wonderful works. St. Athanasius, who was himself for a long time a personal follower of St. Anthony, protests in his preface to the biography his general accuracy, he having everywhere been mindful of the truth.1

Hilarion, again, a disciple of St. Anthony, performed many miracles, an account of some of which is given by St. Jerome. He restored sight to a woman who had been blind for no less than ten years; he cast out devils, and miraculously cured many diseases. Rain fell in answer to his prayers; and he further exhibited his power over the elements by calming a stormy sea. When he was buried, ten months after his death, not only was his body as perfect as though he had been alive, but it emitted a delightful perfume. He was so favoured of God that, long after, diseases were healed and demons expelled at his tomb.2 St. Macarius, the Egyptian, is said to have restored a dead man to life in order to convince an unbeliever of the truth of the resurrection.3 St. Martin, of Tours, restored to life a certain catechumen who had died of a fever, and Sulpicius, his disciple, states that the man, who lived for many years after, was known to himself, although not until after the miracle. He also restored to life a servant who had hung himself. He performed a multitude of other miracles, to which we need not here more minutely refer. The relics of the two martyrs Protavius and Gervasius, whose bones, with much fresh blood, the miraculous evidence of their martyrdom and identity, were discovered by St. Ambrose, worked a

1 πανταχοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας φροντίσας, ib., p. 797. 2 Sozomen, H. E., iii. 14.

3 lb., H. E., iii. 14.

4 Sulpicius, Vita S. Mart. Cf. Sozornen, H. E., iii. 14.

number of miracles. A man suffering from demoniacal possession indicated the proximity of the relics by his convulsions. St. Augustine states that he himself was in Milan when a blind man, who merely touched the cloth which covered the two bodies as they were being moved to a neighbouring church, regained his sight.' Paulinus relates many miracles performed by his master, St. Ambrose, himself. He not only cast out many demons and healed the sick, but he also raised the dead. Whilst the saint was staying in the house of a distinguished Christian friend, his child, who, a few days before, had been delivered from an unclean spirit, suddenly expired. The mother, an exceedingly religious woman, full of faith and the fear of God, carried the dead boy down and laid him on the saint's bed during his absence. When St. Ambrose returned, filled with compassion for the mother and struck by her faith, he stretched himself, like Elisha, on the body of the child, praying, and he restored him living to his mother. Paulinus relates this miracle with minute particulars of name and address.3

St. Augustine asserts that miracles are still performed in his day in the name of Jesus Christ, either by means of his sacraments or by the prayers or relics of his saints, although they are not so well-known as those of old, and he gives an account of many miracles which had recently taken place. After referring to the miracle performed by the relics of the two martyrs upon the blind man in Milan, which occurred when he was there, he goes on to narrate the miraculous cure of a friend of

1 Ambrose, Epist. Class. i. 22; August., De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8; Paulinus, Vita S. Ambrosii, § 14 f.

2 Vita S. Ambr., §§ 21, 43, 44.

3 Ib., § 28.

4

De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8.

his own named Innocent, formerly advocate of the prefecture, in Carthage, where Augustine was, and beheld it with his own eyes (ubi nos interfuimus et oculis aspeximus nostris). A lady of rank in the same city was miraculously healed of an incurable cancer, and St. Augustine is indignant at the apathy of her friends, which allowed so great a miracle to be so little known.1 An inhabitant of the neighbouring town of Curubis was cured of paralysis and other ills by being baptized. When Augustine heard of this, although it was reported on very good authority, the man himself was brought to Carthage by order of the holy bishop Aurelius, in order that the truth might be ascertained. Augustine states that, on one occasion during his absence, a tribunitian man amongst them named Hesperius, who had a farm close by, called Zubedi, in the Fussalian district, begged one of the Christian presbyters to go and drive 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

1 Hoc ego cum audissem, et vehementer stomacharer, in illa civitate atque in illa persona, non utique obscura, factum tam ingens miraculum sic latere, hinc eam et admonendam et pene objurgandam putavi, &c., &c. De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8.

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 to 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 it, 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.' 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, whereupon he immediately struggled 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 also appeared without any injury. 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

1 De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8.

2 Andurus nomen est fundi, ubi ecclesia est, et in ea memoria Stephani martyris, Puerum quemdam parvulum, cum in area luderet, exorbitantes boves qui vehiculum trahebant, rota obtriverunt, et confestim palpitavit exspirans. Hunc mater arreptum ad eamdem memoriam posuit; et non solum revixit, verum etiam illæsus apparuit.

3 Sanctimonialis quædam in vicina possessione, quæ Caspaliana dicitur, cum ægritudine laboraret, ac desperaretur, ad eamdem memoriam tunica ejus allata est: quæ antequam revocaretur, illa defuncta est. Hac tamen tunica operuerunt cadaver ejus parentes, et recepto spiritu salva facta est.