Veneration of Relics

Against Vigilantius. ———————————— Introduction. Full details respecting Vigilantius, against whom this treatise, the result of a single night’s labour, is directed, may be found in a work on “Vigil

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7. As to the question of tapers, however, we do not, as you in vain misrepresent us, light them in the daytime, but by their solace we would cheer the darkness of the night, and watch for the dawn, le

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There is a country-seat called Victoriana, less than thirty miles from Hippo-regius. At it there is a monument to the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither a young man was carried, who, w

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Chapter XVII.—The Emperor’s Mother Helena having come to Jerusalem, searches for and finds the Cross of Christ, and builds a Church. Helena, the emperor’s mother (from whose name having made Drepanum

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Letter CIX. To Riparius. Riparius, a presbyter of Aquitaine had written to inform Jerome that Vigilantius (for whom see Letter LXI.) was preaching in southern Gaul against the worship of relics and t

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Letter CXCVII. Placed in 375. To Ambrose, bishop of Milan. Ambrose was placed in the archiepiscopate of Milan in 374. The letter of Basil is in reply to a request for the restoration to his native

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Canon VII. That to churches consecrated without any deposit of the reliques of the Saints, the defect should be made good. Paul the divine Apostle says: “The sins of some are open beforehand, and so

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On the contrary, It is written (De Eccles. Dogm. xl): "We believe that the bodies of the saints, above all the relics of the blessed martyrs, as being the members of Christ, should be worshiped in all

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13. Let these triumphant victims be brought to the place where Christ is the victim. But He upon the altar, Who suffered for all; they beneath the altar, who were redeemed by His Passion. I had destin

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Further, as to Paul the cleric, who is said to have been often detected in malpractices, and who had fled into Africa, having returned to a lay state of life in despite of his cloth, if it is so, we h

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Chapter 27.—Concerning the Nature of the Honor Which the Christians Pay to Their Martyrs. But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain priests, rites, and sacrifices for these same martyrs;

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What then was the return for this worship? The overturning of cities, the bitterest famine of all famines. For ye know doubtless, and remember, how empty indeed the market place was of wares, and the

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XXX. Do not therefore keep any such observances about legal and natural purgations, as thinking you are defiled by them. Neither do you seek after Jewish separations, or perpetual washings, or purific

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Likewise Eleusinus, a man of tribunitian rank among us, laid his infant son, who had died, on the shrine of the martyr, which is in the suburb where he lived, and, after prayer, which he poured out th

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One miracle was wrought among ourselves, which, though no greater than those I have mentioned, was yet so signal and conspicuous, that I suppose there is no inhabitant of Hippo who did not either see

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5. In order then that all who dwell in Rome might learn that these things are a reality, God allowed that there the saint should be perfected, Sc., suffer a martyr’s death. Quoted from Epistle of Ig

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But what shall I say of the bodies of the blessed apostles, when it is well known that, at the time when they suffered, believers came from the East to recover their bodies as being those of their own

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This shows that the martyrs were highly venerated even at this early date, as was indeed most natural, and as is acknowledged by the writers themselves just below. But it does not show that the Christ

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Chapter II.—She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of the Martyrs. 2. When, therefore, my mother had at one time—as was her custom in Africa—brought to the oratories b

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Chapter XLV.—The Body of John Chrysostom transferred to Constantinople, and placed in the Church of the Apostles by the Emperor at the Instigation of Proclus. Not long after this, Proclus the bishop

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