_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_. After the sepulchres of Saints and Martyrs were thus converted into places of worship like the heathen temples, and the Churches into sepulchres, and a certain sort of sanctity attributed to the dead bodies of the Saints and Martyrs buried in them, and annual festivals were kept to them, with sacrifices offered to God in their name; the next step towards the invocation of Saints, was the attributing to their dead bodies, bones and other reliques, a power of working miracles, by means of the separate souls, who were supposed to know what we do or say, and to be able to do us good or hurt, and to work those miracles. This was the very notion the heathens had of the separate souls of their antient Kings and Heroes, whom they worshiped under the names of _Saturn_, _Rhea_, _Jupiter_, _Juno_, _Mars_, _Venus_, _Bacchus_, _Ceres_, _Osiris_, _Isis_, _Apollo_, _Diana_, and the rest of their Gods. For these Gods being male and female, husband and wife, son and daughter, brother and sister, are thereby discovered to be antient men and women. Now as the first step towards the invocation of Saints was set on foot by the persecution of _Decius_, and the second by the persecution of _Dioclesian_; so this third seems to have been owing to the proceedings of _Constantius_ and _Julian_ the Apostate. When _Julian_ began to restore the worship of the heathen Gods, and to vilify the Saints and Martyrs; the _Christians_ of _Syria_ and _Egypt_ seem to have made a great noise about the miracles done by the reliques of the _Christian_ Saints and Martyrs, in opposition to the powers attributed by _Julian_ and the heathens to their Idols. For _Sozomen_ and _Ruffinus_ tell us, that when he opened the heathen Temples, and consulted the Oracle of _Apollo