_Constantinople_ was free from these superstitions till _Gregory Nazianzen_ came thither A.D. 379; but in a few years it was also inflamed with it. _Ruffinus_ [7] tells us, that when the Emperor _Theodosius_ was setting out against the tyrant _Eugenius_, which was in the year 394, he went about with the Priests and people to all the places of prayer; lay prostrate in haircloth before the shrines of the Martyrs and Apostles, and pray'd for assistance by the intercession of the Saints. _Sozomen_ [8] adds, that when the Emperor was marched seven miles from _Constantinople_ against _Eugenius_, he went into a Church which he had built to _John_ the Baptist, _and invoked the Baptist for his assistance. Chrysostom_ [9] says: _He that is clothed in purple, approaches to embrace these sepulchres; and laying aside his dignity, stands supplicating the Saints to intercede for him with God: and he who goes crowned with a diadem, offers his prayers to the tent-maker and the fisher-man as his Protestors._ And in [10] another place: _The cities run together to the sepulchres of the Martyrs, and the people are inflamed with the love of them_. This practice of sending reliques from place to place for working miracles, and thereby inflaming the devotion of the nations towards the dead Saints and their reliques, and setting up the religion of invoking their souls, lasted only till the middle of the reign of the Emperor _Theodosius_ the great; for he then prohibited it by the following Edict. _Humatum corpus, nemo ad alterum locum transferat; nemo Martyrem distrahat, nemo mercetur: Habeant vero in potestate, si quolibet in loco sanctorum est aliquis conditus, pro ejus veneratione, quod _Martyrium_ vocandum sit, addant quod voluerint fabricarum. Dat. _iv._ Kal. Mart. Constantinopoli, Honorio nob. puero & Euodio Coss._ A.C. 386. After this they filled the fields and high-ways with altars erected to Martyrs, which they pretended to discover by dreams and revelations: and this occasioned the making the fourteenth Canon of the fifth Council of _Carthage_, A.C. 398. _Item placuit, ut altaria, quae passim per agros aut vias, tanquam memoriae Martyrum constituuntur, in quibus nullum corpus aut reliquiae Martyrum conditae probantur, ab Episcopis, qui illis locis praesunt, si fieri potest, evertantur. Si autem hoc propter tumultus populares non sinitur, plebes tamen admoneantur, ne illa loca frequentent, ut qui recte sapiunt, nulla ibi superstitione devincti teneantur. Et omnino nulla memoria Martyrum probabiliter acceptetur, nisi aut ibi corpus aut aliquae certae reliquiae sint, aut ubi origo alicujus habitationis, vel possessionis, vel passionis fidelissima origine traditur. Nam quae per somnia, & per inanes quasi revelationes quorumlibet hominum ubique constituuntur altaria, omnimode reprobentur._ These altars were for invoking the Saints or Martyrs buried or pretended to be buried under them. First they filled the Churches in all