ble (spiritual, certainly, not corporal) pleasure he was
filled with at their sight? a real spiritual {556} benefit, and that
which is sought by true pilgrims. Does he not relate and approve the
pilgrimages of his friend, the monk Olympius? Nor could he be ignorant
of the doctrice and practice of the church. He must know in the third
century that his countryman Alexander, a bishop in Cappadocia,
admonished by divine oracle, went to Jerusalem to pray, and to visit the
holy places, &c., as Eusebius relates; (Hist. lib. 6, cap. 11, p. 212,)
and that this had been always the tradition and practice; "Longum est
nuns ab ascensu Domini usque ad praesentem diem per singulas aetates
currere, qui episcoporum, qui martyrum, qui eloquentium in doctrine
ecclesiastica, virorum venerint Hierosolymam, putantes se minus
religionis, minus habere scientiae, nec summam ut dicitur manum accepisse
virtutum, nisi in illis Christum adorassent locis de quibus primum
Evangelium de patibulo coruscaverat." St. Jerom, in ep. Paulae et
Eustochii ad Marcellam, (T. 4, p. 550, ed. Ben) As for the abuses which
St. Gregory censures, they are condemned in the canon law, by all
divines and men of sound judgment. If with Benedict XIV. we grant this
father reprehended the abuses of pilgrimages, so as to think the
devotion itself not much to be recommended, this can only regard the
circumstances of many who abuse them, which all condemn. He could not
oppose the torrent of other fathers, and the practice of the whole
church. And his devotion to holy places, relics, &c. is evident in his
writings, and in the practice of St. Macrina and his whole family.

His discourse On the Resurrection is the dialogue he had with his sister
St. Macrina the day before her death. His treatise On the Name and
Profession of a Christian, was written to show no one ought to bear that
name, who does not practise the rules of this profession, and who has
not its spirit, without which, a man may perform exterior duties, but
will upon occasions betray himself, and forget his obligation. When a
mountebank at Alexandria had taught an ape dressed in woman's clothes to
dance most ingeniously, the people took it for a woman, till one threw
some almonds on the stage; for then the beast could no longer contain,
but tearing off its clothes, went about the stage picking up its dainty
fruit, and showed itself to be an ape. Occasions of vain-glory,
ambition, pleasure, &c., are the devil's baits an