d a history of the persecution
within two years after the event. [123] "If any one," says Victor,
"should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen
to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of
these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor
Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At Constantinople we
are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness,
without interest, and without passion. Aeneas of Gaza, a Platonic
philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these
African sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently
inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without
any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears;
I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely
torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally
suppose to be mortal." [124] The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza might be
confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a
perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times;
and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the
minister of the Roman pontiff. [125] They all lived within the compass
of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the
public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in
several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and
submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the
senses. This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke
without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only,
who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the
stubborn mind of an infidel, is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion;
and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of
a Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an
Athanasian miracle.

[Footnote 121: Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 15.
Cellanius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127. This Tipasa (which
must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was a town of some note
since Vespasian endowed it with the right of Latium.]

[Footnote 122: Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. l. ii. p. 38.]

[Footnote 123: Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p. 483-487.]

[Footnote 124: Aeneas Gazaeus in The