things in nature and
of their own choice, there would be few persons who would not come
back to visit the things or the persons which have been dear to them
during this life. St. Augustine says it of his mother, St.
Monica,[343] who had so tender and constant an affection for him, and
who, while she lived, followed him and sought him by sea and land.
The bad rich man would not have failed, either, to come in person to
his brethren and relations to inform them of the wretched condition in
which he found himself in hell. It is a pure favor of the mercy or the
power of God, and which he grants to very few persons, to make their
appearance after death; for which reason we should be very much on our
guard against all that is said, and all that we find written on the
subject in books.

Footnotes:

[328] Matt. vi. 16. Mark vi. 43.

[329] Acts xii. 13, 14.

[330] Luke xxi. 14, 15.

[331] Luke ix. 32.

[332] Matt. xxvii. 34.

[333] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, ad finem.

[334] Augustin de Diversis Quaest. ad Simplicium, Quaest. cxi.

[335] Acts xxvi. 17.

[336] Macc. x. 29.

[337] 2 Macc. x. 29.

[338] 1 Macc. xi. 1.

[339] Deut. xviii. 11.

[340] Gen. xix. 11.

[341] 2 Kings vi. 19.

[342] Luke xxvi. 16.

[343] Aug. de Cura gerenda pro Mortuis, c. xiii.

CHAPTER XL.

APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS PROVED FROM HISTORY.

St. Augustine[344] acknowledges that the dead have often appeared to
the living, have revealed to them the spot where their body remained
unburied, and have shown them that where they wished to be interred.
He says, moreover, that a noise was often heard in churches where the
dead were inhumed, and that dead persons have been seen often to enter
the houses wherein they dwelt before their decease.

We read that in the Council of Elvira,[345] which was held about the
year 300, it was forbidden to light tapers in the cemeteries, that the
souls of the saints might not be disturbed. The night after the death
of Julian the Apostate, St. Basil[346] had a vision in which he
fancied he saw the martyr, St. Mercurius, who received an order from
God to go and kill Julian. A little time afterwards the same saint
Mercurius returned and cried out, "Lord, Julian is pierced and wounded
to death, as thou commandedst me." In the morning St. Basil announced
this news to the people.

St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in 107,[347]
appeared to his disciples, embracing them, and standing ne