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phetæ visorum suorum non semper fidi interpretes, Donum prophetias interpretandi prorsus erat distinctum a prophetice charismate, says Fell on Cyprian.

As to the voice † from heaven, there is nothing frivolous in such a miracle; it might be true: but yet it is a miracle which might be counterfeited, and one single Christian might have made the speech from a house-top, near the stadium, and have lain concealed there; and if he kept his counsel, all his brethren might have been deceived by him.

The human voice, if it be clear and strong, may be heard at a great distance. The Heralds in Homer had this accomplishment, and were Bon ayatoi, and Darius Hystaspis had an Egyptian in the army who was as good as a speaking-trumpet. 'Arp Aiyúlos pariων μέγισον ἀνθρώπων, who saved Darius and the army when they were in great danger, by the force of his lungs.. Herodotus iv. p. 266.

If the voice had been accompanied with an unusual splendor in the air, or with an earthquake, or preceded

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+ When Constantius, an Arian emperor, was carried in funeral pomp, his friends affirmed that a choir of angels attended the proces sion, singing and playing in the air; and Gregory Nazianzen thought fit to record this miracle. Ea subdit Nazianzenus, quibus fidem afferre nobis est difficillimum: Cum corpus Tauro monte superato, ad paternam civitatem veheretur, vox quædam e summis locis a nonullis audiebatur, velut psallentium et prosequentium; Angelicorum, opinor, cœtuum, quod pietatis illi præmium erat, funebrisque remuneratio. Orat. 4. Quæ figmenta ex Ariana officina prodiisse videntur. S. Basnage, Ann. ii. 863. Gregory Nazianzen had a favourable opinion of Constantius; but Lucifer Calaritanus, Hilary, and Athanasius load him with reproaches, and call him Tyrant, Antichrist, &c, Thus you have fathers against fathers, and saints against saints,

by thunder and lightning in a clear sky, the wonder had been evident.

The author of the epistle observes that the Christians who attended Polycarp, heard this voice, but says not a word of the Jews and Gentiles, and leaves us uncertain whether they heard it or no.

A sweet smell issued from the pile. This is surely a very suspicious miracle; and they who have defended the account of Polycarp's martyrdom, are willing to pass it over as fast as they can. They are in the right, for in truth it casts some dishonour upon the whole narration. The fact in all probability was true; scented wood is common in hot countries, and the odour might proceed from the fuel, for the people ran about to the baths and other places to get wood; and a Christian might also join with them, and bring a bundle of wood with aromatics enclosed in it, to honour the funeral of his bishop. It had been an ancient fashion in various places to waste abundance of aromatics in burning dead persons of rank and quality; or those who threw themselves alive into the flames in complaisance to the deceased, or in compliance with cruel custom, as the Indian wives or a philosopher, who now and then mounted the pile, and entertained the public with roast-meat, as the Gymnosophists, Calanus, &c. The writer of the epistle would make us believe that these perfumes were conferred on Polycarp's pile, miraculously no doubt, else it would not have been worth the recording. The Christians, however frugal in other respects, yet in these expences were very profuse at the interment of their brethren. Si Arabice queruntur, says Tertullian, sciunt Sabæi pluris et carioris suas merces Christiais sepeliendis profligari, quam Düs fumigandis.

This account of the yielding of the flames, of the voice, and of the sweet odour might give occasion to later writers to apply these wonders to other martyrs, as they frequently do. See Prudentius Περὶ Στεφ. vi.

100. and Basil, Hom. v. not to mention many more. The history of the aromatic scent of the sacred bones would fill a moderate folio. By the help of this odour reliques were discovered, and genuine bones distinguished from counterfeits, and it was very easy to find out a saint, without borrowing the Lanthorn of Diogenes :

Ubi ubi est, diu celari non potest.

Tillemont is excessively fond of this prodigy, and never fails to record it with great seriousness; and indeed there is no reason to question the fact, for of all miracles it is the easiest to be performed, and therefore the least satisfactory :

-Non bene olet, qui bene semper olet.

The Pagan goddesses also smelt very sweet, as the poets, to whom they were best known, testify:

Ambrosiæque come divinum vertice odorem
Spiracere,

says Virgil.

Mansit odor; posses scire fuisse deam.

Ovid. Fast. v.

The Temple at Hierapolis smelt of the sweetest prefume, as the writer De Dea Syria assures us.

In Abul-Feda's life of Mohammed, we are told that a most agreeable odour proceeded from his carcase after he was dead,

Copres, a monk of the fourth century, is said to have stood half an hour in the midst of a great fire, unhurt, to confute a poor Manichæan doctor who could not perform the same exploit. Rufinus Vit. Patrum.

Helles,

Helles, another monk of those days would carry fire in his bosom, which neither singed his clothes nor his skin. Sozomen vi. 28. This miracle was wrought with a view to what is said, Prov. vi. 27. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? But Solomon, as well as Bernard, non vidit omnia. Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? Prov. vi. 28. This is what Pagans have pretended to do, as we shall see :

incedunt per ignes

Suppositos cineri doloso.

The arching of the flames, &c. if it was just as the author of the epistle relates it, must have been something preternatural: but the question is, whether the author's imagination did not impose upon him, and make him fancy a little more in it than there really was. If Polycarp had prophesied that his enemies could not and should not burn him, it had been remarkable indeed but here is a martyr, who could not be burned, and who was run through without difficulty. Besides the seeming disagreement of the prediction and the event, one may reasonably ask. To what purpose this miracle? nor is the question easily answered.

Yet that is not all the miracle was not only of the useless kind, but it might have produced rather a bad than a good effect on the minds of the spectators :

The

Therefore, as later authors improve upon their predecessors, the writers of the martyrdom of Romanus say, that when he was condemned to the flames, he declared before hand that the fire should not burn him, and accordingly a miraculous shower (borrowed it may be from the story of Croesus in Herodotus) put it out. Prudentius.

The Pagans had many examples in their fabulous and poetic history of men who had been unhurt in the flames, and they had also their priests and priestesses who walked barefoot over the fire without harm; but these things were supposed by some Pagans to be tricks, by others to be magical operations; and consequently the inference made by the vulgar Pagans, and perhaps by the Jews, would have been, that Polycarp was an old magician, who had recourse, though in vain, to inchantments, and that his Dæmon had secured him for a time, from the flames, but could not protect him from the sword. Virgil En. xi. 785. Summe Deúm, sancti custos Soractis Apollo, Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor acervo Pascitur; et medium freti pietate per ignem Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna.

Where Servius; Freti pietate. Iste quidem hoc dixit ; sed Varro, ubique expugnator religionis, ait, cum quoddam medicamentum describeret:" Eo uti solent Hirpini, qui ambulaturi per ignem, medicamento plantas tin"gunt."

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Haud procul urbe Roma in Faliscorum agro familice sunt paucae, quae vocantur Hirpi; he sacrificio annuo, quod fit ad montem Soractem Appollini, super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes non aduruntur. Et ob id perpetuo Senatusconsulto militice omniumque aliorum munerum vacationem habent. Plinius I. vii. p. 372.

Ἐν τοῖς Καταβάλοις ἐςὶ τὸ τῆς Περασίας ̓Αρτέμιδος ἱερὸν, ὅπω φασὶ τὰς ἱερείας γυμνοῖς τοῖς ποσὶ δι ̓ ἀνθρακιᾶς βαδίζειν ἀπαθεῖς. Apud Castabala autem Perasie Diane fanum est, ubi aiunt fæminas sacerdotes illæsis pedibus per prunas am

bulare. Strabo.

Le Clerc, speaking of the water of jealousy, Numb. v. says, An ultio divina perjurium illico sequeretur non

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