Whilst _Egypt_ abounded with Monks above any other country, the veneration of the Saints began sooner, and spred faster there than in other places. _Palladius_ going into _Egypt_ in the year 388 to visit the Monasteries, and the sepulchres of _Apollonius_ and other Martyrs of _Thebais_ who had suffered under _Maximinus_, saith of them: _Iis omnibus Christiani fecerunt aedem unam, ubi nunc multae virtutes peraguntur. Tanta autem fuit viri gratia, ut de iis quae esset precatus statim exaudiretur, eum sic honorante servatore: quem etiam nos in martyrio precati vidimus, cum iis qui cum ipso fuerunt martyrio affecti; & Deum adorantes, eorum corpora salutavimus._ _Eunapius_ also, a heathen, yet a competent witness of what was done in his own times, relating how the soldiers delivered the temples of _Egypt_ into the hands of the Monks, which was done in the year 389, rails thus in an impious manner at the Martyrs, as succeeding in the room of the old Gods of _Egypt_. _Illi ipsi, _milites_, Monachos Canobi quoque collocarunt, ut pro Diis qui animo cernuntur, servos & quidem flagitiosos divinis honoribus percolerent, hominum mentibus ad cultum ceremoniasque obligatis. Ii namque condita & salita eorum capita, qui ob scelerum multitudinem a judicibus extremo judicio fuerant affecti, pro Divis ostentabant; iis genua submittebant, eos in Deorum numerum receptabant, ad illorum sepulchra pulvere sordibusque conspurcati. Martyres igitur vocabantur, & ministri quidem & legati arbitrique precum apud Deos; cum fuerint servilia infida & flagris pessime subacta, quae cicatrices scelerum ac nequitiae vestigia corporibus circumferunt; ejusmodi tamen Deos fert tellus_. By these instances we may understand the invocation of Saints was now of some standing in _Egypt_, and that it was already generally received and practised there by the common people.