Whilst Egypt abounded with Monks above any other country, the veneration of the Saints began sooner, and spread 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 practiced there by the common people.
Thus Basil a Monk, who was made Bishop of Caesarea in the year 369, and died in the year 378, in his Oration on the Martyr Mamas, saith: Be ye mindful of the Martyr; as many of you as have enjoyed him in your dreams, as many as in this place have been assisted by him in prayer, as many of you as upon invoking him by name have had him present in your works, as many as he has reduced into the way from wandering, as many as he has restored to health, as many as have had their dead children restored by him to life, as many as have had their lives prolonged by him: and a little after, he thus expresses the universality of this superstition in the regions of Cappadocia and Bithynia: At the memory of the Martyr, saith he, the whole region is moved; at his festival the whole city is transported with joy. Nor do the kindred of the rich turn aside to the sepulchres of their ancestors, but all go to the place of devotion. Again, in the end of the Homily he prays, that God would preserve the Church, thus fortified with the great towers of the Martyrs: and in his Oration on the forty Martyrs; These are they, saith he, who obtaining our country, like certain towers afford us safety against our enemies. Neither are they shut up in one place only, but being distributed are sent into many regions, and adorn many countries. — You have often endeavored, you have often labored to find one who might pray for you: here are forty, emitting one voice of prayer. — He that is in affliction flies to these, he that rejoices has recourse to these: the first, that he may be freed from evil, the last that he may continue in happiness.
