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| Chapter XX.
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Chapter XX.
“I will, however,
still further give you an account of two extraordinary marvels. The one
of these will be a notable warning against the inflation of wretched
vanity, and the other will serve as no mean guard against the display
of a spurious righteousness.
“A certain saint, then, endowed with almost
incredible power in casting out demons from the bodies of those
possessed by them, was, day by day, performing unheard-of miracles.
For, not only when present, and not merely by his word, but while
absent also, he, from time to time, cured possessed bodies, by some
threads taken from his garment, or by letters which he sent. He,
therefore, was to a wonderful degree visited by people who came to him
from every part of the world. I say nothing about those of humbler
rank; but prefects, courtiers, and judges of various ranks often lay at
his doors. Most holy bishops also, laying aside their priestly dignity,
and humbly imploring him to touch and bless them, believed with good
reason that they were sanctified, and illumined with a divine gift, as
often as they touched his hand and garment. He was reported to abstain
always and utterly from every kind of drink, and for food (I will
whisper this, Sulpitius, into your ear lest
our friend the Gaul hear it), to subsist
upon only six dried figs. But in the meantime, just as honor accrued to
the holy man from his excellence,106
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“virtute,” perhaps power, as in many other
places. | so vanity began
to steal upon him from the honor which was paid him. When first he
perceived that this evil was growing upon him, he struggled long and
earnestly to shake it off, but it could not be thoroughly got rid of by
all his efforts, since he still had a secret consciousness of being
under the influence of vanity. Everywhere did the demons acknowledge
his name, while he was not able to exclude from his presence the number
of people who flocked to him. The hidden poison was, in the meantime,
working in his breast, and he, at whose beck demons were expelled from
the bodies of others, was quite unable to cleanse himself from the
hidden thoughts of vanity. Betaking himself, therefore, with fervent
supplication to God, he is said to have prayed that, power being given
to the devil over him for five months, he might become like to those
whom he himself had cured. Why should I delay with many words? That
most powerful man,—he, renowned for his miracles and virtues
through all the East, he, to whose threshold multitudes had gathered,
and at whose door the highest dignitaries of that age had prostrated
themselves—laid hold of by a demon, was kept fast in chains. It
was only after having suffered all those things which the possessed are
wont to endure, that at length in the fifth month he was delivered, not
only from the demon, but (what was to him more useful and desirable)
from the vanity which had dwelt within him.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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