orld, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and
learned Augustin, [79] whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of
credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies which were performed
in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is
inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop
of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of
Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he has selected those
miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were
either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of the martyr. Many
prodigies were omitted, or forgotten; and Hippo had been less favorably
treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop
enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections
from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his
own diocese. [80] If we enlarge our view to all the dioceses, and all
the saints, of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the
fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source.
But we may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that age of
superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it could
scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established
laws of nature.

[Footnote 77: Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative, which has
been translated by Avitus, and published by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 415, No. 7-16.) The Benedictine editors of St. Augustin have given
(at the end of the work de Civitate Dei) two several copies, with many
various readings. It is the character of falsehood to be loose and
inconsistent. The most incredible parts of the legend are smoothed and
softened by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 9, &c.)]

[Footnote 78: A phial of St. Stephen's blood was annually liquefied
at Naples, till he was superseded by St. Jamarius, (Ruinart. Hist.
Persecut. Vandal p. 529.)]

[Footnote 79: Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de Civitate Dei
in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413-426. Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles.
tom. xiv. p. 608, &c.) His learning is too often borrowed, and his
arguments are too often his own; but the whole work claims the merit of
a magnificent design, vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.]

[Footnote 80: See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 22, and the
Appendix, which contains two books of St. Stephen's