time_. Can. 34. A Christian_ must not leave
the Martyrs of Christ, and go to false Martyrs_,
that is, to the Martyrs of the hereticks; for these
are alien from God: and therefore let those be
anathema who go to them. Can. 51. The birth-days
of the Martyrs shall not be celebrated in Lent_,
but their commemoration shall be made on the Sabbath-days
and Lords days_. The Council of Paphlagonia,
celebrated in the year 324, made this Canon:
If any man being arrogant, abominates the congregations
of the Martyrs, or the Liturgies performed therein,
or the memories of the Martyrs, let him be anathema.
By all which it is manifest that the Christians
in the time of Dioclesian’s persecution
used to pray in the Coemeteries or burying-places
of the dead; for avoiding the danger of the persecution,
and for want of Churches, which were all thrown down:
and after the persecution was over, continued that
practice in honour of the Martyrs, till new Churches
could be built: and by use affected it as advantageous
to devotion, and for recovering the health of those
that were sick. It also appears that in these
burying-places they commemorated the Martyrs yearly
upon days dedicated to them, and accounted all these
practices pious and religious, and anathematized those
men as arrogant who opposed them, or prayed in the
Martyries of the hereticks. They also
lighted torches to the Martyrs in the day-time, as
the heathens did to their Gods; which custom, before
the end of the fourth century, prevailed much in the
West. They sprinkled the worshipers of
the Martyrs with holy-water, as the heathens did the
worshipers of their Gods; and went in pilgrimage to
see Jerusalem and other holy places, as if those
places conferred sanctity on the visiters. From
the custom of praying in the Coemeteries and
Martyries, came the custom of translating the
bodies of the Saints and Martyrs into such Churches
as were new built: the Emperor Constantius
began this practice about the year 359, causing the
bodies of Andrew the Apostle, Luke and
Timothy, to be translated into a new Church
at Constantinople: and before this act
of Constantius, the Egyptians kept the
bodies of their Martyrs and Saints unburied upon beds
in their private houses, and told stories of their
souls appearing after death and ascending up to heaven,
as Athanasius relates in the life of Antony.
All which gave occasion to the Emperor Julian,
as Cyril relates, to accuse the Christians
in this manner: Your adding to that antient
dead man, Jesus, many new dead men, who can sufficiently
abominate? You have filled all places with sepulchres
and monuments, altho you are no where bidden to prostrate
yourselves to sepulchres, and to respect them officiously.
And a little after: Since Jesus_ said that
sepulchres are full of filthiness, how do you invoke
God upon them_? and in another place he saith, that
if Christians had adhered to the precepts of
the Hebrews, they would have worshiped one
God instead of many, and not a man, or rather not
many unhappy men: And that they adored
the wood of the cross, making its images on their
foreheads, and before their houses.


