Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
§ 57. Worship of Saints, Relics and Images.171
Though with the times of persecution martyrdom had ceased, asceticism where it was preached with unusual severity gave a claim to canonisation which was still bestowed by the people’s voice regarded as the voice of God. Forgotten saints were discovered by visions, and legend insensibly eked out the poverty of historical reminiscences with names and facts. The veneration of martyrs rose all the higher the more pitiable the present generation showed in its lukewarmness and worldliness over against the world-conquering faith of that great cloud of witnesses. The worship of Mary, which came in as a result of the Nestorian controversy, was later of being introduced than that of the martyrs, but it almost immediately shot far ahead and ranked above the adoration of all the other saints. The adoration of Angels, of which we find the beginnings even in Justin and Origen, remained far behind the worship of the saints. Pilgrimages were zealously undertaken, from the time when the emperor’s mother Helena, in A.D. 326, went as a pilgrim to holy places in Palestine and afterwards marked these out by building on them beautiful churches. The worship of images was introduced first in the age of Cyril of Alexandria and was carried out with peculiar eagerness in the art-loving East. The Western teachers, however, and even Gregory the Great himself, only went the length of becoming decoration, using images to secure more impressiveness in teaching and greater liveliness in devotion. In the West, however, still more than in the East, veneration of relics came into vogue.
§ 57.1. The Worship of Martyrs and Saints (§ 39, 5).172—At a very early period churches were built upon the graves of Martyrs (Memoria, Confessio, μαρτύριον), or their bones were brought into churches previously built (Translationes). New edifices were dedicated in their names, those receiving baptism were named after them. The days of their death were observed as special holy seasons with vigil services, Agape and oblations at their graves. In glowing discourses the orators of the church, in melodious hymns the poets, sounded forth their praises. The bones of the martyrs were sought out with extraordinary zeal and were looked upon and venerated as supremely sacred. Each province, each city and each calling had its own patron saint (Patronus). Perhaps as early as the 3rd century several churches had their martyr calendars, i.e. lists of those who were to have the day of their death celebrated. In the 4th century this custom had become universal, and from the collection of the most celebrated calendars, with the addition of legendary stories of the lives and sufferings of martyrs or saints (Legendæ, so called because they were wont to be read at the memorial services of the individuals referred to), sprang up the Martyrologies and Legends of the Saints, among the Greeks called Menologies from μήν, a month. Most esteemed in the West was the martyrology of the Roman church, whose composition has been recently put down, equally with and upon the same grounds as that of the so called Liber Comitis, § 59, 3, to the time of Jerome as the chief representative of Western theological learning. This collection formed the basis of the numerous Latin martyrologies of the Middle Ages (§ 90, 9). A rich choice was afforded by these catalogues of saints to those wishing names to use at baptism or confirmation; the saint preferred became thereby the patron of him who took his name. The three great Cappadocians in the East and Ambrose in the West were the first to open the floodgates for the invocation of saints by their proclaiming that the glorified saints through communion with the Lord shared in His attribute of omniprescence and omniscience; while Augustine rather assigned to the angels the task of communicating the invocations of men to the saints. In the liturgies prayers for the saints were now displaced by invocations for their intercession. In this the people found a compensation for the loss of hero, genius and manes worship. The church teachers at least wished indeed to make a marked distinction between Adoratio and Invocatio, λατρεία and δουλεία, rendering the former to God only. A festival of All the Martyrs was celebrated in the East as early as the 4th century on the Pentecost octave (§ 56, 4). In the West, Pope Boniface IV., in A.D. 610, having received from the Emperor Phocas the Pantheon as a gift and having converted it into a church of the most Blessed Virgin and all the Martyrs, founded a Festum omnium Sanctorum, which was not, however, generally recognised before the 9th century (1st Nov.). Owing to the great number of saints one or more had to be assigned to each day in the calendar. The day fixed was usually that of the death of the saint. The only instance of the celebration of a birthday was the festival of John the Baptist (Natalis S. Joannis). The 24th June was fixed upon by calculating from Christmas (acc. to Luke i. 26), and its occurring in the other half of the year from that of Christ afforded a symbolical parallel to John iii. 30. As an appendage to this we meet even in the 5th century with the F. decollationis S. Joannis on 29th Aug. On the second day of the Christmas festival the Feast of the Proto-martyr Stephen was celebrated as the first fruits of the incarnation of God; on the third, the memory of the disciple who lay on the Master’s breast; on the fourth, the innocent children of Bethlehem (F. innocentium) as the flores or primitiæ martyrum. The festival of the Maccabees (πανήγυρις τῶν Μακκαβαίων) leads yet further back as the memorial of the heroic mother and her seven sons under Antiochus Epiphanes. It was observed as early as the 4th century and did not pass out of use till the 13th. Among the festivals of Apostles that of Peter and Paul (F. Apost. Petri et Pauli) on 29th June, as the solemnization of their common martyrdom at Rome, was universally observed. But Rome celebrated besides a double F. Cathedræ Petri, for the Cathedra Romana on 18th Jan., and for the Cathedra Antiochena on 22nd Feb. For a long time a symbolical arrangement of the calendar days prevailed; the patriarchs of the Old Testament were put in the time before Christmas, the later saints of the old dispensation in the Quadragesima, and the Apostles and Founders of the church after Pentecost, then the Martyrs, next the Confessors, and finally, the Virgins as prototype of the perfected church.
§ 57.2. The Worship of Mary and Anna.173—The εὐλογουμένη ἐν γυναιξί who herself full of the Holy Ghost had prophesied: ἰδοὺ γὰρ, ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μακαριοῦσι με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί, was regarded as the highest ideal of all virginity. All the reverence, which the church accorded to virginity, culminated therefore in her. Even Tertullian alongside of the Pauline contrasts Adam and Christ, placed this other, Eve and Mary. The perpetua virginitas b. Mariæ was an uncontested article of faith from the 4th century. Ambrose understood of her Ezek. xliv. 3, and affirmed that she was born utero clauso; Gregory the Great saw an analogy between this and the entering of the Risen One through closed doors (John xx. 19); and the second Trullan Council, in A.D. 692, confessed: ἀλόχευτον τὸν ἐκ τῆς παρθένου θεῖον τόκον εἶναι. Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, Basil, Chrysostom, had indeed still found something in her worthy of blame, but even Augustine refuses to admit that she should be reckoned among sinners: Unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratiæ collatum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum? Yet for a long time this veneration of Mary made little progress. This was caused partly by the absence of the glory of martyrdom, partly by its development in the church being forestalled and distorted by the heathenish and godless Mariolatry of the Collyridians, an Arabian female sect of the 4th century, which offered to the Holy Virgin, as in heathen times to Ceres, cakes of bread (κολλυρίδα). Epiphanius, who opposed them, taught: ἐν τιμῇ ἔστω Μαρία, ὁ δὲ Πατὴρ καὶ Υἱὸς καὶ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα προσκυνείσθω, τὴν δὲ Μαρίαν οὐδεὶς προσκυνείτω. On the Antidicomarianites, see § 62, 2. The victory of those who used the term θεοτόκος in the Nestorian controversy gave a great impulse to Mariolatry. Even in the 5th century, the festival of the Annunciation, F. annunciationis, incarnationis, ἑορτὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελισμοῦ, τοῦ ἀσπασμοῦ, was held on the 25th March. With this was also connected in the West the festival of the Purification of Mary, F. purificationis on 2nd Feb., according to Luke ii. 22. On account of the candles used in the service it was called the Candlemas of Mary, F. candelarum, luminum, Luke ii. 32. In consequence of an earthquake and pestilence in A.D. 542, Justinian founded the corresponding ἑορτὴ τῆς