o, as he was conducting her to the
place of execution, had protected her from the insults of the
populace. This soldier, encouraged by Potamienna, who in a vision
placed a garland upon his head, was baptized, and received the crown
of martyrdom.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, being
greatly occupied with certain theological difficulties, raised by
heretics concerning the mysteries of religion, and having passed great
part of the night in studying those matters, saw a venerable old man
enter his room, having by his side a lady of august and divine form;
he comprehended that these were the Holy Virgin and St. John the
Evangelist. The Virgin exhorted St. John to instruct the bishop, and
dissipate his embarrassment, by explaining clearly to him the mystery
of the Trinity and the Divinity of the Verb or Word. He did so, and
St. Gregory wrote it down instantly. It is the doctrine which he left
to his church, and which they have to this very day.

Footnotes:

[344] Aug. de Cura gerend. pro Mortuis, c. x.

[345] Concil. Eliber, auno circiter 300.

[346] Amplilo. vita S. Basil. and Chronic. Alex. p. 692.

[347] Acta sincera Mart. pp. 11, 22. Edit. 1713.

[348] Paulin. vit. S. Ambros. n. 47, 48.

[349] Ambros. Epist. 22, p. 874; vid. notes, ibid.

[350] Evod. Upsal. apud Aug. Epist. clviii. Idem, Aug. Epist. clix.

[351] "Animan igitur omni corpore carere omnino non posse, illud, ut
puto, ostendit quia Deus solus omni corpore semper caret."

[352] "Quid se praecipitat de rarissimis aut inexpertis quasi definitam
ferre sententiam, cum quotidiana et continua non solvat?"

[353] Palladius, Dialog, de Vita Chrysost. c. xi.

[354] Lactant. de Mort. Persec. c. 46.

[355] Acta sincera Martyr. passion. S. Theodos. M. pp. 343, 344.

[356] Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 8.

CHAPTER XLI.

MORE INSTANCES OF APPARITIONS.

Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, relates that a good priest named
Stephen, having received the confession of a lord named Guy, who was
mortally wounded in a combat, this lord appeared to him completely
armed some time after his death, and begged of him to tell his brother
Anselm to restore an ox which he Guy had taken from a peasant, whom he
named, and repair the damage which he had done to a village which did
not belong to him, and which he had taxed with undue charges; that he
had forgotten to declare these two sins in his last confession, and
that he was c