APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS PROVED FROM HISTORY.
St. Augustine[344] acknowledges that the dead have often appeared to
the living, have revealed to them the spot where their body remained
unburied, and have shown them that where they wished to be interred.
He says, moreover, that a noise was often heard in churches where the
dead were inhumed, and that dead persons have been seen often to enter
the houses wherein they dwelt before their decease.
We read that in the Council of Elvira,[345] which was held about the
year 300, it was forbidden to light tapers in the cemeteries, that the
souls of the saints might not be disturbed. The night after the death
of Julian the Apostate, St. Basil[346] had a vision in which he
fancied he saw the martyr, St. Mercurius, who received an order from
God to go and kill Julian. A little time afterwards the same saint
Mercurius returned and cried out, "Lord, Julian is pierced and wounded
to death, as thou commandedst me." In the morning St. Basil announced
this news to the people.
St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in 107,[347]
appeared to his disciples, embracing them, and standing near them; and
as they persevered in praying with still greater fervor, they saw him
crowned with glory, as if in perspiration, coming from a great combat,
environed with light.
After the death of St. Ambrose, which happened on Easter Eve, the same
night in which they baptized neophytes, several newly baptized
children saw the holy bishop,[348] and pointed him out to their
parents, who could not see him because their eyes were not
purified--at least says St. Paulinus, a disciple of the saint, and who
wrote his life.
He adds that on the day of his death the saint appeared to several
holy persons dwelling in the East, praying with them and giving them
the imposition of hands; they wrote to Milan, and it was found, on
comparing the dates, that this occurred on the very day he died. These
letters were still preserved in the time of Paulinus, who wrote all
these things. This holy bishop was also seen several times after his
death praying in the Ambrosian church at Milan, which he promised
during his life that he would often visit. During the siege of Milan,
St. Ambrose appeared to a man of that same city, and promised that the
next day succor would arrive, which happened accordingly. A blind man
having learnt in a vision that the bodies of the holy martyrs Sicineus
and Alexander would come by sea to Milan, and that Bishop Ambrose was
going to meet them, he prayed the same bishop to restore him to sight,
in a dream. Ambrose replied; "Go to Milan; come and meet my brethren;
they will arrive on such a day, and they will restore you to sight."
The blind man went to Milan, where he had never been before, touched
the shrine of the holy martyrs, and recovered his eyesight. He himself
related the circumstance to Paulinus.
The lives of the saints are full of apparitions of deceased persons;
and if they were collected, large volumes might be filled. St.
Ambrose, of whom we have just spoken, discovered after a miraculous
fashion the bodies of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius,[349] and those
of St. Nazairius and St. Celsus.
Evodius, Bishop of Upsal in Africa,[350] a great friend of St.
Augustine, was well persuaded of the reality of apparitions of the
dead, from his own experience, and he relates several instances of
such things which happened in his own time; as that of a good widow to
whom a deacon appeared who had been dead for four years. He was
accompanied by several of the servants of God, of both sexes, who were
preparing a palace of extraordinary beauty. This widow asked him for
whom they were making these preparations; he replied that it was for
the youth who died the preceding day. At the same time, a venerable
old man, who was in the same palace, commanded two young men, arrayed
in white, to take the deceased young man out of his grave and conduct
him to this place. As soon as he had left the grave, fresh roses and
rose-beds sprang up; and the young man appeared to a monk, and told
him that God had received him into the number of his elect, and had
sent him to fetch his father, who in fact died four days after of slow
fever.
Evodius asks himself diverse questions on this recital: If the soul on
quitting its (mortal) body does not retain a certain subtile body,
with which it appears, and by means of which it is transported from
one spot to another? If the angels even have not a certain kind of
body?--for if they are incorporeal, how can they be counted? And if
Samuel appeared to Saul, how could it take place if Samuel had no
members? He adds, "I remember well that Profuturus, Privatus and
Servitus, whom I had known in the monastery here, appeared to me, and
talked with me after their decease; and what they told me, happened.
Was it their soul which appeared to me, or was it some other spirit
which assumed their form?" He concludes from this that the soul is not
absolutely bodiless, since God alone is incorporeal.[351]
St. Augustine, who was consulted on this matter by Evodius, does not
think that the soul, after the death of the body, is clothed with any
material substantial form; but he confesses that it is very difficult
to explain how an infinite number of things are done, which pass in
our minds, as well in our sleep as when we are awake, in which we seem
to see, feel, and discourse, and do things which it would appear could
be done only by the body, although it is certain that nothing bodily
occurs. And how can we explain things so unknown, and so far beyond
anything that we experience every day, since we cannot explain even
what daily experience shows us.[352] Evodius adds that several persons
after their decease have been going and coming in their houses as
before, both day and night; and that in churches where the dead were
buried, they often heard a noise in the night as of persons praying
aloud.
St. Augustine, to whom Evodius writes all this, acknowledges that
there is a great distinction to be made between true and false
visions, and that he could wish he had some sure means of discerning
them correctly. The same saint relates on this occasion a remarkable
story, which has much connection with the matter we are treating upon.
A physician named Gennadius, a great friend of St. Augustine's, and
well known at Carthage for his great talent and his kindness to the
poor, doubted whether there was another life. One day he saw, in a
dream, a young man who said to him, "Follow me;" he followed him in
spirit, and found himself in a city, where, on his right hand, he
heard most admirable melody; he did not remember what he heard on his
left.
Another time he saw the same young man, who said to him, "Do you know
me?" "Very well," answered he. "And whence comes it that you know me?"
He related to him what he had showed him in the city whither he had
led him. The young man added, "Was it in a dream, or awake, that you
saw all that?" "In a dream?" he replied. The young man then asked,
"Where is your body now?" "In my bed," said he. "Do you know that now
you see nothing with the eyes of your body?" "I know it," answered he.
"Well, then, with what eyes do you behold me?" As he hesitated, and
knew not what to reply, the young man said to him, "In the same way
that you see and hear me now that your eyes are shut, and your senses
asleep; thus after death you will live, you will see, you will hear,
but with eyes of the spirit; so doubt not that there is another life
after the present one."
The great St. Anthony, one day when he was wide awake, saw the soul of
the hermit St. Ammon being carried into heaven in the midst of choirs
of angels. Now, St. Ammon died that same day, at five days' journey
from thence, in the desert of Nitria. The same St. Anthony saw also
the soul of St. Paul Hermitus ascending to heaven surrounded by choirs
of angels and prophets. St. Benedict beheld the spirit of St. Germain,
Bishop of Capua, at the moment of his decease, who was carried into
heaven by angels. The same saint saw the soul of his sister, St.
Scholastica, rising to heaven in the form of a dove. We might multiply
such instances without end. They are true apparitions of souls
separated from their bodies.
St. Sulpicius Severus, being at some distance from the city of Tours,
and ignorant of what was passing there, fell one morning into a light
slumber; as he slept he beheld St. Martin, who appeared to him in a
white garment, his countenance shining, his eyes sparkling, his hair
of a purple color; it was, nevertheless, very easy to recognise him by
his air and his face. St. Martin showed himself to him with a smiling
countenance, and holding in his hand the book which St. Sulpicius
Severus had composed upon his life. Sulpicius threw himself at his
feet, embraced his knees, and implored his benediction, which the
saint bestowed upon him. All this passed in a vision; and as St.
Martin rose into the air, Sulpicius Severus saw still in the spirit
the priest Clarus, a disciple of the saint, who went the same way and
rose towards heaven. At that moment Sulpicius awoke, and a lad who
served him, on entering, told him that two monks who were just arrived
from Tours, had brought word that St. Martin was dead.
The Baron de Coussey, an old and respectable magistrate, has related
to me more than once that, being at more than sixty leagues from the
town where his mother died the night she breathed her last, he was
awakened by the barking of a dog which laid at the foot of his bed;
and at the same moment he perceived the head of his mother environed
by a great light, who, entering by the window into his chamber, spoke
to him distinctly, and announced to him various things concerning the
state of his affairs.
St. Chrysostom, in his exile,[353] and the night preceding his death,
saw the martyr St. Basilicus, who said to him--"Courage, brother John;
to-morrow we shall be together." The same thing was foretold to a
priest who lived in the same place. St. Basilicus said to him,
"Prepare a place for my brother John; for, behold, he is coming."
The discovery of the body of St. Stephen, the first martyr, is very
celebrated in the Church; this occurred in the year 415. St. Gamaliel,
who had been the master of St. Paul before his conversion, appeared to
a priest named Lucius, who slept in the baptistery of the Church at
Jerusalem to guard the sacred vases, and told him that his own body
and that of St. Stephen the proto-martyr were interred at
Caphargamala, in the suburb named Dilagabis; that the body of his son
named Abibas, and that of Nicodemus, reposed in the same spot. Lucius
had the same vision three times following, with an interval of a few
days between. John, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was then at the
Council of Dioscopolis, repaired to the spot, made the discovery and
translation of the relics, which were transported to Jerusalem, and a
great number of miracles were performed there.
Licinius, being in his tent,[354] thinking of the battle he was to
fight on the morrow, saw an angel, who dictated to him a form of
prayer which he made his soldiers learn by heart, and by means of
which he gained the victory over the Emperor Maximian.
Mascezel, general of the Roman troops which Stilicho sent into Africa
against Gildas, prepared himself for this war, in imitation of
Theodosius the Great, by prayer and the intervention of the servants
of God. He took with him in his vessel some monks, whose only
occupation during the voyage was to pray, fast, and sing psalms.
Gildas had an army of seventy thousand men; Mascezel had but five
thousand, and did not think he could without rashness attempt to
compete with an enemy so powerful and so far superior in the number of
his forces. As he was pondering uneasily on these things, St. Ambrose,
who died the year before, appeared to him by night, holding a staff in
his hand, and struck the ground three times, crying, "Here, here,
here!" Mascezel understood that the saint promised him the victory in
that same spot three days after. In fact, the third day he marched
upon the enemy, offering peace to the first whom he met; but an ensign
having replied to him very arrogantly, he gave him a severe blow with
his sword upon his arm, which made his standard swerve; those who were
afar off thought that he was yielding, and that he lowered his
standard in sign of submission, and they hastened to do the same.
Paulinus, who wrote the life of St. Ambrose, assures us that he had
these particulars from the lips of Mascezel himself; and Orosius heard
them from those who had been eye-witnesses of the fact.
The persecutors having inflicted martyrdom on seven Christian
virgins,[355] one of them appeared the following night to St.
Theodosius of Ancyra, and revealed to him the spot where herself and
her companions had been thrown into the lake, each one with a stone
tied around her neck. As Theodosius and his people were occupied in
searching for their bodies, a voice from heaven warned Theodosius to
be on his guard against the traitor, meaning to indicate Polycronius,
who betrayed Theodosius, and was the occasion of his being arrested
and martyred.
St. Potamienna,[356] a Christian virgin who suffered martyrdom at
Alexandria, appeared after her death to several persons, and was the
cause of their conversion to Christianity. She appeared in particular
to a soldier named Basilidus, who, as he was conducting her to the
place of execution, had protected her from the insults of the
populace. This soldier, encouraged by Potamienna, who in a vision
placed a garland upon his head, was baptized, and received the crown
of martyrdom.
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, being
greatly occupied with certain theological difficulties, raised by
heretics concerning the mysteries of religion, and having passed great
part of the night in studying those matters, saw a venerable old man
enter his room, having by his side a lady of august and divine form;
he comprehended that these were the Holy Virgin and St. John the
Evangelist. The Virgin exhorted St. John to instruct the bishop, and
dissipate his embarrassment, by explaining clearly to him the mystery
of the Trinity and the Divinity of the Verb or Word. He did so, and
St. Gregory wrote it down instantly. It is the doctrine which he left
to his church, and which they have to this very day.
Footnotes:
[344] Aug. de Cura gerend. pro Mortuis, c. x.
[345] Concil. Eliber, auno circiter 300.
[346] Amplilo. vita S. Basil. and Chronic. Alex. p. 692.
[347] Acta sincera Mart. pp. 11, 22. Edit. 1713.
[348] Paulin. vit. S. Ambros. n. 47, 48.
[349] Ambros. Epist. 22, p. 874; vid. notes, ibid.
[350] Evod. Upsal. apud Aug. Epist. clviii. Idem, Aug. Epist. clix.
[351] "Animan igitur omni corpore carere omnino non posse, illud, ut
puto, ostendit quia Deus solus omni corpore semper caret."
[352] "Quid se praecipitat de rarissimis aut inexpertis quasi definitam
ferre sententiam, cum quotidiana et continua non solvat?"
[353] Palladius, Dialog, de Vita Chrysost. c. xi.
[354] Lactant. de Mort. Persec. c. 46.
[355] Acta sincera Martyr. passion. S. Theodos. M. pp. 343, 344.
[356] Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 8.