[23] Socrates, Philostorgius, Gelasius, and Nicephorus declare that the Cross was in the sky. Sozomen, too, on the authority of Eusebius, makes a similar statement. So likewise does Rufinus.
[24] This standard was known by the name of the “Labarum”—a word the etymology of which is very uncertain. It was a pole plated with gold, upon which was laid horizontally a cross-bar, so as to form the figure of a cross. The top of the perpendicular shaft was adorned with a golden crown, ornamented with precious stones. In the middle of this crown was a monogram representing the name of Christ by the two Greek initial letters Χ and Ρ. A purple veil of a square figure hung from the cross-bar, which was likewise spangled with jewels. Gretser, “De Cruce,” Lib. i. cap. iv.
[25] S. John v. 20.
[26] Liber cont. Hær. c. xxxi.
[27] Daniel ix. 20-27.
[28] These miraculous interventions are testified to by S. Gregory Nazianzen, S. Chrysostom, and S. Ambrose, as well as by Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. They are also recorded by Philostorgius the Arian, and by Ammianus the Pagan. Bishop Warburton published a volume entitled “Julian” in proof of their miraculous character, and they are acknowledged as such by Bishop Halifax on p. 23 of his “Discourses.”
[29] Those who testify to the truth of this miracle are firstly a Christian prelate, Victor Vitenus, “Hist. Pers.” sec. Vandal, iii. p. 613, whose words are translated above; the Emperor Justinian (who declares that he had seen some of the sufferers, “Codex Justin.” Lib. I. Tit. xxx. Ed. 1553); the Greek historian, Procopius of Cæsarea, who asserts that their tongues were cut off as low down as their throat, and that he had conversed with them, Lib. I. “De Bell. Vand.” cap. viij. and x. 1. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, who, having examined their mouths, remarked that he was not so much surprised at their being able to talk, as at their being able to live. He saw them at Constantinople. Mosheim, amongst Protestants, and Dodwell, the nonjuror, amongst English writers, frankly admit the miracle. The most lucid and exhaustive account, however, may be found in Section ix. of Dr. J. H. Newman’s “Essays on Miracles,” pp. 369-387 (Second edition, London, 1870), where the ancient evidence is set forth at length.
[30] On this subject a volume has recently been published, entitled “The Tongue not Essential to Speech: with Illustrations of the Power of Speech in the African Confessors.” By the Hon. Edward Twistleton. London: 1873. This book has been carefully and exhaustively criticized in “The Month,” for September, 1873. It will be sufficient here to remark that the modern scientific objections to this miracle, that, because in a certain case, by the skill of an operator, a tongue was so removed with marked dexterity in recent times, therefore the power of speech retained by the African Confessors was an ordinary event, are objections at once inconsequential and invalid.
[31] “De Civitate Dei,” Lib. xxii. p. 8.
[32] “Epist. Sti. Greg.;” “Hist. Bed.” Lib. i. c. xxxj.