutic value, as St. Chrysostom
tells us in speaking of the superiority of the church over ordinary
houses. "For what is here," he asks, "that is not great and awful?
Thus both this Table [the altar] is far more precious and delightful
than that [any table at home], and this lamp than that; and this they
know, as many as have put away diseases by anointing themselves with
oil in faith and due season." If the body of a saint lay beneath the
altar, the oil was then known as the "Oil of the Saints," and was even
more efficacious for healing. Notice the following quotations on the
subject taken from Dearmer's work.

"Far more common are stories of healing by oil from a
lamp burnt in honor of Christ or the saints. The
following examples are from the East. The wounded hand
of a Saracen was healed by oil from a lamp before the