LITMIR.BIZ

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away some evil spirits whose malice sorely afflicted his servants and cattle. One of the presbyters accordingly went, and offered the sacrifice of the body of Christ with earnest prayer, and by the mercy of God, the evil was removed. Now Hesperius happened to have received from one of his friends a piece of the sacred earth of Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was buried and rose again the third day, and he had hung it up in his room to protect himself from the evil spirits. When his house had been freed from them, however, he begged St. Augustine and his colleague Maximinus, who happened to be in that neighbourhood, to come to him, and after telling them all that had happened, he prayed them to bury the piece of earth in some place where Christians could assemble for the worship of God. They consented, and did as he desired. A young peasant of the neighbourhood, who was paralytic, hearing of this, begged that he might be carried without delay to the holy spot, where he offered up prayer, and rose up and went away on his feet perfectly cured. About thirty miles from Hippo, at a farm called Victoriana, there was a memorial to the two martyrs Protavius and Gervasius. To this, Augustine relates, was brought a young man who, having gone one summer day at noon to water his horse in the river, was possessed by a demon. The lady to whom the place belonged came according to her custom in the evening, with her servants and some holy women to sing hymns and pray. On hearing them the demoniac started up and seized the altar with a terrible shudder, without daring to move, and as if bound to it, and the demon praying with a loud voice for mercy confessed where and when he had entered into the young man. At last the demon named all the members of his body, with threats to cut them off as he made his exit, and, saying these words, came out of him. In doing so, however, the eye of the youth fell from its socket on to his cheek, retained only by a small vein as by a root, whilst the pupil became altogether white. Well pleased, however, that the young man had been freed from the evil spirit, they returned the eye to its place as well as they could, and bound it up with a handkerchief, praying fervently, and one of his relatives said: "God who drove out the demon at the prayer of his saints can also restore the sight." On removing the bandage seven days after, the eye was found perfectly whole. St. Augustine knew a girl of

      Hippo who was delivered from a demon by the application of oil with which had mingled the tears of the presbyter who was praying for her. He also knew a bishop who prayed for a youth possessed by a demon, although he had not even seen him, and the young man was at once cured.

      Augustine further gives particulars of many miracles performed by the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen.(1) By their virtue the blind receive their sight, the sick are healed, the impenitent converted, and the dead are restored to life. "Andurus is the name of an estate," Augustine says, "where there is a church and in it a shrine dedicated to the martyr Stephen. A certain little boy was playing in the court, when unruly bullocks drawing a waggon crushed him with the wheel, and immediately he lay in the agonies of death. Then his mother raised him up, and placed him at the shrine, and he not only came to life again, but had manifestly received no injury.(2) A certain religious woman, who lived in a neighbouring property called Caspalianus, being dangerously ill and her life despaired of, her tunic was carried to the same shrine, but before it was brought back she had expired. Nevertheless, her relatives covered the body with this tunic, and she received back the spirit and was made whole.(3) At Hippo, a certain man named

      Bassus, a Syrian, was praying at the shrine of the same martyr for his daughter who was sick and in great peril, and he had brought her dress with him; when lo! some of his household came running to announce to him that she was dead. But as he was engaged in prayer they were stopped by his friends, who prevented their telling him, lest he should give way to his grief in public. When he returned to his house, which already resounded with the wailing of his household, he cast over the body of his daughter her mantle which he had with him, and immediately she was restored to life.(1) Again, in the same city, the son of a certain man among us named Irenæus, a collector of taxes, became sick and died. As the dead body lay, and they were preparing with wailing and lamentation to bury it, one of his friends consoling him suggested that the body should be anointed with oil from the same martyr. This was done, and the child came to life again.(2) In the same way a man amongst us named Eleusinus, formerly a tribune, laid the body of his child, who had died from sickness, on a memorial of the martyr which is in his villa in the suburbs, and after he had prayed, with many tears, he took up the child living."(3)

      We shall meet with more of these miracles in considering the arguments of Dr. Mozley. In a note he says: "Augustine again, long after, alludes in his list of miracles (De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8,) to some cases in which persons had been raised to life again by prayer and the intercession of martyrs, whose relics were applied. But though Augustine relates with great particularity and length of detail some cases of recoveries from complaints in answer to prayer, his notices of the cases in which persons had been raised to life again, are so short, bare, and summary, that they evidently represent no more than mere report, and report of a very vague kind. Indeed, with the preface which he prefixes to his list, he cannot be said even to profess to guarantee the truth or accuracy of the different instances contained in it. 'Hæc autem, ubicunque fiunt, ibi sciuntur vix a tota ipsa civitate vel quocumque commanentium loco. Nam plerumque etiam ibi paucissimi sciunt, ignorantibus eseteris, maxime si magna sit civitas; et quando alibi aliisque narrantur, non tantum ea commendat auctoritas, ut sine difficultate vel dubitatione credantur, quamvis Christianis fidelibus a fidelibus indicentur.' He puts down the cases as he received them, then, without pledging himself to their authenticity. 'Eucharius presbyter … mortuus sic jacebat ut ei jam pol-lices ligarentur: opitulatione memorati martyris, cum de memoria ejus reportata fuisset et supra jacentis corpus missa ipsius presbyteri tunica, suscitatus est … Andurus nomen est &C.",(1) and then Dr. Mozley gives the passage already quoted by us. Before continuing, we must remark with regard to the passages just quoted, that, in the miracle of Eucharius, Dr. Mozley, without explanation, omits details. The whole passage is as follows: "Eucharius, a presbyter from Spain, resided at Calama, who had for a long time suffered from stone. By the relics of the same martyr, which the Bishop Possidius brought to him, he was made whole. The same presbyter, afterwards succumbing to another disease, lay dead, so that they were already binding his hands. Succour came from the relics of the martyr, for the tunic of the presbyter being brought back from the relics and placed upon his body he revived."(1) A writer who complains of the bareness of narratives, should certainly not curtail their statements. Dr. Mozley continues: "There are three other cases of the same kind, in which there is nothing to verify the death from which the return to life is said to take place, as being more than mere suspension of the vital powers; but the writer does not go into particulars of description or proof, but simply inserts them in his list as they have been reported to him."(3)

      Dr. Mozley is anxious to detract from the miracles described by Augustine, and we regret to be obliged to maintain that in order to do so he misrepresents, no doubt unintentionally, Augustine's statements, and, as we think, also unduly depreciates the comparative value of the evidence. We shall briefly refer to the two points in question. I. That "his notices of the cases in which persons had been raised to life again are so short, bare, and summary that they evidently represent no more than mere report, and report of a very vague kind." II. "That with the preface which Augustine prefixes to his list, he cannot be said even to profess to guarantee the truth or accuracy of the different instances contained in it."

      It is true that in several cases Augustine gives the account of miraculous cures at greater length than those of restoration to life. It seems to us that this is almost inevitable at all times, and that the reason is obvious. Where the miracle consists merely of the cure of disease, details are naturally given to show the nature and intensity of the sickness, and they are necessary not only for the comprehension of the cure but to show its importance. In the case of restoration to life, the mere statement of the death and assertion of the subsequent resurrection exclude all need of details. The pithy reddita est vitæ, or factum est et revixit is more striking than any more prolix narrative. In fact, the greater the miracle the more natural is conciseness and simplicity; and practically, we find that Augustine gives a more lengthy and verbose report of trifling cures, whilst he relates the more important with greater brevity and force. He narrates many of his cases of miraculous cure, however, as briefly as those in which the dead are raised. We have quoted the latter, and the reader must judge whether they are unduly curt. One thing may be affirmed, that nothing of importance is omitted, and in regard to essential

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