s of the royal city continually offered the unbloody
sacrifice. [71] The new capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce
any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of
dependent provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St.
Timothy, had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves,
from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of the
apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks
of the Thracian Bosphorus. [72] About fifty years afterwards, the same
banks were honored by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of
the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered
with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's
hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same
joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet;
the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled
with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius himself,
at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate,
advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved and
claimed the homage of kings. [73] The example of Rome and Constantinople
confirmed the faith and discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of
the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane
reason, [74] were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and
Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian
church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics,
which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful.

[Footnote 68: See Eunapius, in the Life of the sophist Aedesius; in that
of Eustathius he foretells the ruin of Paganism.]

[Footnote 69: Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 25,) a Roman
presbyter, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, (A.D. 202-219,) is an
early witness of this superstitious practice.]

[Footnote 70: Chrysostom. Quod Christus sit Deus. Tom. i. nov. edit.
No. 9. I am indebted for this quotation to Benedict the XIVth's pastoral
letter on the Jubilee of the year 1759. See the curious and entertaining
letters of M. Chais, tom. iii.]

[Footnote 71: Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus? qui, super mortuorum
hominum, Petri & Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda ... offeri Domino
sacrificia, et tumulos eorum, Christi arbitratur altaria. Jerom. tom.
ii. advers. Vigilant. p. 18