Theodosius, of whom they thought not at
all, and who was at a great distance from the court, was the person
designated by these letters. In 379, he was declared Augustus by the
Emperor Gratian, and in coming to Constantinople in 380, he had a
dream, in which it seemed to him that Melitus, Bishop of Antioch, whom
he had never seen, and knew only by reputation, invested him with the
imperial mantle and placed the diadem on his head.

They were then assembling the Eastern bishops to hold the Council of
Constantinople. Theodosius begged that Melitus might not be pointed
out to him, saying that he should recognize him by the signs he had
seen in his dream. In fact, he distinguished him amongst all the other
bishops, embraced him, kissed his hands, and looked upon him ever
after as his father. This was a distinct apparition of a living
man.[406]

St. Augustine relates[407] that a certain man saw, in the night before
he slept, a philosopher, who was known to him, enter his house, and
who explained to him some of Plato's opinions which he would not
explain to him before. This apparition of the Platonician was merely
fantastic; for the person to whom he had appeared having asked him why
he would not explain to him at his house what he had come to explain
to him when at home, the philosopher replied, "I did not do so, but I
dreamt I did so." Here, then, are two persons both alive, one of whom,
in his sleep and dreaming, speaks to another who is wide awake, and
sees him only in imagination.

The same St. Augustine[408] acknowledges in the presence of his people
that he had appeared to two persons who had never seen him, and knew
him only by reputation, and that he advised them to come to Hippo, to
be there cured by the merit of the martyr St. Stephen:--they came
there, and recovered their health.

Evodius, teaching rhetoric at Carthage,[409] and finding himself
puzzled concerning the sense of a passage in the books of the Rhetoric
of Cicero, which he was to explain the next day to his scholars, was
much disquieted when he went to bed, and could hardly get to sleep.
During his sleep he fancied he saw St. Augustine, who was then at
Milan, a great way from Carthage, who was not thinking of him at all,
and was apparently sleeping very quietly in his bed at Milan, who came
to him and explained the passage in question. St. Augustine avows that
he does not know how it happens; but in whatever way it may occur, it
is very possible f