 CHAPTER VIII. Why they say are those miracles which you affirm were wrought formally wrought no longer. I might indeed reply that miracles were necessary before the world believed in order that it might believe, and whoever nowadays 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 marvelously 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 skepticism. 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 behooved to be closed 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 Gervaisius 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. 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, Olympius, who were not yet clergymen, 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 labourer. 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 fulfil the prediction of 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 fire words and promises. So several days passed, and yet nothing they tried did 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, Amonius, 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 the 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 he saw the traces of their work. They were therefore again received to favour, 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 morning had a funeral and we could scarcely repress it. Early men were in the habit of visiting him daily. Saturnanus of blessed memory, at that time Bishop of Uzali, and the Presbyter Galosus, 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 converse 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 honour of being present next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his suffering. For such was the terror that 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 someone 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, Oh 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 in Ascentia 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 baptistry 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. He, 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 you are 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 labor 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 Coribus was cured at baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia, and being delivered from both afflictions came up out to the font of regeneration as if he had had nothing wrong with his body. Who outside of Coribus 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 tribunition family, and a neighbor of our own, has a farm called Zubeti in the Fuselian district, 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 Maximonus, bishop of Sineta, 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 what way 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 Mylonese 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 are 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 lose the bandage for seven days. When he did so, he found it quite healthy. Others also were cured there, but of them it was tedious to speak. I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil unanointing herself with oil mixed with the tears of the presbyter 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 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 Catoces, 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 on cutting 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 Tbilis 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 Sineta, and 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 Sineta. 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. At least afterwards there was no trace of it in his body. Eukaryus, 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 Pesidius 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 secor 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 Marshall, who had a great aversion to the Christian religion but whose daughter was a Christian while her husband had been baptized to 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 someone 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 presbyterists 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 received 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 a 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 tribunition 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. At Calama were these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more. At Huzali, 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 above-named 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. Gert 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 demean 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 prayer 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 everyone. 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 want 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 into the congregation, the church was full, and ringing with the shouts of joy, thanks to God, praise to be God. Everyone 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. 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. 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 a 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? 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 marvelous 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. CHAPTERS 10 THRU-19 OF THE CITY OF GOD This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Darren L. Slider, www.logoslibrary.org. THE CITY OF GOD by St. Augustine of Hippo. Book 22. CHAPTER X 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. CHAPTER XI. But against this great gift of God these reasoners whose thoughts the Lord knows that they are vain bring arguments from the weights of the elements, for they have been taught by their master Plato that the two greatest elements of the world and the furthest removed from one another are coupled and united by the two intermediate, air and water. And consequently they say, since the earth is the first of the elements beginning from the base of the series, the second the water above the earth, the third the air above the water, the fourth the heaven above the air, it follows that a body of earth cannot live in the heaven, for each element is poised by its own weight so as to preserve its own place and rank. Behold, with what arguments human infirmity, possessed with vanity, contradicts the omnipotence of God. What then do so many earthly bodies do in the air, since the air is the third element from the earth? Unless perhaps he who is granted to the earthly bodies of birds that they be carried through the air by the lightness of feathers and wings has not been able to confer upon the bodies of men made immortal the power to abide in the highest heaven. The earthly animals, too, which cannot fly, among which are men, ought on these terms to live under the earth as fishes which are the animals of the water live under the water. Why then can an animal of earth not live in the second element, that is, in water, while it can in the third? Why, though it belongs to the earth, is it forthwith suffocated if it is forced to live in the second element next above earth while it lives in the third and cannot live out of it? Is there a mistake here in the order of the elements, or is not the mistake rather in their reasonings and not in the nature of things? I will not repeat what I said in the thirteenth book that many earthly bodies, though heavy like lead, receive from the workman's hand a form which enables them to swim in water, and yet it is denied that the omnipotent worker can confer on the human body a property which shall enable it to pass into heaven and dwell there. But against what I have formally said they can find nothing to say, even though they introduce and make the most of this order of the elements in which they confide. For if the order be that the earth is first, the water second, the air third, the heaven fourth, then the soul is above all. For Aristotle said that the soul was a fifth body, while Plato denied that it was a body at all. If it were a fifth body, then certainly it would be above the rest, and if it is not a body at all, so much the more does it rise above all. What then does it do in an earthly body? What does this soul, which is finer than all else, do in such a mass of matter as this? What does the lightest of substances do in this ponderosity, this swiftest substance in such sluggishness? Will not the body be raised to heaven by virtue of so excellent a nature as this? And if now earthly bodies can retain the souls below, shall not the souls be one day able to raise the earthly bodies above? If we pass now to their miracles which they opposed to our martyrs as wrought by their gods, shall not even these be found to make for us and to help out our argument. For if any of the miracles of their gods are great, certainly that is a great one which Barrow mentions of a Vestal Virgin who, when she was endangered by a false accusation of unchastity, filled a sieve with water from the tiber and carried it to her judges without any part of it leaking. Who kept the weight of water in the sieve? Who prevented any drop from falling from it through so many open holes? They will answer some god or some demon. If a god is he greater than the god who made the world? If a demon is he a might here than an angel who serves the god by whom the world was made? If then a lesser god, angel or demon, could so sustain the weight of this liquid element that the water might seem to have changed its nature, shall not Almighty God, who himself created all the elements, be able to eliminate from the earth the body its heaviness so that the quickened body shall dwell in whatever element the quickening spirit pleases? Then again, since they give the air a middle place between the fire above and the water beneath, how is it that we often find it between water and water and between the water and the earth? For what do they make of those watery clouds between which, and the seas, air is constantly found intervening? I should like to know by what weight and order of the elements it comes to pass that very violent and stormy torrents are suspended in the clouds above the earth before they rush along upon the earth under the air. In fine, why is it that throughout the whole globe the air is between the highest heaven and the earth, if its place is between the sky and the water, as the place of the water is between the sky and the earth? Finally, if the order of the elements is so disposed that, as Plato thinks, the two extremes, fire and earth, are united by the two means, air and water, and that the fire occupies the highest part of the sky and the earth the lowest part, or, as it were, the foundation of the world, and that therefore earth cannot be in heaven's how is fire in the earth. For according to this reasoning these two elements, earth and fire, ought to be so restricted to their own places, the highest and the lowest, that neither the lowest can rise to the place of the highest, nor the highest sink to that of the lowest. Thus, as they think that no particle of earth is or shall ever be in the sky, so we ought to see no particle of fire on the earth. But the fact is that it exists to such an extent, not only on, but even under the earth, that the tops of mountains vomit it forth. Besides, that we see it to exist on earth for human uses, and even to be produced from the earth, since it is kindled from wood and stones, which are without doubt earthly bodies. But that upper fire, they say, is tranquil, pure, harmless, eternal. But this earthly fire is turbid, smoky, corruptible, and corrupting. But it does not corrupt the mountains and caverns of the earth, in which it rages continually. But grant that the earthly fire is so unlike the other as to suit its earthly position, why then do they object to our believing that the nature of earthly bodies shall some day be made incorruptible and fit for the sky, even as now fire is corruptible and suited to the earth? They therefore adduce from their weights and order of the elements nothing from which they can prove that it is impossible for Almighty God to make our bodies such that they can dwell in the skies. CHAPTER 12 But their way is to feign a scrupulous anxiety in investigating this question and to cast ridicule on our faith in the resurrection of the body by asking whether abortions shall rise. And, as the Lord says, verily I say unto you, not a hair of your head shall perish, shall old bodies have an equal stature and strength, or shall there be differences in size? For if there is to be equality, where shall those abortions, supposing that they rise again, get that bulk which they had not here? Or if they shall not rise, because they were not born, but cast out, they raised the same question about children who have died in childhood, asking us whence they get the stature which we see they had not here? For we will not say that those who haven't been not only born, but born again, shall not rise again? Then further they ask of what size these equal bodies shall be. For if all shall be as tall and large as were the tallest and largest in this world, they ask us how it is that not only children but many full-grown persons shall receive what they here did not possess if each one is to receive what he had here. And if the saying of the apostle that we are all to come to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, or that other saying, whom he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son, is to be understood to mean that the stature and size of Christ's body shall be the measure of the bodies of all those who shall be in his kingdom, then, say they, the size and height of many must be diminished. And if so much of the bodily frame itself be lost, what becomes of the saying not a hair of your head shall perish? Besides, it might be asked regarding the hair itself whether all that the barber has cut off shall be restored. And if it is to be restored, who would not shrink from such deformity? For as the same restoration will be made of what has been paired off the nails, much will be replaced on the body which, regard for its appearance, had cut off. And where, then, will be its beauty which assuredly ought to be much greater in that immortal condition than it could be in this corruptible state? On the other hand, if such things are not restored to the body, they must perish. How, then, they say, shall not a hair of the head perish? In like manner there reason about fatness and leanness, for if all are to be equal, then certainly there shall not be some fat, others lean. Some, therefore, shall gain, others lose something. Consequently there will not be a simple restoration of what formerly existed, but on the one hand in addition of what had no existence, and on the other a loss of what did before exist. The difficulties, too, about the corruption and dissolution of dead bodies, that one is turned into dust while another evaporates into the air, that some are devoured by beasts, some by fire, while some perish by shipwreck, or by drowning in one shape or other, so that their bodies decay into liquid. These difficulties give them immoderate alarm, and they believe that all those dissolved elements cannot be gathered again and reconstructed into a body. They also make eager use of all the deformities and blemishes which either accident or birth has produced, and accordingly, with horror and derision, cite monstrous births, and ask if every deformity will be preserved in the resurrection. For if we say that no such thing shall be reproduced in the body of a man, they suppose that they confute us by citing the marks of the wounds which we assert were found in the risen body of the Lord Christ. But of all these the most difficult question is, into whose body that flesh shall return, which has been eaten and assimilated by another man constrained by hunger to use it so, for it has been converted into the flesh of the man who used it as his nutriment, and it filled up those losses of flesh which famine had produced. For the sake, then, of ridiculing the resurrection, they ask, shall this return to the man whose flesh it first was, or to him whose flesh it afterwards became? And thus, too, they seek to give promise to the human soul of alternations of true misery and false happiness in accordance with Plato's theory, or in accordance with Porphyry's that, after many transmigrations into different bodies, it ends its miseries and nevermore returns to them, not, however, by obtaining an immortal body, but by escaping from every kind of body. CHAPTER XIII To these objections, then, of our adversaries, which I have thus detailed, I will now reply, trusting that God will mercifully assist my endeavours. That abortions which, even supposing they were alive in the womb, did also die there, shall rise again, I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead. For either all the dead shall not rise, and there will be to all eternity some souls without bodies, though they once had them, only in their mother's womb indeed, or if all human souls shall receive again the bodies which they had, wherever they lived, in which they left when they died, then I do not see how I can say that even those who died in their mother's womb shall have no resurrection. But whichever of these opinions any one may adopt concerning them, we must at least apply to them, if they rise again, all that we have to say of infants who have been born. CHAPTER XIV What then are we to say of infants, if not that they will not rise in that diminutive body in which they died, but shall receive by the marvellous and rapid operation of God that body which time, by a slower process, would have given them? For in the Lord's words, where he says, Not a hair of your head shall perish, it is asserted that nothing which was possessed shall be wanting, but it is not said that nothing which was not possessed shall be given. To the dead infant there was wanting the perfect stature of its body, for even the perfect infant lacks the perfection of bodily size, being capable of further growth. This perfect stature is, in a sense, so possessed by all that they are conceived and born with it, that is, they have it potentially, though not yet an actual bulk, just as all the members of the body are potentially in the seed, though even after the child is born, some of them, the teeth, for example, may be wanting. In this seminal principle of every substance there seems to be, as it were, the beginning of everything which does not yet exist, or rather does not appear, but which, in process of time, will come into being, or rather into sight. In this, therefore, the child who is to be tall or short is already tall or short, and in the resurrection of the body we need, for the same reason, fear no bodily loss. For though all should be of equal size, and reach gigantic proportions, lest the men who are largest here should lose anything of their bulk, and it should perish, in contradiction to the words of Christ, who said that not a hair of their head should perish, yet why should there lack the means by which that wonderful worker should make such additions, seeing that he is the Creator, who himself created all things out of nothing. CHAPTER XV It is certain that Christ rose in the same bodily stature in which he died, and that it is wrong to say that when the general resurrection shall have arrived, his body shall, for the sake of equaling the tallest, assume proportions which it had not when he appeared to the disciples and the figure with which they were familiar. But if we say that even the bodies of taller men are to be reduced to the size of the Lord's body, there will be a great loss in many bodies, though he promised that not a hair of their head should perish. It remains, therefore, that we conclude that every man shall receive his own size which he had in youth, though he died an old man, or which he would have had supposing he died before his prime. As for what the Apostles said of the measure of the age or the fullness of Christ, we must either understand him to refer to something else, to which the fact that the measure of Christ will be completed when all the members among the Christian communities are added to the head, or if we are to refer it to the resurrection of the body, the meaning is that all shall rise neither beyond nor under youth, but in that vigor and age to which we know that Christ had arrived. For even the world's wisest men have fixed the bloom of youth at about the age of thirty, and when this period has been passed the man begins to decline towards the defective and duller period of old age. And therefore the Apostle did not speak of the measure of the body nor of the measure of the stature, but of the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. CHAPTER XVI Then again these words predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son of God may be understood of the inner man. So in another place he says to us, Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind. Insofar, then, as we are transformed so as not to be conformed to the world, we are conformed to the Son of God. It may also be understood thus that as he was conformed to us by assuming mortality we shall be conformed to him by immortality, and this indeed is connected with the resurrection of the body. But if we are also taught in these words what form our bodies shall rise in, as the measure we spoke of before, so also this conformity is to be understood not of size, but of age. Accordingly, all shall rise in the stature they either had attained or would have attained, had they lived to their prime, although it will be no great disadvantage even if the form of the body be infantine or aged, while no infirmity shall remain in the mind nor in the body itself. So that even if any one contends that every person will rise again in the same bodily form in which he died, we need not spend much labour in disputing with him. CHAPTER XVII From the words till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, and from the words conformed to the image of the Son of God, some conclude that women shall not rise women, but that all shall be men, because God made man only of earth and woman of the man. For my part they seem to be wiser who make no doubt that both sexes shall rise. For there shall be no lust which is now the cause of confusion. For before they sinned the man and the woman were naked and were not ashamed. From those bodies then vice shall be withdrawn while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of woman is not a vice, but nature. It shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and child-bearing. Nevertheless the female members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a new beauty which, so far from provoking lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and clemency of God, who both made what was not and delivered from corruption what he made. For at the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept, for it seemed fit that even then Christ and his church should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ whose side, as he hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the church is built up. For scripture used this very word, not saying he formed or framed, but built her up into a woman, whence also the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ, which is the church. The woman, therefore, is a creature of God even as the man, but by her creation from man unity is commended, and the manner of her creation prefigured as has been said Christ and the church. He, then, who created both sexes will restore both. Jesus himself also, when asked by the Sadducees who denied the resurrection which of the seven brothers should have to wife the woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the law enjoined, says, ye do ere not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. And though it was a fit opportunity for his saying, she about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man, and not a woman, he said nothing of the kind, but in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. They shall be equal to the angels in immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need, because they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection not women, but marriages, and he uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted would have been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist if this had in truth been foreknown by him. But indeed he even affirmed that the sex should exist by saying they shall not be given in marriage which can only apply to females, neither shall they marry which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world accustomed to marry and be given in marriage only they shall there make no such marriages. CHAPTER 18 To understand what the apostle means when he says that we shall all come to a perfect man, we must consider the connection of the whole passage which runs thus. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in him in all things which is the head even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working and the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Behold what the perfect man is, the head and the body which is made up of all the members which in their own time shall be perfected. But new additions are daily being made to this body while the church is being built up to which it is said ye are the body of Christ and his members, and again for his body's sake he says which is the church, and again we being many are one head, one body. It is of the edification of this body that it is here too said, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ, and then that passage of which we are now speaking is added till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ and so on. And he shows of what body we are to understand this to be the measure when he says that we may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working and the measure of every part. As therefore there is a measure of every part, so there is a measure of the fullness of the whole body which is made up of all its parts, and it is of this measure it is said to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. This fullness he spoke of also in the place where he says of Christ and gave him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. But even if this should be referred to the form in which each one shall rise, what should hinder us from applying to the woman what is expressly said of the man, understanding both sexes to be included under the general term man? For certainly in the saying, Blessed is he who feareth the Lord, women also who fear the Lord are included. CHAPTER XIX What am I to say now about the hair and nails? Once it is understood that no part of the body shall so perish as to produce deformity in the body, it is at the same time understood that such things as would have produced a deformity by their excessive proportions shall be added to the total bulk of the body, not to parts in which the beauty of the proportion would thus be marred. Just as if, after making a vessel of clay, one wished to make it over again of the same clay, it would not be necessary that the same portion of the clay which had formed the handle should again form the new handle, or that what had formed the bottom should again do so, but only that the whole clay should go to make up the whole new vessel, and that no part of it should be left unused. Wherefore, if the hair that has been cropped and the nails that have been cut would cause a deformity were they to be restored to their places, they shall not be restored. And yet no one will lose these parts at the resurrection, for they shall be changed into the same flesh, their substance being so altered as to preserve the proportion of the various parts of the body. However, what our Lord said, not a hair of your head shall perish might more suitably be interpreted of the number and not of the length of the hairs, as he elsewhere says, the hairs of your head are all numbered. Nor would I say this because I suppose that any part naturally belonging to the body can perish, but that whatever deformity was in it and served to exhibit the penal condition in which we mortals are, should be restored in such a way that while the substance is entirely preserved the deformity shall perish. For if even a human workman who has, for some reason, made a deformed statue can recast it and make it very beautiful, and this without suffering any part of the substance but only the deformity to be lost, if he can, for example, remove some unbecoming or disproportionate part, not by cutting off and separating this part from the whole, but by so breaking down and mixing up the whole as to get rid of the blemish without diminishing the quantity of his material, shall we not think as highly of the Almighty Worker? Shall he not be able to remove and abolish all deformities of the human body, whether common ones or rare and monstrous, which, though in keeping with this miserable life, are yet not to be thought of in connection with that future blessedness, and shall he not be able so to remove them that, while the natural but unseemly blemishes are put an end to, the natural substance shall suffer no diminution. And consequently overgrown and emaciated persons need not fear that they shall be in heaven of such a figure as they would not be even in this world if they could help it. For all bodily beauty consists in the proportion of the parts together with a certain agreeableness of color. Where there is no proportion, the eye is offended, either because there is something of wanting, or too small, or too large. And thus there shall be no deformity resulting from want of proportion in that state in which all that is wrong is corrected, and all that is defective supplied from resources the Creator wats of, and all that is excessive removed without destroying the integrity of the substance. And as for the pleasant color, how conspicuous shall it be where the just shall shine forth as the son in the kingdom of their father? This brightness we must rather believe to have been concealed from the eyes of the disciples when Christ rose than to have been a wanting. For weak human eyesight could not bear it, and it was necessary that they should so look upon him as to be able to recognize him. For this purpose also he allowed them to touch the marks of his wounds, and also ate and drank, not because he needed nourishment, but because he could take it if he wished. Now when an object, though present, is invisible to the persons who see other things which are present, as we say that that brightness was present but invisible by those who saw other things, this is called in Greek, Eurasia, and our Latin translators for want of a better word, have rendered this Kechitas, blindness, in the book of Genesis. This blindness the men of Sodom suffered when they sought the just lot's gate, and could not find it. But if it had been blindness, that is to say, if they could see nothing, then they would not have asked for the gate by which they might enter the house, but for guides who might lead them away. But the love we bear to the blessed martyrs causes us, I know not how, to desire to see in the heavenly kingdom the marks of the wounds which they received for the name of Christ, and possibly we shall see them. For this will not be a deformity, but a mark of honor, and will add luster to their appearance, and a spiritual, if not a bodily beauty. And yet we need not believe that they to whom it has been said, not a hair of your head shall perish, shall, in the resurrection, want such of their members as they have been deprived of in their martyrdom. But if it will be seemly, in that new kingdom, to have some marks of these wounds still visible in that immortal flesh, the places where they have been wounded or mutilated shall retain the scars without any of the members being lost. While therefore it is quite true that no blemishes which the body has sustained shall appear in the resurrection, yet we are not to reckon or name these marks of virtue, blemishes.