Alexandria[591] relate, that the son of
Zoroaster was resuscitated twelve days after his (supposed) death, and
when his body had been laid upon the funeral pyre. Phlegon says,[592]
that a Syrian soldier in the army of Antiochus, after having been
killed at Thermopylae, appeared in open day in the Roman camp, and
spoke to several. And Plutarch relates,[593] that a man named
Thespesius, who had fallen from the roof of a house, came to himself
the third day after he died (or seemed to die) of his fall.

St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians,[594] seems to suppose that
sometimes the soul transported itself without the body, to repair to
the spot where it is in mind or thought; for instance, he says, that
he has been transported to the third heaven; but he adds that he knows
not whether in the body, or only in spirit--"Sive in corpora, sive
extra corpus, nescio, Deus scit." We have already cited St.
Augustine,[595] who mentions a priest of Calamus, named Pretextat,
who, at the sound of the voices of some persons who lamented their
sins, fell into such an ecstasy of delight, that he no longer breathed
or felt anything; and they might have cut and burnt his flesh without
his perceiving it; his soul was absent, or really so occupied with
these lamentations, that he was insensible to pain. In swoons and
syncope, the soul no longer performs her ordinary functions. She is
nevertheless in the body, and continues to animate it, but she
perceives not her own action.

A cure of the Diocese of Constance, named Bayer, writes me word that
in 1728, having been appointed to the cure of Rutheim, he was
disturbed a month afterwards by a spectre, or an evil genius, in the
form of a peasant, badly made, and ill-dressed, very ill-looking, and
stinking insupportably, who came and knocked at the door in an
insolent manner, and having entered his study told him that he had
been sent by an official of the Prince of Constance, his bishop, upon
a certain commission which was found to be absolutely false. He then
asked for something to eat, and they placed before him meat, bread,
and wine. He took up the meat with both hands, and devoured it bones
and all, saying, "See how I eat both flesh and bone--do the same."
Then he took up the wine-cup, and swallowed it at a draught, asking
for another, which he drank off in the same fashion. After that he
withdrew, without bidding the cure good-bye; and the servant who
showed him to the door having asked his