Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/230

 210 THE DECLINE AND FALL General re- flectloni L Fabnloos martynand reUci reason,^^ were universally established ; and in the age of Am- brose and Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the de- votion of the faithful. In the long period of twelve hundred years which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model ; and some symptoms of de- generacy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation. I. The satisfactory experience that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones^' stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skele- tons and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and primi- tive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who had never existed except in the fancy of crafty or credulous legend- aries ; and there is reason to suspect that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint.^^ A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world. II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian,^ a presbyter of 81 The presbyter Vigilantius, the protestant of his age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only as the organ of the daemon (torn. ii. p. 120-126). Whoever will penise the con- troversy of St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St. Augtistin's account of the miracles of St. Stephen, may speedily gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers. [Cp. App. 12.] 82 M. de Beausobre (Hist, du Manich^isme, torn. ii. p. 648) has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of the clergy of Smyrna who carefully preserved the relics of St. Polycarp the martyr. 83 Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius Severus) extorted this con- fession from the mouth of the dead man. The error is allowed to be natural ; the discovery is supposed to be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen most frequently ? 84 Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative, which has been translated i)y Avitus, and published by Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 415, No. 7-16). The