Jo. Damas. Paris, 1712. vol. ii. p. 857.] {310}

The following are among the expressions in which the preacher, in the
passage under consideration, addresses the Virgin's tomb: "Thou, O Tomb,
of holy things most holy (for I will address thee as a living being),
where is the much desired and much beloved body of the mother of God?"
[Vol. ii. p. 875.] The answer of the tomb begins thus, "Why seek ye her
in a tomb, who has been taken up on high to the heavenly tabernacles?"
In reply to this, the preacher first deliberating with his hearers what
answer he should make, thus addresses the tomb: "Thy grace indeed is
never-failing and eternal," &c. [P. 881.] By the maintainers of the
invocation of saints, many a passage far less unequivocal and less
cogent than this has been adduced to show, that saints and martyrs were
invoked by primitive worshippers.

We find John Damascenus thus introducing the passage of Euthymius, "Ye
see, beloved fathers and brethren, what answer the all-glorious tomb
makes to us; and that these things are so, in the EUTHYMIAC HISTORY, the
third book and fortieth chapter, is thus written word for word." [P.
877.]

Lambecius maintains, that the history here quoted by John Damascenus was
not an ecclesiastical history, written by Euthymius, who died in A.D.
472, but a biographical history concerning Euthymius himself, written by
an ecclesiastic, whom he supposes to be Cyril, the monk, who died in
A.D. 531. This opinion of Lambecius is combated by Cotelerius; the
discussion only adding to the denseness of the cloud which involves the
whole tradition. But whether the work quoted had Euthymius for its
author or its subject, the work itself is lost; and an epitome only of
such a work has come down to {311} our time. In that abridgment the