By all which it is manifest, that before the year 378, the Orations and Sermons upon the Saints went much beyond the bounds of mere oratorical flourishes, and that the common people in the East were already generally corrupted by the Monks with Saint-worship.
Gregory Nazianzen a Monk, in his sixth Oration written A.C. 373, when he was newly made Bishop of Sasima, saith: Let us purify ourselves to the Martyrs, or rather to the God of the Martyrs: and a little after he calls the Martyrs mediators of obtaining an ascension or divinity. The same year, in the end of his Oration upon Athanasius then newly dead, he thus invokes him: Do thou look down upon us propitiously, and govern this people, as perfect adorers of the perfect Trinity, which in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is contemplated and worshiped: if there shall be peace, preserve me, and feed my flock with me; but if war, bring me home, place me by thyself, and by those that are like thee; however great my request. And in the end of the funeral Oration upon Basil, written A.C. 378, he thus addresses him: But thou, O divine and sacred Head, look down upon us from heaven; and by thy prayers either take away the thorn of the flesh which is given us by God for exercise, or obtain that we may bear it with courage, and direct all our life to that which is most fitting for us. When we depart this life, receive us there in your Tabernacles, that living together and beholding the holy and blessed Trinity more purely and perfectly, whereof we have now but an imperfect view, we may there come to the end of our desires, and receive this reward of the wars which we have waged and suffered: and in his Oration upon Cyprian, not the Bishop of Carthage, but a Greek, he invokes him after the same manner; and tells us also how a pious Virgin named Justina, was protected by invoking the Virgin Mary, and how miracles were done by the ashes of Cyprian.
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