3.]

[Footnote 72: Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these
translations, which are neglected by the ecclesiastical historians.
The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae is described in an epistle from the
clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 60, No. 34) wishes
to believe, and Tillemont is forced to reject. St. Andrew was adopted
as the spiritual founder of Constantinople, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p.
317-323, 588-594.)]

[Footnote 73: Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) pompously describes the
translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of the
times.]

[Footnote 74: The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his age,
firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of monks,
relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him to the Hydra,
Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only as the organ of the
Daemon, (tom. ii. p. 120-126.) Whoever will peruse the controversy of
St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St. Augustin's account of the miracles of
St. Stephen, may speedily gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.]

In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the
reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of
saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the
Christian model: and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even
in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious
innovation.

I. The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were more
valuable than gold or precious stones, [75] stimulated the clergy to
multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or
probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names.
The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their
virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of
genuine and primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes,
who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous
legendaries; and there is reason to suspect, that Tours might not be the
only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored, instead
of those of a saint. [76] A superstitious practice, which tended
to increase the temptations of fraud, and credulity, insensibly
extinguished the light of history, and of reason, in the Christian
world.

[Footnote 75: M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 648)
has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of