the clergy of
Smyrna, who carefully preserved the relics of St. Polycarp the martyr.]

[Footnote 76: Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius Severus)
extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man. The error is
allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to be miraculous. Which
of the two was likely to happen most frequently?]

II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid
and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the
seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to ascertain the authenticity
and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the
younger Theodosius, Lucian, [77] a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the
ecclesiastical minister of the village of Caphargamala, about twenty
miles from the city, related a very singular dream, which, to remove
his doubts, had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable
figure stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard,
a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of Gamaliel,
and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own corpse, with
the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious
Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried
in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, that it was time
to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison; that
their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world; and that they
had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their
situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still
retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new
visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop, in the presence of an
innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his
friend, were found in regular order; but when the fourth coffin, which
contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth
trembled, and an odor, such as that of paradise, was smelt, which
instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assistants.
The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of
Caphargamala: but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in
solemn procession, to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion;
and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, [78] or the
scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the
Roman w