s, went to ask this dead
man why he went out? The dead man replied that it was because he had
died in a state of excommunication. The saint asked him, where was the
sepulchre of the priest who had pronounced against him the sentence
of excommunication? They went thither; St. Augustin commanded him to
rise; he came to life, and avowed that he had excommunicated the man
for his crimes, and particularly for his obstinacy in refusing to pay
tithes; then, by order of St. Augustin, he gave him absolution, and
the dead man returned to his tomb. The priest entreated the saint to
permit him also to return to his sepulchre, which was granted him.
This story appears to me still more suspicious than the preceding one.
In the time of St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, there was no
obligation as yet to pay tithes on pain of excommunication, and much
less a hundred and fifty years before that time--above all in England.

Footnotes:

[502] John Brompton, Chronic. vide ex Bolland. 26 Maii, p. 396.

CHAPTER XXVI.

INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO HAVE SHOWN SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER THEIR DEATH,
AND WHO HAVE DRAWN BACK FROM RESPECT, TO MAKE ROOM OR GIVE PLACE TO
SOME WHO WERE MORE WORTHY THAN THEMSELVES.

Tertullian relates[503] an instance to which he had been witness--_de
meo didici_. A woman who belonged to the church, to which she had been
given as a slave, died in the prime of life, after being once married
only, and that for a short time, was brought to the church. Before
putting her in the ground, the priest offering the sacrifice and
raising his hands in prayer, this woman, who had her hands extended at
her side, raised them at the same time, and put them together as a
supplicant; then, when the peace was given, she replaced herself in
her former position.

Tertullian adds that another body, dead, and buried in a cemetery,
withdrew on one side to give place to another corpse which they were
about to inter near it. He relates these instances as a suite to what
was said by Plato and Democritus, that souls remained some time near
the dead bodies they had inhabited, which they preserved sometimes
from corruption, and often caused their hair, beard, and nails to grow
in their graves. Tertullian does not approve of the opinion of these;
he even refutes them pretty well; but he owns that the instances I
have just spoken of are favorable enough to that opinion, which is
also that of the Hebrews, as we have before seen.

It is sai