permitted that at the memories of the holy Martyrs they might make merry and delight themselves, and be dissolved into joy.  The heathens were delighted with the festivals of their Gods, and unwilling to part with those delights; and therefore Gregory, to facilitate their conversion, instituted annual festivals to the Saints and Martyrs.  Hence it came to pass, that for exploding the festivals of the heathens, the principal festivals of the Christians succeeded in their room:  as the keeping of Christmas with ivy and feasting, and playing and sports, in the room of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia; the celebrating of May-day with flowers, in the room of the Floralia; and the keeping of festivals to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room of the solemnities at the entrance of the Sun into the signs of the Zodiac in the old Julian Calendar.  In the same persecution of Decius, Cyprian ordered the passions of the Martyrs in Africa to be registred, in order to celebrate their memories annually with oblations and sacrifices:  and Felix Bishop of Rome, a little after, as Platina relates, Martyrum gloria consulens, constituit at quotannis sacrificia eorum nomine celebrarentur; “consulting the glory of the Martyrs, ordained that sacrifices should be celebrated annually in their name.”  By the pleasures of these festivals the Christians increased much in number, and decreased as much in virtue, until they were purged and made white by the persecution of Dioclesian.  This was the first step made in the Christian religion towards the veneration of the Martyrs:  and tho it did not yet amount to an unlawful worship; yet it disposed the Christians towards such a further veneration of the dead, as in a short time ended in the invocation of Saints.

The next step was the affecting to pray at the sepulchres of the Martyrs:  which practice began in Dioclesian’s persecution.  The Council of Eliberis in Spain, celebrated in the third or fourth year of Dioclesian’s persecution, A.C. 305, hath these Canons.  Can. 34. Cereos per diem placuit in Coemeterio non incendi:  inquietandi enim spiritus sanctorum non sunt.  Qui haec non observarint, arceantur ab Ecclesiae communione. Can. 35. Placuit prohiberi ne faeminae in Coemeterio pervigilent, eo quod saepe sub obtentu orationis latenter scelera committant. Presently after that persecution, suppose about the year 314, the Council of Laodicea in Phrygia, which then met for restoring the lapsed discipline of the Church, has the following Canons.  Can. 9. Those of the Church are not allowed to go into the Coemeteries_ or Martyries, as they are called, of hereticks, for the sake of prayer or recovery of health:  but such as go, if they be of the faithful, shall be excommunicated for a