Theodoret of Cyr, The Cure of Pagan Maladies 8 (ante 449 AD)
“The noble souls of the triumphant are sauntering around heaven, dancing
in the choruses of the bodiless; and not one tomb for each conceals their
bodies, but cities and villages divide them up and call them healers and
preservers of souls and bodies, and venerate them as guardians and
protectors of cities; and when they intervene as ambassadors before the
Master of the universe the divine gifts are obtained through them; and
though the body has been divided, its grace has continued undivided. And
that little particle and smallest relic has the same power as the absolutely
and utterly undivided martyr.”
St. Pope Gregory the Great, Letter to the Empress Constantia
Augusta 4, 30 (594 AD)
“Let my Most Tranquil Lady know that it is not the custom of the Romans,
when they give relics of the saints, to presume to touch any part of the
body. But only a cloth is put into a box and placed near the most sacred
bodies of the saints. When it is taken up again it is deposited with due
reverence in the Church that is to be dedicated, and effects so powerful are
thereby produced, that it is as if their bodies had actually been taken there.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. III, Ch. II: But who would not be convinced of the honor due to the
Saints and of the help they give us by the wonders wrought at their tombs?
Diseased eyes, hands, and other members are restored to health; the dead
are raised to life, and demons are expelled from the bodies of men! These
are facts which St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, most unexceptionable
witnesses, declare in their writings, not that they heard, as many did, nor
that they read, as did many very reliable men, but that they saw.
But why multiply proofs? If the clothes, the handkerchiefs, and even the
very shadows of the Saints, while yet on earth, banished disease and
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