d about like a coachman who hastens
on his horses.

St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, being at Treves, entered a house, where
he found a spectre which frightened him at first. Martin commanded him
to leave the body which he possessed: instead of going out (of the
place), he entered the body of another man who was in the same
dwelling; and throwing himself upon those who were there, began to
attack and bite them. Martin threw himself across his way, put his
fingers in his mouth, and defied him to bite him. The demoniac
retreated, as if a bar of red-hot iron had been placed in his mouth,
and at last the demon went out of the body of the possessed, not by
the mouth but behind.

John, Bishop of Atria, who lived in the sixth century, in speaking of
the great plague which happened under the Emperor Justinian, and which
is mentioned by almost all the historians of that time, says that they
saw boats of brass, containing black men without heads, which sailed
upon the sea, and went towards the places where the plague was
beginning its ravages; that this infection having depopulated a town
of Egypt, so that there remained only seven men and a boy ten years of
age, these persons, wishing to get away from the town with a great
deal of money, fell down dead suddenly.

The boy fled without carrying anything with him, but at the gate of
the town he was stopped by a spectre, who dragged him, in spite of his
resistance, into the house where the seven dead men were. Some time
after, the steward of a rich man having entered therein, to take away
some furniture belonging to his master, who had gone to reside in the
country, was warned by the same boy to go away--but he died suddenly.
The servants who had accompanied the steward ran away, and carried the
news of all this to their master.

The same Bishop John relates that he was at Constantinople during a
very great plague, which carried off ten, twelve, fifteen, and sixteen
thousand persons a-day, so that they reckon that two hundred thousand
persons died of this malady--he says, that during this time demons
were seen running from house to house, wearing the habits of
ecclesiastics or monks, and who caused the death of those whom they
met therein.

The death of Carlostadt was accompanied by frightful circumstances,
according to the ministers of Basle, his colleagues, who bore witness
to it at the time. They[306] relate, that at the last sermon which
Carlostadt preached in the temple of B