After mass, St. Augustin, preceded by the cross, went to ask this dead man why he went out? The dead man replied that it was because he had died in a state of excommunication. The saint asked him, where was the sepulchre of the priest who had pronounced against him the sentence of excommunication? They went thither; St. Augustin commanded him to rise; he came to life, and avowed that he had excommunicated the man for his crimes, and particularly for his obstinacy in refusing to pay tithes; then, by order of St. Augustin, he gave him absolution, and the dead man returned to his tomb. The priest entreated the saint to permit him also to return to his sepulchre, which was granted him. This story appears to me still more suspicious than the preceding one. In the time of St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, there was no obligation as yet to pay tithes on pain of excommunication, and much less a hundred and fifty years before that time—above all in England.
Footnotes:
[[502]] John Brompton, Chronic. vide ex Bolland. 26 Maii, p. 396.
CHAPTER XXVI.
INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO HAVE SHOWN SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER THEIR DEATH, AND WHO HAVE DRAWN BACK FROM RESPECT, TO MAKE ROOM OR GIVE PLACE TO SOME WHO WERE MORE WORTHY THAN THEMSELVES.
Tertullian relates[[503]] an instance to which he had been witness—de meo didici. A woman who belonged to the church, to which she had been given as a slave, died in the prime of life, after being once married only, and that for a short time, was brought to the church. Before putting her in the ground, the priest offering the sacrifice and raising his hands in prayer, this woman, who had her hands extended at her side, raised them at the same time, and put them together as a supplicant; then, when the peace was given, she replaced herself in her former position.
Tertullian adds that another body, dead, and buried in a cemetery, withdrew on one side to give place to another corpse which they were about to inter near it. He relates these instances as a suite to what was said by Plato and Democritus, that souls remained some time near the dead bodies they had inhabited, which they preserved sometimes from corruption, and often caused their hair, beard, and nails to grow in their graves. Tertullian does not approve of the opinion of these; he even refutes them pretty well; but he owns that the instances I have just spoken of are favorable enough to that opinion, which is also that of the Hebrews, as we have before seen.
It is said that after the death of the celebrated Abelard,[[504]] who was interred at the Monastery of the Paraclete, the Abbess Heloisa, his spouse, being also deceased, and having requested to be buried in the same grave, at her approach Abelard extended his arms and received her into his bosom: elevatis brachiis illam recepit, et ita eam amplexatus brachia sua strinxit. This circumstance is certainly neither proved nor probable; the Chronicle whence it is extracted had probably taken it from some popular rumor.
The author of the Life of St. John the Almoner,[[505]] which was written immediately after his death by Leontius, Bishop of Naples, a town in the Isle of Cyprus, relates that St. John the Almoner being dead at Amatunta, in the same island, his body was placed between that of two bishops, who drew back on each side respectfully to make room for him in sight of all present; non unus, neque decem, neque centum viderunt, sed omnis turba, quæ convenit ad ejus sepulturam, says the author cited. Metaphrastes, who had read the life of the saint in Greek, repeats the same fact.