o had
advised him to come to Hippoma, and be baptized by the Bishop
Augustine; that according to their advice he had received baptism in
his vision; that afterwards he had been introduced into Paradise, but
that he had not remained there long, and that they had told him that
if he wished to dwell there, he must be baptized. He replied, "I am
so;" but they told him, that he had been so only in a vision, and that
he must go to Hippoma to receive that sacrament in reality. He came
there as soon as he was cured, and received the rite of baptism with
the other catechumens.

St. Augustine was not informed of this adventure till about two years
afterwards. He sent for Curma, and learnt from his own lips what I
have just related. Now it is certain that Curma saw nothing with his
bodily eyes of all that had been represented to him in his vision;
neither the town of Hippoma, nor Bishop Augustine, nor the
ecclesiastics who counseled him to be baptized, nor the persons living
and deceased whom he saw and recognized. We may believe, then, that
these things are effects of the power of God, who makes use of the
ministry of angels to warn, console, or alarm mortals, according as
his judgment sees best.

St. Augustine inquires afterwards if the dead have any knowledge of
what is passing in this world? He doubts the fact, and shows that at
least they have no knowledge of it by ordinary and natural means. He
remarks, that it is said God took Josiah, for instance, from this
world,[598] that he might now witness the evil which was to befall his
nation; and we say every day, Such-a-one is happy to have left the
world, and so escaped feeling the miseries which have happened to his
family or his country. But if the dead know not what is passing in
this world, how can they be troubled about their bodies being interred
or not? How do the saints hear our prayers? and why do we ask them for
their intercession?

It is then true that the dead can learn what is passing on the earth,
either by the agency of angels, or by that of the dead who arrive in
the other world, or by the revelation of the Spirit of God, who
discovers to them what he judges proper, and what it is expedient that
they should learn. God may also sometimes send men who have long been
dead to living men, as he permitted Moses and Elias to appear at the
Transfiguration of the Lord, and as an infinite number of the saints
have appeared to the living. The invocation of saints has al