Medieval Sourcebook:
Augustine: City of God: Book 22:8-10. On Miracles
Book XXII
Chapter 8.-Of Miracles Which Were Wrought that the World Might
Believe in Christ, and Which Have Not Ceased Since the World Believed.
Chapter 9.-That All the Miracles Which are Done by Means of the
Martyrs in the Name of Christ Testify to that Faith Which the Martyrs Had in Christ.
Chapter 10.-That the Martyrs Who Obtain Many Miracles in Order
that the True God May Be Worshipped, are Worthy of Much Greater Honor Than the Demons, Who
Do Some Marvels that They Themselves May Be Supposed to Be God.
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Chapter 8.-Of Miracles Which Were
Wrought that the World Might Believe in Christ, and Which Have Not Ceased Since the World
Believed.
Why, they say, are those miracles, which you affirm were wrought formerly, wrought no
longer? I might, indeed, reply that miracles were necessary before the world believed, in
order that it might believe. And whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies that he may
believe, is himself a great prodigy, because he does not believe, though the whole world
does. But they make these objections for the sole purpose of insinuating that even those
former miracles were never wrought. How, then, is it that everywhere Christ is celebrated
with such firm belief in His resurrection and ascension? How is it that in enlightened
times, in which every impossibility is rejected, the world has, without any miracles,
believed things marvellously incredible? Or will they say that these things were credible,
and therefore were credited? Why then do they themselves not believe? Our argument,
therefore, is a summary one-either incredible things which were not witnessed have caused
the world to believe other incredible things which both occurred and were witnessed, or
this matter was so credible that it needed no miracles in proof of it, and therefore
convicts these unbelievers of unpardonable scepticism. This I might say for the sake of
refuting these most frivolous objectors. But we cannot deny that many miracles were
wrought to confirm that one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ's ascension to
heaven with the flesh in which He rose. For these most trustworthy books of ours contain
in one narrative both the miracles that were wrought and the creed which they were wrought
to confirm. The miracles were published that they might produce faith, and the faith which
they produced brought them into greater prominence. For they are read in congregations
that they may be believed, and yet they would not be so read unless they were believed.
For even now miracles are wrought in the name of Christ, whether by His sacraments or by
the prayers or relics of His saints; but they are not so brilliant and conspicuous as to
cause them to be published with such glory as accompanied the former miracles. For the
canon of the sacred writings, which behoved to be closed,12 causes those to be everywhere recited, and to sink into the memory of all the
congregations; but these modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population
in the midst of which they are wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot. For
frequently they are known only to a very few persons, while all the rest are ignorant of
them, especially if the state is a large one; and when they are reported to other persons
in other localities, there is no sufficient authority to give them prompt and unwavering
credence, although they are reported to the faithful by the faithful.
The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there, and by which a blind man was
restored to sight, could come to the knowledge of many; for not only is the city a large
one, but also the emperor was there at the time, and the occurrence was witnessed by an
immense concourse of people that had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and
Gervasius, which had long lain concealed and unknown, but were now made known to the
bishop Ambrose in a dream, and discovered by him. By virtue of these remains the darkness
of that blind man was scattered, and he saw the light of day.13
But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which was wrought upon
Innocentius, ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture, a cure wrought at Carthage, in my
presence, and under my own eyes? For when I and my brother Alypius,14 who were not yet clergymen,15 though already servants of God, came from abroad, this
man received us, and made us live with him, for he and all his household were devotedly
pious. He was being treated by medical men for fistulae, of which he had a large number
intricately seated in the rectum. He had already undergone an operation, and the surgeons
were using every means at their command for his relief. In that operation he had suffered
long-continued and acute pain; yet, among the many folds of the gut, one had escaped the
operators so entirely, that, though they ought, to have laid it open with the knife, they
never touched it. And thus, though all those that had been opened were cured, this one
remained as it was, and frustrated all their labor. The patient, having his suspicions
awakened by the delay thus occasioned, and fearing greatly a second operation, which
another medical man-one of his own domestics-had told him he must undergo, though this man
had not even been allowed to witness the first operation, and had been banished from the
house, and with difficulty allowed to come back to his enraged master's presence,-the
patient, I say, broke out to the surgeons, saying, "Are you going to cut me again?
Are you, after all, to fulfill the predictionof that man whom you would not allow even to
be present?" The surgeons laughed at the unskillful doctor, and soothed their
patient's fears with fair words and promises. So several days passed, and yet nothing they
tried aid him good. Still they persisted in promising that they would cure that fistula by
drugs, without the knife. They called in also another old practitioner of great repute in
that department, Ammonius (for he was still alive at that time); and he, after examining
the part, promised the same result as themselves from their care and skill. On this great
authority, the patient became confident, and, as if already well, vented his good spirits
in facetious remarks at the expense of his domestic physician, who had predicted a second
operation. To make a long story short, after a number of days had thus uselessly elapsed,
the surgeons, wearied and confused, had at last to confess that he could only be cured by
the knife. Agitated with excessive fear, he was terrified, and grew pale with dread; and
when he collected himself and was able to speak, he ordered them to go away and never to
return. Worn out with weeping, and driven by necessity, it occurred to him to call in an
Alexandrian, who was at that time esteemed a wonderfully skillful operator, that he might
perform the operation his rage would not suffer them to do. But when he had come, and
examined with a professional eye the traces of their careful work, he acted the part of a
good man, and persuaded his patient to allow those same hands the satisfaction of
finishing his cure which had begun it with a skill that excited his admiration, adding
that there was no doubt his only hope of a cure was by an operation, but that it was
thoroughly inconsistent with his nature to win the credit of the cure by doing the little
that remained to be done, and rob of their reward men whose consummate skill, care, and
diligence he could not but admire when be saw the traces of their work. They were
therefore again received to favor; and it was agreed that, in the presence of the
Alexandrian, they should operate on the fistula, which, by the consent of all, could now
only be cured by the knife. The operation was deferred till the following day. But when
they had left, there arose in the house such a wailing, in sympathy with the excessive
despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at a funeral, and we
could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily; Saturninus of
blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the deacons
of the church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them all
survives,-a man to be named by us with due reverence,-and with him I have often spoken of
this affair, as we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found
that he distinctly remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that
evening according to their custom, he besought them, with pitiable tears, that they would
do him the honor of being present next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his
suffering. For such was the terror his former pains had produced, that he made no doubt he
would die in the hands of the surgeons. They comforted him, and exhorted him to put his
trust in God, and nerve his will like a man. Then we went to prayer; but while we, in the
usual way, were kneeling and bending to the ground, he cast himself down, as if some one
were hurling him violently to the earth, and began to pray; but in what a manner, with
what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood of tears, with what groans and sobs, that
shook his whole body, and almost prevented him speaking, who can describe! Whether the
others prayed, and had not their attention wholly diverted by this conduct, I do not know.
For myself, I could not pray at all. This only I briefly said in my heart: "O Lord,
what prayers of Thy people dost Thou hear if Thou hearest not these?" For it seemed
to me that nothing could be added to this prayer, unless he expired in praying. We rose
from our knees, and, receiving the blessing of the bishop, departed, the patient
beseeching his visitors to be present next morning, they exhorting him to keep up his
heart. The dreaded day dawned. The servants of God were present, as they had promised to
be; the surgeons arrived; all that the circumstances required was ready; the frightful
instruments are produced; all look on in wonder and suspense. While those who have most
influence with the patient are cheering his fainting spirit, his limbs are arranged on the
couch so as to suit the hand of the operator; the knots of the bandages are untied; the
part is bared; the surgeon examines it, and, with knife in hand, eagerly looks for the
sinus that is to be cut. He searches for it with his eyes; he feels for it with his
finger; he applies every kind of scrutiny: he finds a perfectly firm cicatrix! No words of
mine can describe the joy, and praise, and thanksgiving to the merciful and almighty God
which was poured from the lips of all, with tears of gladness. Let the scene be imagined
rather than described!
In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very devout woman of the highest rank
in the state. She had cancer in one of her breasts, a disease which, as physicians say, is
incurable. Ordinarily, therefore, they either amputate, and so separate from the body the
member on which the disease has seized, or, that the patient's life may be prolonged a
little, though death is inevitable even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies,
following, as they say, the advice of Hippocrates. This the lady we speak of had been
advised to by a skillful physician, who was intimate with her family; and she betook
herself to God alone by prayer. On the approach of Easter, she was instructed in a dream
to wait for the first woman that came out from the baptistery16 after being baptized, and to ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore. She did so,
and was immediately cured. The physician who had advised her to apply no remedy if she
wished to live a little longer, when he had examined her after this, and found that she
who, on his former examination, was afflicted with that disease was now perfectly cured,
eagerly asked her what remedy she had used, anxious, as we may well believe, to discover
the drug which should defeat the decision of Hippocrates. But when she told him what had
happened, he is said to have replied, with religious politeness, though with a
contemptuous tone, and an expression which made her fear he would utter some blasphemy
against Christ, "I thought you would make some great discovery to me." She,
shuddering at his indifference, quickly replied, "What great thing was it for Christ
to heal a cancer, who raised one who had been four days dead?" When, therefore, I had
heard this, I was extremely indignant that so great a miracle wrought in that well-known
city, and on a person who was certainly not obscure, should not be divulged, and I
considered that she should be spoken to, if not reprimanded on this score. And when she
replied to me that she had not kept silence on the subject, I asked the women with whom
she was best acquainted whether they had ever heard of this before. They told me they knew
nothing of it. "See," I said, "what your not keeping silence amounts to,
since not even those who are so familiar with you know of it." And as I had only
briefly heard the story, I made her tell how the whole thing happened, from beginning to
end, while the other women listened in great astonishment, and glorified God.
A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given in his name for baptism, and had
been prohibited the day before his baptism from being baptized that year, by black
woolly-haired boys who appeared to him in his dreams, and whom he understood to be devils,
and when, though they trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he had ever yet
experienced, he refused to obey them, but overcame them, and would not defer being washed
in the layer of regeneration, was relieved in the very act of baptism, not only of the
extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but also of the disease itself, so that, though
he lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from gout; and yet who knows of this
miracle? We, however, do know it, and so, too, do the small number of brethren who were in
the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might come.
An old comedian of Curubis17 was cured at
baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia, and, being delivered from both
afflictions, came up out of the font of regeneration as if he had had nothing wrong with
his body. Who outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few who might hear it
elsewhere? But we, when we heard of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order of the
holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained the fact on the information of
persons whose word we could not doubt.
Hesperius, of a tribunitian family, and a neighbor of our own,18 has a farm called Zubedi in the Fussalian district;19 and, finding that his family, his cattle, and his
servants were suffering from the malice of evil spirits, he asked our presbyters, during
my absence, that one of them would go with him and banish the spirits by his prayers. One
went, offered there the sacrifice of the body of Christ, praying with all his might that
that vexation might cease. It did cease forthwith, through God's mercy. Now he had
received from a friend of his own some holy earth brought from Jerusalem, where Christ,
having been buried, rose again the third day. This earth he had hung up in his bedroom to
preserve himself from harm. But when his house was purged of that demoniacal invasion, he
began to consider what should be done with the earth; for his reverence for it made him
unwilling to have it any longer in his bedroom. It so happened that I and Maximinus bishop
of Synita, and then my colleague, were in the neighborhood. Hesperius asked us to visit
him, and we did so. When he had related all the circumstances, he begged that the earth
might be buried somewhere, and that the spot should be made a place of prayer where
Christians might assemble for the worship of God. We made no objection: it was done as he
desired. There was in that neighborhood a young countryman who was paralytic, who, when he
heard of this, begged his parents to take him without delay to that holy place. When he
had been brought there, he prayed, and forthwith went away on his own feet perfectly
cured.
There is a country-seat called Victoriana, less than thirty miles from Hippo-regius. At
it there is a monument to the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither a young
man was carried, who, when he was watering his horse one summer day at noon in a pool of a
river, had been taken possession of by a devil. As he lay at the monument, near death, or
even quite like a dead person, the lady of the manor, with her maids and religious
attendants, entered the place for evening prayer and praise, as her custom was, and they
began to sing hymns. At this sound the young man, as if electrified, was thoroughly
aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the altar, and held it as if he did not dare
or were not able to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it; and the devil in
him, with loud lamentation, besought that he might be spared, and confessed where and when
and how he took possession of the youth. At last, declaring that he would go out of him,
he named one by one the parts of his body which he threatened to mutilate as he went out
and with these words he departed from the man. But his eye, falling out on his cheek, hung
by a slender vein as by a root, and the whole of the pupil which had been black became
white. When this was witnessed by those present (others too had now gathered to his cries,
and had all joined in prayer for him), although they were delighted that he had recovered
his sanity of mind, yet, on the other hand, they were grieved about his eye, and said he
should seek medical advice. But his sister's husband, who had brought him there, said,
"God, who has banished the devil, is able to restore his eye at the prayers of His
saints." Therewith he replaced the eye that was fallen out and hanging, and bound it
in its place with his handkerchief as well as he could, and advised him not to loose the
bandage for seven days. When he did so, he found it quite healthy. Others also were cured
there, but of them it were tedious to speak.
I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil, on
anointing herself with oil, mixed with the tears of the prebsyter who had been praying for
her. I know also that a bishop once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and
that he was cured on the spot.
There was a fellow-townsman of ours at Hippo, Florentius, an old man, religious and
poor, who supported himself as a tailor. Having lost his coat, and not having means to buy
another, he prayed to the Twenty Martyrs,20 who
have a very celebrated memorial shrine in our town, begging in a distinct voice that he
might be clothed. Some scoffing young men, who happened to be present, heard him, and
followed him with their sarcasm as he went away, as if he had asked the martyrs for fifty
pence to buy a coat. But he, walking on in silence, saw on the shore a great fish, gasping
as if just cast up, and having secured it with the good-natured assistance of the youths,
he sold it for curing to a cook of the name of Catosus, a good Christian man, telling him
how he had come by it, and receiving for it three hundred pence, which he laid out in
wool, that his wife might exercise her skill upon, and make into a coat for him. But,
oncutting up the fish, the cook found a gold ring in its belly; and forthwith, moved with
compassion, and influenced, too, by religious fear, gave it up to the man, saying,
"See how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed you."
When the bishop Projectus was bringing the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen
to the waters of Tibilis, a great concourse of people came to meet him at the shrine.
There a blind woman entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the
relics. He gave her the flowers he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes,
and forthwith saw. Those who were present were astounded, while she, with every expression
of joy, preceded them, pursuing her way without further need of a guide.
Lucillus bishop of Sinita, in the neighborhood of the colonial town of Hippo, was
carrying in procession some relics of the same martyr, which had been deposited in the
castle of Sinita. A fistula under which he had long labored, and which his private
physician was watching an opportunity to cut, was suddenly cured by the mere carrying of
that sacred fardel,21 -at least, afterwards there
was no trace of it in his body.
Eucharius, a Spanish priest, residing at Calama, was for a long time a sufferer from
stone. By the relics of the same martyr, which the bishop Possidius brought him, he was
cured. Afterwards the same priest, sinking under another disease, was lying dead, and
already they were binding his hands. By the succor of the same martyr he was raised to
life, the priest's cloak having been brought from the oratory and laid upon the corpse.
There was there an old nobleman named Martial, who had a great aversion to the
Christian religion, but whose daughter was a Christian, while her husband had been
baptized that same year. When he was ill, they besought him with tears and prayers to
become a Christian, but he positively refused, and dismissed them from his presence in a
storm of indignation. It occurred to the son-in-law to go to the oratory of St. Stephen,
and there pray for him with all earnestness that God might give him a right mind, so that
he should not delay believing in Christ. This he did with great groaning and tears, and
the burning fervor of sincere piety; then, as he left the place, he took some of the
flowers that were lying there, and, as it was already night, laid them by his father's
head, who so slept. And lo! before dawn, he cries out for some one to run for the bishop;
but he happened at that time to be with me at Hippo. So when he had heard that he was from
home, he asked the presbyters to come. They came. To the joy and amazement of all, he
declared that he believed, and he was baptized. As long as he remained in life, these
words were ever on his lips: "Christ, receive my spirit," though he was not
aware that these were the last words of the most blessed Stephen when he was stoned by the
Jews. They were his last words also, for not long after he himself also gave up the ghost.
There, too, by the same martyr, two men, one a citizen, the other a stranger, were
cured of gout; but while the citizen was absolutely cured, the stranger was only informed
what he should apply when the pain returned; and when he followed this advice, the pain
was at once relieved.
Audurus is the name of an estate, where there is a church that contains a memorial
shrine of the martyr Stephen. It happened that, as a little boy was playing in the court,
the oxen drawing a wagon went out of the track and crushed him with the wheel, so that
immediately he seemed at his last gasp. His mother snatched him up, and laid him at the
shrine, and not only did he revive, but also appeared uninjured.
A religious female, who lived at Caspalium, a neighboring estate, when she was so ill
as to be despaired of, had her dress brought to this shrine, but before it was brought
back she was gone. However, her parents wrapped her corpse in the dress, and, her breath
returning, she became quite well.
At Hippo a Syrian called Bassus was praying at the relics of the same martyr for his
daughter, who was dangerously ill. He too had brought her dress with him to the shrine.
But as he prayed, behold, his servants ran from the house to tell him she was dead. His
friends, however, intercepted them, and forbade them to tell him, lest he should bewail
her in public. And when he had returned to his house, which was already ringing with the
lamentations of his family, and had thrown on his daughter's body the dress he was
carrying, she was restored to life.
There, too, the son of a man, Irenaeus, one of our tax-gatherers, took ill and died.
And while his body was lying lifeless, and the last rites were being prepared, amidst the
weeping and mourning of all, one of the friends who were consoling the father suggested
that the body should be anointed with the oil of the same martyr. It was done, and he
revived.
Likewise Eleusinus, a man of tribunitian rank among us, laid his infant son, who had
died, on the shrine of the martyr, which is in the suburb where he lived, and, after
prayer, which he poured out there with many tears, he took up his child alive.
What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work, that I cannot
record all the miracles I know; and doubtless several of our adherents, when they read
what I have narrated, will regret that I have omitted so many which they, as well as I,
certainly know. Even now I beg these persons to excuse me, and to consider how long it
would take me to relate all those miracles, which the necessity of finishing the work I
have undertaken forces me to omit. For were I to be silent of all others, and to record
exclusively the miracles of healing which were wrought in the district of Calama and of
Hippo by means of this martyr-I mean the most glorious Stephen-they would fill many
volumes; and yet all even of these could not be collected, but only those of which
narratives have been written for public recital. For when I saw, in our own times,
frequent signs of the presence of divine powers similar to those which had been given of
old, I desired that narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not
remain ignorant of these things. It is not yet two years since these relics were first
brought to Hippo-regius, and though many of the miracles which have been wrought by it
have not, as I have the most certain means of knowing, been recorded, those which have
been published amount to almost seventy at the hour at which I write. But at Calama, where
these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles were narrated for
public information, there are incomparably more.
At Uzali, too, a colony near Utica, many signal miracles were, to my knowledge, wrought
by the same martyr, whose relics had found a place there by direction of the bishop
Evodius, long before we had them at Hippo. But there the custom of publishing narratives
does not obtain, or, I should say, did not obtain, for possibly it may now have been
begun. For, when I was there recently, a woman of rank, Petronia, had been miraculously
cured of a serious illness of long standing, in which all medical appliances had failed,
and, with the consent of the abovenamed bishop of the place, I exhorted her to publish an
account of it that might be read to the people. She most promptly obeyed, and inserted in
her narrative a circumstance which I cannot omit to mention, though I am compelled to
hasten on to the subjects which this work requires me to treat. She said that she had been
persuaded by a Jew to wear next her skin, under all her clothes, a hair girdle, and on
this girdle a ring, which, instead of a gem, had a stone which had been found in the
kidneys of an ox. Girt with this charm, she was making her way to the threshold of the
holy martyr. But, after leaving Carthage, and when she had been lodging in her own demesne
on the river Bagrada, and was now rising to continue her journey, she saw her ring lying
before her feet. In great surprise she examined the hair girdle, and when she found it
bound, as it had been, quite firmly with knots, she conjectured that the ring had been
worn through and dropped off; but when she found that the ring was itself also perfectly
whole, she presumed that by this great miracle she had received somehow a pledge of her
cure, whereupon she untied the girdle, and cast it into the river, and the ring along with
it. This is not credited by those who do not believe either that the Lord Jesus Christ
came forth from His mother's womb without destroying her virginity, and entered among His
disciples when the doors were shut; but let them make strict inquiry into this miracle,
and if they find it true, let them believe those others. The lady is of distinction, nobly
born, married to a nobleman. She resides at Carthage. The city is distinguished, the
person is distinguished, so that they who make inquiries cannot fail to find satisfaction.
Certainly the martyr himself, by whose prayers she was healed, believed on the Son of her
who remained a virgin; on Him who came in among the disciples when the doors were shut; in
fine,-and to this tends all that we have been retailing,-on Him who ascended into heaven
with the flesh in which He had risen; and it is because he laid down his life for this
faith that such miracles were done by his means.
Even now, therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read
of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will; but they are not as well known,
nor are they beaten into the memory, like gravel, by frequent reading, so that they cannot
fall out of mind. For even where, as is now done among ourselves, care is taken that the
pamphlets of those who receive benefit be read publicly, yet those who are present hear
the narrative but once, and many are absent; and so it comes to pass that even those who
are present forget in a few days what they heard, and scarcely one of them can be found
who will tell what he heard to one who he knows was not present.
One miracle was wrought among ourselves, which, though no greater than those I have
mentioned, was yet so signal and conspicuous, that I suppose there is no inhabitant of
Hippo who did not either see or hear of it, none who could possibly forget it. There were
seven brothers and three sisters of a noble family of the Cappadocian Caesarea, who were
cursed by their mother, a new-made widow, on account of some wrong they had done her, and
which she bitterly resented, and who were visited with so severe a punishment from Heaven,
that all of them were seized with a hideous shaking in all their limbs. Unable, while
presenting this loathsome appearance, to endure the eyes of their fellow-citizens, they
wandered over almost the whole Roman world, each following his own direction. Two of them
came to Hippo, a brother and a sister, Paulus and Palladia, already known in many other
places by the fame of their wretched lot. Now it was about fifteen days before Easter when
they came, and they came daily to church, and specially to the relics of the most glorious
Stephen, praying that God might now be appeased, and restore their former health. There,
and wherever they went, they attracted the attention of every one. Some who had seen them
elsewhere, and knew the cause of their trembling, told others as occasion offered. Easter
arrived, and on the Lord's day, in the morning, when there was now a large crowd present,
and the young man was holding the bars of the holy place where the relics were, and
praying, suddenly he fell down, and lay precisely as if asleep, but not trembling as he
was wont to do even in sleep. All present were astonished. Some were alarmed, some were
moved with pity; and while some were for lifting him up, others prevented them, and said
they should rather wait and see what would result. And behold! he rose up, and trembled no
more, for he was healed, and stood quite well, scanning those who were scanning him. Who
then refrained himself from praising God? The whole church was filled with the voices of
those who were shouting and congratulating him. Then they came running to me, where I was
sitting ready to come into the church. One after another they throng in, the last comer
telling me as news what the first had told me already; and while I rejoiced and inwardly
gave God thanks, the young man himself also enters, with a number of others, falls at my
knees, is raised up to receive my kiss. We go in to the congregation: the church was full,
and ringing with the shouts of joy, "Thanks to God! Praised be God!" every one
joining and shouting on all sides, "I have healed the people," and then with
still louder voice shouting again. Silence being at last obtained, the customary lessons
of the divine Scriptures were read. And when I came to my sermon, I made a few remarks
suitable to the occasion and the happy and joyful feeling, not desiring them to listen to
me, but rather to consider the eloquence of God in this divine work. The man dined with
us, and gave us a careful account of his own, his mother's, and his family's calamity.
Accordingly, on the following day, after delivering my sermon, I promised that next day I
would read his narrative to the people.22 And when
I did so, the third day after Easter Sunday, I made the brother and sister both stand on
the steps of the raised place from which I used to speak; and while they stood there their
pamphlet was read.23 The whole congregation, men
and women alike, saw the one standing without any unnatural movement, the other trembling
in all her limbs; so that those who had not before seen the man himself saw in his sister
what the divine compassion had removed from him. In him they saw matter of congratulation,
in her subject for prayer. Meanwhile, their pamphlet being finished, I instructed them to
withdraw from the gaze of the people; and I had begun to discuss the whole matter somewhat
more carefully, when lo! as I was proceeding, other voices are heard from the tomb of the
martyr, shouting new congratulations. My audience turned round, and began to run to the
tomb. The young woman, when she had come down from the steps where she had been standing,
went to pray at the holy relics, and no sooner had she touched the bars than she, in the
same way as her brother, collapsed, as if falling asleep, and rose up cured. While, then,
we were asking what had happened, and what occasioned this noise of joy, they came into
the basilica where we were, leading her from the martyr's tomb in perfect health. Then,
indeed, such a shout of wonder rose from men and women together, that the exclamations and
the tears seemed like never to come to an end. She was led to the place where she had a
little before stood trembling. They now rejoiced that she was like her brother, as before
they had mourned that she remained unlike him; and as they had not yet uttered their
prayers in her behalf, they perceived that their intention of doing so had been speedily
heard. They shouted God's praises without words, but with such a noise that our ears could
scarcely bear it. What was there in the hearts of these exultant people but the faith of
Christ, for which Stephen had shed his blood?
Chapter 9.-That All the Miracles Which
are Done by Means of the Martyrs in the Name of Christ Testify to that Faith Which the
Martyrs Had in Christ.
To what do these miracles witness, but to this faith which preaches Christ risen in the
flesh, and ascended with the same into heaven? For the martyrs themselves were martyrs,
that is to say, witnesses of this faith, drawing upon themselves by their testimony the
hatred of the world, and conquering the world not by resisting it, but by dying. For this
faith they died, and can now ask these benefits from the Lord in whose name they were
slain. For this faith their marvellous constancy was exercised, so that in these miracles
great power was manifested as the result. For if the resurrection of the flesh to eternal
life had not taken place in Christ, and were not to be accomplished in His people, as
predicted by Christ, or by the prophets who foretold that Christ was to come, why do the
martyrs who were slain for this faith which proclaims the resurrection possess such power?
For whether God Himself wrought these miracles by that wonderful manner of working by
which, though Himself eternal, He produces effects in time; or whether He wrought them by
servants, and if so, whether He made use of the spirits of martyrs as He uses men who are
still in the body, or effects all these marvels by means of angels, over whom He exerts an
invisible, immutable, incorporeal sway, so that what is said to be done by the martyrs is
done not by their operation, but only by their prayer and request; or whether, finally,
some things are done in one way, others in another, and so that man cannot at all
comprehend them,-nevertheless these miracles attest this faith which preaches the
resurrection of the flesh to eternal life.
Chapter 10.-That the Martyrs Who Obtain
Many Miracles in Order that the True God May Be Worshipped, are Worthy of Much Greater
Honor Than the Demons, Who Do Some Marvels that They Themselves May Be Supposed to Be God.
Here perhaps our adversaries will say that their gods also have done some wonderful
things, if now they begin to compare their gods to our dead men. Or will they also say
that they have gods taken from among dead men, such as Hercules, Romulus, and many others
whom they fancy to have been received into the number of the gods? But our martyrs are not
our gods; for we know that the martyrs and we have both but one God, and that the same.
Nor yet are the miracles which they maintain to have been done by means of their temples
at all comparable to those which are done by the tombs of our martyrs. If they seem
similar, their gods have been defeated by our martyrs as Pharaoh's magi were by Moses. In
reality, the demons wrought these marvels with the same impure pride with which they
aspired to be the gods of the nations; but the martyrs do these wonders, or rather God
does them while they pray and assist, in order that an impulse may be given to the faith
by which we believe that they are not our gods, but have, together with ourselves, one
God. In fine, they built temples to these gods of theirs, and set up altars, and ordained
priests, and appointed sacrifices; but to our martyrs we build, not temples as if they
were gods, but monuments as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect
altars at these monuments that we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the
martyrs and of ourselves; and in this sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank
as men of God who conquered the world by confessing Him, but they are not invoked by the
sacrificing priest. For it is to God, not to them, he sacrifices, though he sacrifices at
their monument; for he is God's priest, not theirs. The sacrifice itself, too, is the body
of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they themselves are this body. Which then
can more readily be believed to work miracles? They who wish themselves to be reckoned
gods by those on whom they work miracles, or those whose sole object in working any
miracle is to induce faith in God, and in Christ also as God? They who wished to turn even
their crimes into sacred rites, or those who are unwilling that even their own praises be
consecrated, and seek that everything for which they are justly praised be ascribed to the
glory of Him in whom they are praised? For in the Lord their souls are praised. Let us
therefore believe those who both speak the truth and work wonders. For by speaking the
truth they suffered, and so won the power of working wonders. And the leading truth they
professed is that Christ rose from the dead, and first showed in His own flesh the
immortality of the resurrection which He promised should be ours, either in the beginning
of the world to come, or in the end of this world.
Notes
12 Another reading has diffamatum,
"published."
13 A somewhat fuller account of this miracle is
given by Augustin in the Confessions, ix. 16. See also Serm. 286, and
Ambrose, Ep. 22. A translation of this epistle in full is given in Isaac Taylor's Ancient
Christianity, ii. 242, where this miracle is taken as a specimen of the so-called
miracles of that age, and submitted to a detailed examination. The result arrived at will
be gathered from the following sentence: "In the Nicene Church, so lax were the
notions of common morality, and in so feeble a manner did the fear of God influence the
conduct of leading men, that, on occasions when the Church was to be served, and her
assailants to be confounded, they did not scruple to take upon themselves the contrivance
and execution of the most degrading impostures."- P. 270. It is to be observed,
however, that Augustin was, at least in this instance, one of the deceived. [On Augustin's
views on post-apostolic miracles see Card. Newman, Essay on Miracles, Nitzsch, Augustinas
Lehre vom Wunder (Berlin, 1865) and Schaff, Church History, vol. iii. 460,
sqq.-P. S.]
14 Alypius was a countryman of Augustin, and
one of his most attached friends. See the Confessions, passim.
15 Cleros.
16 Easter and Whitsuntide were the common
seasons for administering baptism, though no rule was laid down till towards the end of
the sixth century. Tertullian thinks these the most appropriate times, but says that every
time is suitable. See Turtull, de Baptismo, c. 19.
17 A town near Carthage.
18 This may possibly mean a Christian.
19 Near Hippo.
20 Augustin's 325th sermon is in honor of these
martyrs.
21 See Isaac Taylor's Ancient Christianity,
ii. 354.
Source.
Early Church Fathers
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1I, Vol. II
@ Christian Classics Ethereal
Libary
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