In propagating these superstitions, the ring-leaders were the Monks, and _Antony_ was at the head of them: for in the end of the life of _Antony_, _Athanasius_ relates that these were his dying words to his disciples who then attended him. _Do you take care_, said _Antony_, _to adhere to _Christ_ in the first place, and then to the Saints, that after death they may receive you as friends and acquaintance into the everlasting tabernacles, Think upon these things, perceive these things; and if you have any regard to me, remember me as a father_. This being delivered in charge to the Monks by _Antony_ at his death, A.C. 356, could not but inflame their whole body with devotion towards the Saints, as the ready way to be received, by them into the eternal Tabernacles after death. Hence came that noise about the miracles, done by the reliques of the Saints in the time of _Constantius_: hence came the dispersion of the miracle-working reliques into all the Empire; _Alexandria_ setting the example, and being renowned, for it above all other cities. Hence it came to pass in the days of _Julian_, A.C. 362, that _Athanasius_ by a prophetic spirit, as _Ruffinus_ tells us, hid the bones of _John_ the Baptist from the Heathens, not in the ground to be forgotten, but in the hollow wall of a Church before proper witnesses, that they might _be profitable to future generations_. Hence also came the invocation of the Saints for doing such miracles, and for assisting men in their devotions, and mediating with God. For _Athanasius_, even from his youth, looked upon the dead Saints and Martyrs as mediators of our prayers: in his Epistle to _Marcellinus_, written in the days of _Constantine_ the great, he saith that the words of the _Psalms_ are not to be transposed or any wise changed, but to be recited and sung without any artifice, as they are written, _that the holy men who delivered them, knowing them to be their own words, may pray with us; or rather, that the Holy Ghost who spake in the holy men, seeing his own words with which he inspired them, may join_ with them _in assisting us_.