ver made of the intercession of the saints;
that there is no allusion to prayer to them; that there is no admission
even of any benefit derived from them at all. This quotation Bellarmin
makes from the Latin version, published in Paris in 1581, or from some
common source: it is word for word the same. We must either allow him to
be ignorant of the truth, or to have designedly preferred error. {174}
The copy which I have before me of the "Evangelica Praeparatio," in Greek
and Latin, was printed in 1628, and dedicated by Viger Franciscus, a
priest of the order of Jesuits, to the Archbishop of Paris.

Eusebius, marking the resemblance in many points between Plato's
doctrine and the tenets of Christianity, on the reverence which,
according to Plato, ought to be paid to the good departed, makes this
observation: "And this corresponds with what takes place on the death of
those lovers of God, whom you would not be wrong in calling the soldiers
of the true religion. Whence also it is our custom to proceed to their
tombs, and AT THEM [the tombs] to make our prayers, and to honour their
blessed souls, inasmuch as these things are with reason done by us."
[Greek: kai tauta de armozei epi tae ton theophilon teleutae ous
stratiotas taes alaethous eusebeius ouk an hamartois eipon
paralambanesthai othen kai epi tas thaekas auton ethos haemin parienai
kai tas euchas para tautais poieisthai, timan te tas makarias auton
psychas, os eulogos kai touton uph haemon giguomenon.] This translation
agrees to a certain extent with the Latin of Viger's edition ("Quae
quidem in hominum Deo carissimorum obitus egregie conveniunt, quos verae
pietatis milites jure appellaris. Nam et eorum sepulchra celebrare et
preces ibi votaque nuncupare et beatas illorum animas venerari
consuevimus, idque a nobis merito fieri statuimus"); though the
translator there has employed words more favourable to the doctrine of
the saints' adoration, than he could in strictness justify.

The celebrated letter from the Church of Smyrna (Euseb. Cantab. 1720.
vol. i. p. 163), relating the martyrdom of Polycarp, one of the most
precious relics of Christian antiquity, has already been examined by us,
when we were inquiring into the recorded {175} sentiments of Polycarp;
and to our reflections in that place we have little to add. The
interpolations to which we have now referred, are intended to take off
the edge of the evidence borne by this passage of Eusebius against the
invo