The whole idea of saints is in itself interesting. Catholicism, in its early days, had to contend with a lot of competition. Most other religions also had more than one god. Some ancient religions had dozens of different gods, each with a specific purpose. Divine specialization, so to speak. The early Catholics were pragmatic, if nothing else, and either by accident or on purpose came up with the idea of replacing competing gods with Catholic saints. This made it easier to convert large numbers of people who were changing religion simply because their king switched (or was being forced to switch) without changing their prayer habits all that much. Thus someone who was accustommed to asking Mars, the God of War, for success in battle, could easily switch to Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of soldiers. That Sebastian was a pacifict (albiet a soldier in the Imperial Roman army) and also the patron saint of Pin Makers was another matter entirely (which we won't get into here.) Despite these efforts, many of the ancient gods persist to the present days. In Greece, for example, you will still see little statues of ancient gods in the homes of country people. These are often the ancient Greek gods of the household, the hearth or any other purpose considered too useful to discard simply because Christianity was now the dominant religion.