A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

435even the leaders of society have vied with one another in theirphilanthropy and magnanimity toward them.§ 76. Popular Piety and the Reception of Heathenism in theChurchWhen vast numbers poured into the Church in the fourth centuryand the profession of Christianity no longer involved danger,morals became less austere, and the type of piety became adaptedto the religious condition of those with whom the Church hadnow to deal. This is shown in the new place that the intercessionof saints and the veneration of their relics take in the religiouslife of the times. Yet these and similar forms of devotion inpopular piety were not new and cannot be attributed in principleto any wholesale importation of heathenism into the Church, aswas charged at the time and often since. In principle, and to someextent in practice, they can be traced to times of persecutionand danger. But, on the other hand, no little heathenism wasbrought into the Church by those who came into it without anyadequate preparation or real change of religious feeling. Withthis heathenism the Church had to struggle, either casting it out [397]in whole or in part, or rendering it as innocuous as possible. Inspite of all, many heathen superstitions remained everywhere inChristendom, though playing for the most part such an inferiorrôle as to be negligible in the total effect.Additional source material: Eusebius, Vita Constantini (PNF),III, 21, 28; IV, 38, 39, 54.(a) Ambrose, De Viduis, ch. 9. (MSL, 16:264.)The importance and value of calling upon the saints for theirintercessions.