constitution of nascent Christianity, we have to deal with, and
carefully to distinguish, two entirely different orders in its
accepted hierarchy:--one, scarcely founded at all on personal
characters or acts, but mythic or symbolic; often merely the revival,
the baptized resuscitation of a Pagan deity, or the personified
omnipresence of a Christian virtue;--the other, a senate of Patres
Conscripti of real persons, great in genius, and perfect, humanly
speaking, in holiness; who by their personal force and inspired
wisdom, wrought the plastic body of the Church into such noble form
as in each of their epochs it was able to receive; and on the right
understanding of whose lives, nor less of the affectionate traditions
which magnified and illumined their memories, must absolutely depend
the value of every estimate we form, whether of the nature of the
Christian Church herself, or of the directness of spiritual agency by
which she was guided.[24]

[Footnote 24: If the reader believes in no spiritual agency, still his
understanding of the first letters in the Alphabet of History depends
on his comprehending rightly the tempers of the people who _did_.]

An important distinction, therefore, is to be noted at the outset,
in the objects of this Apotheosis, according as they are, or are not,
real persons.

Of these two great orders of Saints, the first; or mythic,
belongs--speaking broadly--to the southern or Greek Church alone.

The Gothic Christians, once detached from the worship of Odin and
Thor, abjure from their hearts all trust in the elements, and all
worship of ideas. They will have their Saints in flesh and blood,