or us to see in a dream a dead person as we see a
living one, without either one or the other knowing how, when, or
where, these images are formed in our mind. It is also possible that a
dead man may appear to the living without being aware of it, and
discover to them secrets and hidden things, the result of which
reveals their truth and reality. When a living man appears in a dream
to another man, we do not say that his body or his spirit have
appeared, but simply that such a one has appeared to him. Why can we
not say that the dead appear without body and without soul, but simply
that their form presents itself to the mind and imagination of the
living person?

St. Augustine, in the book which he has composed on the care which we
ought to take of the dead,[410] says that a holy monk, named John,
appeared to a pious woman, who ardently desired to see him. The
saintly doctor reasons a great deal on this apparition;--whether this
solitary foresaw what would happen to him; if he went in spirit to
this woman; if it is his angel or his spirit in his bodily form which
appeared to her in her sleep, as we behold in our dreams absent
persons who are known to us. We should be able to speak to the monk
himself, to know from himself how that occurred, if by the power of
God, or by his permission; for there is little appearance that he did
it by any natural power.

It is said that St. Simeon Stylites[411] appeared to his disciple St.
Daniel, who had undertaken the journey to Jerusalem, where he would
have to suffer much for Jesus Christ's sake. St. Benedict[412] had
promised to comply with the request of some architects, who had begged
him to come and show them how he wished them to build a certain
monastery; the saint did not go to them bodily, but he went thither in
spirit, and gave them the plan and design of the house which they were
to construct. These men did not comprehend that it was what he had
promised them, and came to him again to ask what were his intentions
relative to this edifice: he said to them, "I have explained it to you
in a dream; you can follow the plan which you have seen."

The Caesar Bardas, who had so mightily contributed to the deposition of
St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, had a vision, which he thus
related to Philothes his friend. "I thought I was that night going in
procession to the high church with the Emperor Michael. When we had
entered and were near the ambe, there appeared two eunu