Nor do the kindred of the rich turn aside to the
sepulchres of their ancestors, but all go to the place of devotion._ Again,
in the end of the Homily he prays, that _God would preserve the Church,
thus fortified with the great towers of the Martyrs_: and in his Oration on
the forty Martyrs; _These are they_, saith he, _who obtaining our country,
like certain towers afford us safety against our enemies. Neither are they
shut up in one place only, but being distributed are sent into many
regions, and adorn many countries.--You have often endeavoured, you have
often laboured to find one who might pray for you: here are forty, emitting
one voice of prayer.--He that is in affliction flies to these, he that
rejoices has recourse to these: the first, that he may be freed from evil,
the last that he may continue in happiness. Here a woman praying for her
children is heard; she obtains a safe return for her husband from abroad,
and health for him in his sickness.--O ye common keepers of mankind, the
best companions of our cares, suffragans and coadjutors of our prayers,
most powerful embassadors to God_, &c. By all which it is manifest, that
before the year 378, the Orations and Sermons upon the Saints went much
beyond the bounds of mere oratorical flourishes, and that the common people
in the _East_ were already generally corrupted by the Monks with
Saint-worship.
_Gregory Nazianzen_ a Monk, in his sixth Oration written A.
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