us, bk.
iii., chap. xxxix.). Polycarp's martyrdom, supposed to be in the next
generation, is accompanied by miracle (Epistle of Church of Smyrna;
Apostolical Fathers, p. 92; see ante, pp. 220, 221). At Hierapolis the
daughters of Philip the Apostle tell Papias how one was there raised
from the dead (Eusebius, bk. iii., ch. xxxix.). Justin Martyr pleads the
miracles worked in his own time in Rome itself (second "Apol.," ch.
vi.). Irenaeus urges that the heretics cannot work miracles as can the
Catholics: "they can neither confer sight on the blind, nor hearing on
the deaf, nor chase away all sorts of demons ... nor can they cure the
weak, or the lame, or the paralytic" ("Against Heretics," bk. ii., ch.
xxxi., sec. 2). Tertullian encourages Christians to give up worldly
pleasures by reminding them of their grander powers: "what nobler than
to tread under foot the gods of the nations, to exorcise evil spirits,
to perform cures?" ("De Spectaculis," sec. 29). "Origen claims for
Christians the power still to expel demons, and to heal diseases, in the
name of Jesus; and he states that he had seen many persons so cured of
madness, and countless other evils" (quoted from "Origen against Celsus"
in "Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 154. A mass of evidence on this subject will
be found in chap. v. of this work, on "The Permanent Stream of
Miraculous Pretension"). St. Augustine's testimony has been already
referred to. St. Ambrose discovered the bones of SS. Gervasius and
Protasius; and "these relics were laid in the Faustinian Basilic, and
the next morning were translated into the Ambrosian Basilic; during
which translation a blind man, named Severus, a butcher by trade, was
cured by touching the bier on which the relics lay with a handkerchief,
and then applying it to his eyes. He had been blind several years, was
known to the whole city, and the miracle was performed before a
prodigious number of people; and is testified also by St. Austin
[Augustine], who was then at Milan, in three several parts of his works,
and by Paulinus in the Life of St. Ambrose" ("Lives of the Fathers,
Martyrs, etc.," by Rev. Alban Butler, vol. xii., pp. 1001, 1002; ed.
1838; published in two vols., each containing six vols.). The sacred
stigmata of St. Francis d'Assisi (died 1226) were seen and touched by
St. Bonaventure, Pope Alexander IV., Pope-Gregory IX., fifty friars,
many nuns, and innumerable crowds (Ibid, vol. x., pp. 582, 583). This
same saint underwent