1. 1. For a long time, venerable fellow bishop Paulinus, I have owed a reply to your Holiness, ever since you wrote to me by the servants of our most devout daughter Flora, asking me whether it benefits anyone after death that his body is buried near the memorial shrine of some saint. For the widow I have mentioned had requested this of you on behalf of her son, who had died in those parts, and you had written back to console her, announcing as well that what she desired with a mother's loving devotion had been carried out for the body of the faithful young man Cynegius, namely that it should be placed in the basilica of the most blessed confessor Felix. The occasion thus arose for you to write to me also by the same bearers of your letter, pressing this sort of question upon me and demanding that I answer what seemed right to me about it, while not keeping silent yourself about your own view. For you say it seems to you that the impulses of devout and faithful people who take such care for their own are not empty. You add further that what the whole Church is accustomed to do in offering supplication for the dead cannot be without purpose, so that from this one may also infer that it benefits a person after death if, by the faith of his own people, such a place is provided for the burial of his body that the help of the saints, sought even in this way, may be made manifest there.

1. 2. But while this is so, you indicate that you do not see clearly enough how this is not contrary to what the Apostle says: For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor 5:10). For this apostolic saying admonishes us that before death we do what can benefit us after death, not then, when each is to receive back what he did before death. But the question is resolved in this way: that by a certain manner of life, lived while one is in the body, it comes about that such things help the dead; and so, in accordance with what they have done through the body, they are helped by what is done devoutly for them after the body. For there are some whom these things help not at all, whether they are done for those whose deserts are so evil that they are not worthy to be helped by such means, or for those whose deserts are so good that they have no need of such help. It is therefore by the manner of life that each lived through the body that it comes about whether the things done devoutly for him after he has left the body profit him or not. For the merit by which such things may profit, if none was acquired in this life, is sought in vain after this life. And so it comes about that the Church does not spend in vain the care of religion that it can on behalf of the dead, whether by the dead person's own people or by itself; and yet each one receives according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor 5:10), the Lord rendering to each according to his works. For that what is spent may benefit a person after the body, it was acquired in the life he lived in the body.

1. 3. This brief reply of mine could have sufficed for your inquiry; but attend for a moment to the other considerations that move me to think a response is called for. In the books of Maccabees we read that sacrifice was offered for the dead (See 2 Macc 12:43-46). But even if this were nowhere read at all in the ancient Scriptures, the authority of the universal Church, which shines forth in this custom, is no small thing; for in the prayers of the priest that are poured out to the Lord God at his altar, the commendation of the dead has its own place as well.

2. 3. But whether the place of his body benefits the soul of a dead person at all must be inquired into more carefully. And first, whether it makes any difference toward bringing on or increasing misery after this life for the spirits of human beings if their bodies have not been buried, must be considered not according to whatever opinion is commonly current, but rather according to the sacred Scriptures of our religion. For we are not to believe, as we read in Maro, that the unburied are forbidden to sail and to cross the river of the underworld, because, namely,
Nor is it granted to ferry them over the dreadful banks and the hoarse-sounding streams
before their bones have found rest in a resting place.
Who would incline a Christian heart to these poetic and fabulous fictions, when the Lord Jesus, so that Christians might fall fearlessly amid the hands of enemies who held their bodies in their power, declares that not a hair of their head will perish, exhorting them not to fear those who, when they have killed the body, have nothing more they can do? Hence in the first book of the City of God I have spoken enough, as I judge, to blunt the tooth of those who, by charging the barbarian devastation, especially the one Rome recently suffered, to Christian times, also raise this objection: that Christ did not come to the aid of his own people there. When it has been answered to them that the souls of the faithful were received by him in accordance with the merits of their faith, they jeer about the unburied corpses. And so I treated this whole topic of burial in words such as these.

2. 4. "But amid so great a slaughter of corpses," I said, "could they not even be buried? Devout faith does not greatly dread this either, holding to what was foretold: that not even devouring beasts will harm the bodies that are to rise again, of which not a hair of the head will perish. The Truth would in no way say, Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matt 10:28), if whatever enemies wished to do to the bodies of the slain could harm their future life. Unless perhaps someone is so absurd as to maintain that those who kill the body are not to be feared before death, lest they kill the body, and are to be feared after death, lest they not allow the slain body to be buried. Then what Christ says is false: Those who kill the body, and afterward have nothing they can do (See Luke 12:4), if they have so many things they can do to the corpses? Far be it that what the Truth said should be false. For it was said that they do something when they kill, because there is sensation in the body in the killing; but that afterward they have nothing they can do, because there is no sensation in a body that has been killed. And so the earth has not covered many bodies of Christians; but no one has separated any of them from the heaven and earth which he fills wholly with his presence, who knows from where to raise up again what he created. It is said indeed in the Psalm: They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the air, the flesh of your saints for the beasts of the earth; they have poured out their blood like water on every side of Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them (Ps 79:2-3 (78)); but this is rather to exaggerate the cruelty of those who did these things, not the wretchedness of those who suffered them. For although these things seem harsh and dreadful in the sight of men, yet precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Ps 116:15 (115)). Accordingly all these things, that is, the care of the funeral, the manner of burial, the pomp of the obsequies, are consolations of the living rather than aids to the dead. If a costly burial benefits an ungodly man at all, then a cheap one, or none, will harm a godly man. The crowd of his servants provided splendid obsequies in the sight of men for that rich man clothed in purple; but the ministry of the angels provided far more splendid ones in the sight of the Lord for that poor man covered with sores, who did not carry him out to a marble tomb but bore him up into Abraham's bosom. Those against whom we have undertaken to defend the City of God laugh at this; yet even their own philosophers despised the care of burial, and often whole armies, while they died for their earthly fatherland, took no care where they would afterward lie, or for what beasts they would become food; and the poets were free to say plausibly on this matter,
He who has no urn is covered by the sky.
How much less ought they to jeer at Christians over unburied bodies, to whom the restoration and reintegration of the very flesh and of all its members is promised, in a moment of time, not only out of the earth but even out of the most hidden bosom of the other elements into which the dissolved corpses have withdrawn?"

3. 5. "Yet the bodies of the dead are not on that account to be despised and cast aside, and least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which the spirit used in a holy way as instruments and vessels for every good work. For if a father's garment and ring, and anything of that kind, is the dearer to descendants the greater their affection toward their parents, in no way are the bodies themselves to be spurned, which we bear in a far more intimate and conjoined way than any clothing whatever. For these belong not to ornament or to aid applied from without, but to the very nature of the human being. Hence the funerals of the righteous of old were attended to with dutiful devotion, and their obsequies celebrated, and burial provided; and they themselves, while they lived, gave commands to their sons about the burial, or even the transfer, of their bodies. And it is recorded, on the testimony of an angel, that Tobit won favor with God by burying the dead (See Tob 12:12). The Lord himself too, who was to rise on the third day, proclaims the good work of the devout woman, and commends it to be proclaimed, in that she poured precious ointment over his limbs and did this toward his burial (See Matt 26:10-13); and those are mentioned with praise in the Gospel who took care that his body, taken down from the cross, should be diligently and honorably covered and buried (See John 19:38-40). But these authorities do not admonish us that there is any sensation in corpses; rather, they signify that the bodies of the dead too belong to the providence of God, to whom such offices of devotion are pleasing, for the purpose of establishing faith in the resurrection. And here too one learns, to his benefit, how great a reward there can be for the acts of mercy we show to the living and the sentient, if not even this is lost in God's sight, which is rendered as an office of diligence to the lifeless limbs of human beings. There are indeed other things which the holy patriarchs wished to be understood as said in a prophetic spirit about the burial or transfer of their bodies; but this is not the place to treat them, since what we have said suffices. But if the things necessary for sustaining the living, such as food and clothing, even when they are lacking with grievous affliction, do not break in good people the virtue of bearing and enduring, nor uproot devotion from the mind, but rather make it more fruitful through being exercised, how much more, when the things customarily applied to the care of funerals and the burial of the bodies of the dead are lacking, do they not make wretched those who are already at rest in the hidden abodes of the godly? And so, when these things were lacking to the corpses of Christians in that devastation of the great city, or even of other towns, it is neither the fault of the living, who could not provide them, nor a punishment for the dead, who could not feel them." This is my view on the cause and rationale of burial. I have transferred it into this work from another book of mine, because it could more easily be reviewed by me in this way than the same thing could be put into different words.

4. 6. But if this is true, then surely even providing a place near the memorial shrines of the saints for the burial of bodies belongs to the good human affection toward the funerals of one's own; for if there is some religious sense in their being buried, there cannot be none when attention is given to where they are buried. But since such consolations of the living are sought, by which their devout disposition toward their own may appear, I do not see what aids there are for the dead, except this: that while they recall where the bodies of those they love are laid, they commend them in prayer to those same saints, as to patrons who have taken them up before the Lord to be helped. This indeed they could do even if they were unable to bury them in such places. But it is for no other reason that the marked graves of the dead are called Memorials or Monuments, except because they recall to memory those who have been withdrawn by death from the eyes of the living, lest they be withdrawn by forgetfulness from their hearts as well, and by admonishing cause them to be thought of: for the very name "Memorial" shows this most plainly, and a "Monument" is so called because it admonishes the mind, that is, reminds it. For this reason the Greeks too call it by a word like what we call a Memorial or Monument, since in their language memory itself, by which we remember, is so named. And so when the mind recalls where the body of one dearest to it is buried, and the place comes to mind, venerable with the name of a martyr, the affection of the one who remembers and prays commends the beloved soul to that same martyr. And when this is shown to the dead by their dearest faithful ones, there is no doubt that it benefits those who, while they lived in the body, deserved that such things should benefit them after this life. But even if some necessity does not permit bodies to be buried, or to be buried in such places when no means is given, the supplications for the spirits of the dead are not to be omitted; the Church has undertaken to make these for all who have died in the Christian and Catholic fellowship, even with their names unspoken, under a general commemoration, so that those who lack parents, or sons, or any kinsmen or friends for these offices may have them shown by the one common devout mother. But if these supplications, which are made for the dead with right faith and devotion, were lacking, I think it would profit the spirits of the dead nothing, however much their lifeless bodies were laid in holy places.

5. 7. When therefore the faithful mother desired that the body of her dead faithful son be placed in the basilica of a martyr, if indeed she believed that his soul was helped by the merits of the martyr, this very belief was a kind of supplication; and this profited him, if anything profited. And as for the fact that she returns in mind to that same tomb and commends her son more and more in prayer, what helps the spirit of the dead man is not the place of the dead body, but the living affection of the mother arising from the memory of the place. For at one and the same time both who is commended and to whom he is commended touch the devout mind of the one praying, surely not without fruit. For those who pray also do with the members of their body what befits suppliants, when they bend the knee, when they stretch out their hands, or even prostrate themselves on the ground, and whatever else they do visibly; although their invisible will and the intention of their heart is known to God, and he does not need these signs for the human mind to be laid open to him, yet by this a person rather rouses himself to pray and to groan more humbly and more fervently. And somehow, although these movements of the body cannot take place except with a movement of the mind going before, yet when these same movements are made outwardly and visibly, that inner, invisible movement which made them is increased; and thereby the affection of the heart which went before so that these things might be done, grows because they are done. Yet if anyone is so held, or even bound, that he cannot do these things with his members, the inner man does not on that account fail to pray, and before the eyes of God in the most secret chamber, where he is pierced with compunction, he prostrates himself. And so, although it makes a great difference where one lays the body of his dead, when he supplicates God for his spirit—because both the affection that goes before chose a holy place, and the holy place, once the body has been laid there, renews and increases the affection that preceded—nevertheless, even if he cannot bury the one he loves where his devout mind has chosen, he ought in no way to cease from the necessary supplications in commending him. For wherever the flesh of the dead may lie, or not lie, rest must be acquired for the spirit; for when it went out from there, it took with it the sensation by which it could be concerned with how anyone is, whether amid good things or amid evil; nor does it await being helped in its own life by that flesh to which it itself supplied the life that it withdrew in departing and will restore in returning—since it is not the flesh that obtains for the spirit, but the spirit for the flesh, the merit even of its own resurrection, whether it should come back to life unto punishment or unto glory.

6. 8. We read in the Ecclesiastical History, which Eusebius wrote in Greek and Rufinus turned into the Latin tongue, that the bodies of martyrs in Gaul were exposed to dogs, and that the remains left by the dogs and the bones of the dead were burned with fire to their utter consumption, and that those same ashes were scattered in the river Rhone, so that nothing whatever might be left for any memorial. This is to be believed to have been permitted by God for no other reason than that Christians might learn, in confessing Christ, while they despise this life, much more to despise burial. For if what was done to the bodies of the martyrs with such immense savagery harmed them at all, so that their most victorious spirits might rest the less blessedly, it would surely not have been allowed to happen. By the very event, then, it was made plain that the Lord did not say Do not fear those who kill the body, and afterward have nothing they can do (See Luke 12:4) because he was not going to permit them to do anything to the bodies of his own dead; rather, it was because, whatever they were permitted to do, nothing would be done by which the Christian happiness of the dead might be lessened, nothing from it would reach the awareness of those living after death, nothing would tend to the detriment even of the bodies themselves, so that they should rise less than whole.

7. 9. And yet, out of that affection of the human heart by which no one ever hated his own flesh (Eph 5:29), if people come to know that after their death something will be lacking to their bodies which the solemnity of burial requires in each one's own nation or homeland, they are saddened as human beings; and what does not concern them after death, they fear before death for their bodies. So it is that one finds in the books of Kingdoms God threatening, through one prophet, another prophet who transgressed his word, that his corpse would not be brought into the sepulcher of his fathers. This Scripture reads as follows: Thus says the Lord: Because you have been disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you, and have turned back and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, Eat no bread and drink no water, your corpse shall not come into the sepulcher of your fathers (1 Kgs 13:21-22). If we consider how great a punishment this is to be reckoned, in accordance with the Gospel, where we have learned that nothing is to be feared after the body is killed, lest the lifeless limbs should suffer, it is not even to be called a punishment. But if we consider the human affection toward one's own flesh, the living man could be terrified or saddened by what the dead man would not feel; and this was a punishment, since his mind grieved that this would happen to his body, although when it happened he would not grieve. For the Lord wished to chastise his servant only this far, who had not by his own obstinacy scorned to fulfill his command, but, deceived by another's falsehood, believed he was obeying when he did not obey. For we must not suppose that he was killed by the beast's bite in such a way that his soul was then snatched away to the torment of hell; seeing that his very body was guarded by the same lion that had killed him, while the beast of burden on which he rode was also left unharmed, and stood by, together with that monstrous wild beast, with fearless presence at the funeral of its master. By which marvelous sign it appears that the man of God was rather coerced for a time, even to death, than punished after death. Concerning this matter the Apostle, when on account of certain offenses he had mentioned the weaknesses and deaths of many, says: For if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned along with the world (1 Cor 11:31-32). Indeed, the very man who had deceived him buried him quite honorably in his own monument, and took care to be buried himself beside his bones, hoping in this way that his bones too might be spared, when the time should come when, according to that man of God's prophecy, Josiah king of Judah dug up in that land the bones of many of the dead, and defiled with those same bones the sacrilegious altars that had been set up for graven images (See 2 Kgs 23:16-18). For he spared that monument where the prophet lay, who more than three hundred years earlier had foretold these things; and on his account the burial even of the man who had led him astray was not violated. For by that affection by which no one ever hated his own flesh, the man who had killed his own soul by a lie had made provision for his own corpse. From the fact, therefore, that each naturally loves his own flesh, it was a punishment to the one to learn that he would not be in the sepulcher of his fathers, and a care to the other to see to it that his bones might be spared if he lay beside one whose sepulcher no one would violate.

8. 10. The martyrs of Christ, contending for the truth, conquered this affection; and no wonder that they despised what they would not feel once death was accomplished, who could not be overcome by torments which they felt while living. God, who did not permit the lion to touch the prophet's body, which he himself had killed, and made of the slayer a guardian, could surely also have kept the dogs from the slain bodies of his own, to which they had been thrown; he could also have terrified the savagery of those very men in countless ways, so that they would not dare to burn the corpses or scatter the ashes; but this trial too ought not to have been lacking to the manifold variety of temptations, lest the fortitude of confession, which would not yield to the savagery of persecution for the safety of the body, should tremble for the honor of a tomb; finally, lest faith in the resurrection should dread the consumption of the bodies. These things too, then, had to be permitted, so that even after such examples of so great a horror the martyrs, fervent in the confession of Christ, might become witnesses of this truth as well, in which they had learned that those by whom their bodies were killed had afterward nothing they could do: since whatever they did to the dead bodies, they did nothing at all, when in the flesh, devoid of all life, neither could the one who had departed from it feel anything, nor could he who created it lose anything from it. But amid these things that were being done to the bodies of the slain, while the martyrs, not fearing them, suffered them with great fortitude, yet among the brethren there was immense grief, because no power was given to render the just offices to the bodies of the saints, nor did the vigilance of the cruel guards allow anything to be secretly taken away, as the same history attests. And so, while no wretchedness touched those who had been killed in the tearing apart of their members, in the burning of their bones, in the scattering of their ashes, yet great compassion tormented those who could bury nothing of them; for in those who in no way had sensation they themselves in a way had sensation, and where there was now no suffering on the part of the dead, there was the wretched fellow-suffering of the living.

9. 11. In accordance with this wretched fellow-suffering of which I have spoken, those are praised, and blessed by King David, who showed the mercy of burial to the dry bones of Saul and Jonathan (See 2 Sam 2:5-6). What mercy, after all, is shown to those who feel nothing? Or must we perhaps recur to that opinion, that the unburied could not cross the river of the underworld? Far be this from Christian faith; otherwise it went very badly with so great a multitude of martyrs whose bodies could not be buried, and the Truth said to them falsely, Do not fear those who kill the body, and afterward have nothing they can do (See Luke 12:4), if those men could do them such great harm as to be hindered from passing over to the longed-for places. But because this is, beyond all doubt, utterly false, and neither does the denial of burial to their bodies harm the faithful, nor does it profit the unbelieving if it is shown them, why then are those who buried Saul and his son said to have done a work of mercy, and on this account blessed by the devout king, unless because the hearts of the merciful are rightly disposed when they grieve over in the bodies of others what, by that affection by which no one ever hated his own flesh, they do not wish to be done after their own death to their own bodies; and what they wish to be shown to themselves when they will not be able to feel it, they take care to show to others who feel nothing, while they themselves feel?

10. 12. Certain visions are reported which seem to bring into this discussion a question not to be neglected. For it is said that some of the dead, whether in dreams or in some other way, have appeared to the living who did not know where their bodies lay unburied, and, pointing out the places, have admonished them to provide the burial that had been lacking. If we should answer that these things are false, we shall seem to be impudently going against the writings of certain faithful people, and against the senses of those who affirm that such things happened to them. But the answer must be that we are not on that account to suppose that the dead feel these things, because they seem to say or to indicate or to ask them in dreams. For the living too often appear to the living who are asleep, while they themselves do not know that they appear; and they hear from these, when they say what they have dreamed, that they saw them in dreams doing or saying something. If, then, someone can see me in a dream indicating to him something that has been done, or even foretelling something that is to come, while I am wholly unaware of it and care nothing at all—not only what he dreams, but whether he is awake while I sleep, or asleep while I am awake, or whether we are both awake or both asleep at one and the same time, when he sees the dream in which he sees me—what wonder is it if the dead, not knowing and not feeling these things, are nevertheless seen by the living in dreams, and say something which, on waking, they recognize to be true? I would therefore believe that it comes about by angelic operations, whether permitted from above or commanded, that the dead seem to say something in dreams about the burial of their bodies, when those whose bodies they are know nothing of it at all. And this is sometimes done usefully, whether for some consolation of the living to whom those dead belong, whose images appear to the dreamers, or so that by these admonitions the humane duty of burial may be commended to the human race; for although it does not help the dead, it is nevertheless neglected only with blameworthy irreligion. But sometimes by deceptive visions people are sent into great errors, which it is just that such persons should suffer. As if someone should see in a dream what Aeneas is reported, by poetic falsehood, to have seen in the underworld, and the image of some unburied man should appear to him and speak such things as Palinurus is said to have spoken to him; and when he awoke he should find his body there where in his dream he heard it lay unburied, having been admonished and asked to bury the one he found; and because he discovered this to be true, he should therefore believe that the dead are buried so that their souls may pass over to the places from which he dreamed that the souls of the unburied are kept back by a law of the underworld—does he not, believing thus, stray very far from the path of truth?

11. 13. Such, moreover, is human weakness that when anyone sees a dead person in a dream, he supposes he sees that person's soul; but when he has similarly dreamed of a living person, he does not doubt that neither his soul nor his body, but the likeness of the man, appeared to him—as if the likenesses, and not the souls, of dead people, who in the same way know nothing of it, could not equally appear to those asleep. To be sure, when we were at Milan, we heard that, when a debt was being demanded of a certain man and his dead father's bond was produced, which had already been paid by the father without the son's knowledge, the man began to be most grievously saddened, and to wonder that his father, when dying, had not told him what he owed, since he had even made a will. Then, while he was exceedingly anxious, his father appeared to him in a dream and showed him where the receipt was by which that bond had been canceled. When the young man had found and produced it, he not only repelled the calumny of a false debt, but also recovered his father's note of hand, which the father had not recovered when the money was paid. Here, then, the man's soul is supposed to have taken care for his son and to have come to him while sleeping, so that by teaching him what he did not know, it might free him from a great trouble. But at almost the same time at which we heard this, while we were likewise residing at Milan, Eulogius, a rhetor of Carthage, who had been my pupil in that same art, related to me himself, after we had returned to Africa, that, while he was teaching his pupils the rhetorical books of Cicero and was going over the lesson he was to deliver the next day, he came upon a certain obscure passage; and not understanding it, he could scarcely sleep for anxiety, on which night, while he was dreaming, I expounded to him what he did not understand—or rather, not I, but my image, while I knew nothing of it and was, so far across the sea, either doing or dreaming something else, and caring nothing at all about his cares. How these things come about, I do not know; but however they come about, why do we not believe that it comes about in the same way that anyone sees a dead person in a dream as it comes about that he sees a living one as well?—both surely unaware, and caring nothing about who, or where, or when, dreams of their images.

12. 14. Like dreams, moreover, are also certain visions of those who are awake but have disturbed senses, such as the delirious, or those raving in any manner whatever; for these too speak with themselves as if they were speaking with persons truly present, and they speak even with the absent rather than the present, whose images they perceive, whether of the living or of the dead. But just as those who are alive do not know that they are seen by them, and that they are spoken with by them—for they are not really present themselves, nor do they themselves converse, but human beings with disturbed senses suffer such imaginary visions—so too those who have departed from this life seem present to people in such a state, though they are absent, and are wholly unaware whether anyone sees them in an imaginary way.

12. 15. Like this is also that case in which people are withdrawn from the bodily senses more deeply than if they were sleeping, and are occupied with such visions. To these too the images of the living and of the dead appear; but when they have been restored to their senses, whatever dead persons they say they have seen, they are believed to have truly been with them; nor do those who hear these things consider that the images of certain living persons, likewise absent and unaware, have in the same way been seen by them. A certain man named Curma, of the municipality of Tullium, which is near Hippo, a poor town councilor, scarcely qualified for the duumvirate of that place and a simple countryman, when he was ill, was carried off from his senses and lay almost dead for several days: a very faint breath in his nostrils, which was somehow felt when a hand was put to it and was a slight indication of life, did not allow him to be buried as one lifeless. He moved no limb, took no nourishment; he felt nothing with his eyes, nothing with any other bodily sense, however much trouble was forced upon it. Yet he saw many things, as if in dreams, which at length, after very many days, as if waking, he related as visions he had seen. And first, as soon as he opened his eyes, he said: Let someone go to the house of Curma the blacksmith, and see what is happening there. When they had gone there, the man was found to have died at that very moment at which this one had been restored to his senses and had, as it were, come back to life from death. Then, while those present listened intently, he indicated that the other had been ordered to be brought forward at the moment he himself was dismissed; and he said that there, in the place from which he had returned, he had heard that not Curma the councilor, but Curma the blacksmith, had been ordered to be led to those places of the dead. In those visions, then, as in his dreams, among those dead persons whom he saw being treated according to the diversity of their deserts, he also recognized some whom he had known as living. I might perhaps have believed that he saw the very persons, had he not, among those visions as if of his dreams, also seen some who even now are still alive, namely certain clerics of his region, from a presbyter of whom he there heard that he was to be baptized by me at Hippo, which he said had indeed been done. He had therefore seen in that vision the presbyter, the clerics, and me myself, not yet dead, of course, in the same vision in which he afterward saw the dead also. Why should he not be believed to have seen them just as he saw us, both being absent, of course, and unaware—and thereby not the persons themselves, but their likenesses, just as also the likenesses of the places? For he saw both the estate where that presbyter was with the clerics, and Hippo where he was, as it were, baptized by me; in which places he certainly was not when he seemed to himself to be there. For what was being done there at that time, he did not know; which he would without doubt have known if he had truly been there. These visions, therefore, are not presented in the things themselves as they are, but are shadowed forth in certain images of the things. Finally, after the many things he saw, he related that he had also been brought into paradise, and that it was said to him, when he was being dismissed to return to his own people: Go, be baptized, if you wish to be in this place of the blessed. Then, when he was admonished to be baptized by me, he answered that it had already been done. To him again the one who was speaking with him said: Go, be truly baptized; for that you saw in a vision. After these things he recovered, and went on to Hippo. Easter was already drawing near; he gave his name among the others seeking baptism, unknown to us along with very many; nor did he take care to indicate that vision either to me or to any of us. He was baptized, and when the holy days were over he returned to his own home. After two years or more had passed, I came to know all these things: first through a certain friend of mine and of his at a meal of mine, when we were speaking of some such matters; then I pressed him and brought it about that he himself, present, related these things to me, with his honorable fellow citizens attesting both to his marvelous illness, that he lay almost dead for very many days, and to that other Curma the blacksmith, which I mentioned above, and to all these things which, when he told them to me, they then recalled and confirmed that they had heard from him even at that time. For which reason, just as he saw his baptism, and me myself, and Hippo, and the basilica, and the baptistery, not in the things themselves but in certain likenesses of the things, so also did he see certain others who were alive, those living persons being unaware of it:

13. 15. Why then not in the same way the dead also, those dead persons being unaware of it?

13. 16. Why do we not believe that these are angelic operations, through the dispensation of the providence of God, who makes good use of both the good and the evil, according to the inscrutable depth of his judgments?—whether by these means the minds of mortals are instructed, or deceived, or consoled, or terrified, as to each is to be shown mercy, or visited with retribution, by him to whom the Church does not sing in vain of mercy and judgment (See Ps 101:1 (100)). Let each take as he will what I am going to say. If the souls of the dead were involved in the affairs of the living, and they themselves spoke to us in dreams when we see them, then—to say nothing of others—my devout mother would leave me no night, who followed me by land and sea to live with me. For far be it that she has been made cruel by a happier life, to such a degree that, when something distresses my heart, she would not console her sad son, whom she loved uniquely, whom she never wished to see grieving. But surely what the sacred Psalm sounds forth is true: For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord has taken me up (Ps 27:10 (26)). If, then, our parents have forsaken us, how are they involved in our cares and affairs? But if our parents are not involved, who are the other dead who would know what we are doing, or what we are suffering? The prophet Isaiah says: For you are our father; for Abraham did not know us, and Israel did not acknowledge us (Isa 63:16). If such great patriarchs were ignorant of what was being done toward the people begotten from them, the very people promised from their stock to them as believing in God, how are the dead mingled in the knowing and the helping of the affairs and acts of the living? How do we say that provision was made for those who died before the evils came which followed upon their death, if even after death they feel whatever befalls in the calamity of human life? Or do we perhaps say these things in error, and suppose those to be at rest whom the unquiet life of the living troubles? What is it, then, that God promised to the most devout king Josiah as a great benefit—that he would die beforehand, lest he see the evils that he was threatening to bring upon that place and people? These are the words of God: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: As for my words which you have heard, and you were afraid before my face when you heard what I spoke about this place and those who dwell in it, that it should be forsaken and be under a curse, and you rent your garments and wept in my sight, and I have heard, says the Lord of hosts: not so; behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered in peace; and your eyes shall not see all the evils which I bring upon this place and those who dwell in it (See 2 Kgs 22:18-20). Terrified by God's threats, this man had wept and rent his garments; and he is made free of care concerning all the future evils, through the death that was to come quickly upon him, in that he was so to rest in peace as not to see all those evils. There, then, are the spirits of the dead, where they do not see whatever is done or comes to pass in this life of human beings. How, then, do they see their own tombs, or their own bodies, whether they lie cast aside or buried? How are they involved in the wretchedness of the living, when either they themselves suffer their own evils, if they have contracted such deserts, or they rest in peace, as was promised to this Josiah, where they sustain no evils whatever, neither by suffering nor by fellow-suffering, freed from all the evils which, by suffering and fellow-suffering, they sustained while they lived here?

14. 17. Someone will say: If the dead have no care about the living, how was it that the rich man who was tormented in the underworld asked Abraham as his father to send Lazarus to his five brothers, not yet dead, and to deal with them lest they too come into the same place of torments (See Luke 16:27-28)? But surely, because that rich man said this, did he therefore know what his brothers were doing or suffering at that time? Thus he had a care about the living, although he was wholly ignorant of what they were doing; just as we have a care about the dead, although we are surely ignorant of what they are doing. For if we cared nothing about the dead, we would surely not supplicate God for them. And finally, Abraham did not send Lazarus, but answered that they had Moses and the prophets here, whom they ought to hear, so that they might not come to those torments. Here again it occurs to us how it was that Abraham the father himself did not know what was being done here, while he knew that Moses and the prophets, that is, their books, were here, by obeying which people might avoid the torments of hell; how, finally, he knew that the rich man had lived in delights, but the poor man Lazarus in toils and sorrows. For he says this too to him: Remember, son, that you received good things in your life, but Lazarus evil things (Luke 16:25). He knew these things, therefore, which had surely been done among the living, not among the dead. But it was not while they were being done among the living, but after they were dead, that he could come to know them through Lazarus's indicating them—lest it be false that the prophet says, Abraham did not know us (Isa 63:16).

15. 18. Accordingly it must be confessed that the dead do not indeed know what is being done here, while it is being done; but afterward they hear of it from those who, in dying, pass over from here to them—not indeed all things, but those which they are permitted to indicate who are permitted also to remember these things, and which it is fitting that those to whom they indicate them should hear. The dead can also hear something from the angels who are at hand to the things that are done here, which he judges that each of them ought to hear to whom all things are subject. For unless there were angels who could be present in the places both of the living and of the dead, the Lord Jesus would not have said: And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:22). They could therefore be now here, now there, who carried from here to there the one whom God willed. The spirits of the dead can also come to know some things that are done here which it is necessary for them to know, and which it is necessary for those persons to know—not only past or present things, but even future ones, by the revelation of the Spirit of God; just as not all people, but the prophets, while they lived here, came to know them, and not even they all things, but those which God's providence judged were to be revealed to them. That some too are sent from the dead to the living, just as, on the contrary, Paul from the living was caught up into paradise (See 2 Cor 12:2-4), the divine Scripture attests. For the prophet Samuel, though dead, foretold the future to the living king Saul (See 1 Sam 28:11-19); although some suppose that it was not he himself who could have been called up by magic arts, but that some spirit suited to such evil works fashioned his likeness—whereas the book of Ecclesiasticus, which Jesus the son of Sirach is reported to have written, and which is ascribed to Solomon on account of some likeness of style, contains, in the praise of the fathers, that Samuel prophesied even when dead (See Sir 46:20). But if this book too is contradicted on the basis of the canon of the Hebrews (because it is not in theirs), what shall we say of Moses, who certainly is read to have appeared to the living both in Deuteronomy, when dead (See Deut 34:5-6), and in the Gospel together with Elijah, who is not dead (See Matt 17:3)?

16. 19. Hence too that question is resolved: how the martyrs, by the very benefits that are given to those who pray, show that they are involved in human affairs, if the dead do not know what the living are doing. For we have heard—not on uncertain rumors, but from sure witnesses—that the confessor Felix, whose dwelling-place you devoutly love, appeared, not only by the effects of benefits but even to the very sight of human beings, when Nola was being besieged by the barbarians. But these things are shown forth by divine power, far otherwise than the customary order assigned to the several kinds of creatures holds. For just because water was suddenly turned into wine, when the Lord willed it (See John 2:7-9), we ought not on that account to fail to distinguish what water can do in the proper order of the elements from the rarity, or rather the singularity, of that divine work; nor, because Lazarus rose again (See John 11:43-44), does every dead person therefore rise when he wills, or is the lifeless one roused by the living in the way that a sleeper is roused by one awake. There are some bounds of human affairs, and other signs of divine powers; some things come about naturally, and others marvelously; although God is present to nature too, that it may exist, and nature is not lacking to the miracles. We are not therefore to suppose that any of the dead can be involved in the affairs of the living, just because the martyrs are present for the healing or helping of certain people; but it is rather to be understood that the martyrs are involved in the affairs of the living through divine power, precisely because the dead, by their own nature, cannot be involved in the affairs of the living.

16. 20. Yet this question is beyond the powers of my understanding: in what way the martyrs help those who, it is certain, are helped through them; whether they themselves are present by their own selves at one time in places so diverse, and separated from one another by so great a distance, whether where their memorial shrines are, or, apart from their shrines, wherever they are felt to be present; or whether, while they themselves are in a place suited to their merits, removed from all converse of mortals, and nevertheless pray in a general way for the need of those who supplicate (just as we pray for the dead, to whom we are surely not present, nor do we know where they are or what they are doing), God almighty, who is everywhere present, neither bound up with us nor removed from us, hearing the prayers of the martyrs, provides to human beings, through angelic ministries diffused everywhere, those consolations which he judges are to be provided amid the wretchedness of this life; and commends the merits of his martyrs where he wills, when he wills, and how he wills, and most of all through their memorial shrines, with marvelous and ineffable power and goodness, because he knows this to be expedient for us toward building up faith in Christ, for the confession of whom they suffered. This matter is too lofty for it to be reached by me, and too hidden for it to be searched out by me; and therefore which of these two it is, or whether perhaps it is both, so that sometimes these things come about through the very presence of the martyrs, sometimes through angels assuming the person of the martyrs, I do not dare to define; I would rather inquire of those who know these things. For it is not that there is no one who knows them, but that there is one who seems to himself to know and does not: for these are gifts of God, who bestows some things on these and other things on those, according to the Apostle, who says that to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit: To one indeed is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom; to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit; to another the gift of healings in the one Spirit; to another the working of powers; to another prophecy; to another the discernment of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of utterances. But all these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each his own as he wills (1 Cor 12:8-11). Of all these spiritual gifts which the Apostle mentioned, whoever has been given the discernment of spirits, he himself knows these things as they are to be known.

17. 21. Such, we must believe, was that John the monk whom the elder Theodosius consulted as emperor about the outcome of the civil war: for he had prophecy as well. For I do not doubt that one man can have not single gifts among these, but even several. This John, then, when a most devout woman impatiently desired to see him, and through her husband was vehemently insisting that she obtain this, while he was unwilling, since he had never permitted it to women, said: Go, tell your wife, she will see me the next night, but in a dream. And so it was done; and he admonished her of whatever a faithful married woman ought to be admonished of. When she had awoken, she indicated to her husband that she had seen such a man of God as he had known him, and what she had heard from him. The one who learned this from them related it to me, a serious and noble man, and most worthy to be believed. But if I myself had seen that holy monk, since, as is reported, he was questioned most patiently and answered most wisely, I would have asked him what pertains to this question: whether he himself had come to that woman in a dream, that is, his spirit in the likeness of his body, as we ourselves dream of ourselves in the likeness of our body; or whether, while he himself was doing something else, or, if he was sleeping, was dreaming something else, such a vision was made in the woman's dream, whether through an angel or in some other way; and whether, by the revelation of the Spirit of prophecy, he foreknew that this would come about, so as to promise it. For if he himself was present to the dreamer, he could surely have done this by marvelous grace, not by nature, and by the gift of God, not by his own faculty. But if, while he himself was doing something else, or sleeping and occupied with other visions, the woman saw him in a dream, then surely something of such a kind came about as that which we read in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Lord Jesus speaks to Ananias about Saul, and indicates to him that Saul saw Ananias coming to him, while Ananias himself did not know this (See Acts 9:10-12). Whichever of these that man of God might answer me, I would go on to ask him about the martyrs: whether they themselves are present in dreams, or in some other way, to those who see them in whatever form they will; and especially when demons confess that they are tormented by them in human beings, and beg them to spare them—or whether these things come about by God's nod, through angelic powers, in honor and commendation of the saints for the profit of human beings, while the saints are set in the highest rest, and are at leisure for other visions far better, apart from us, and praying for us. For at Milan, at the shrine of the holy martyrs Protasius and Gervasius, the demons confessed, by name, as they did the dead whom they mentioned in the same way, that the bishop Ambrose, still living, was tormenting them, and besought him to spare them, while he was doing something else and wholly unaware that this was being done. But whether sometimes these things come about through the very presence of the martyrs, sometimes through angels; and whether, or by what signs, these two can be distinguished by us; or whether no one is able to perceive and discern this except one who has that gift through the Spirit of God, who distributes to each his own as he wills—that John, I think, would discourse to me of all these things, as I would wish: so that either by his teaching I might learn, and recognize that the things I heard were true and certain; or I might believe what I did not know, while he told me what he knew. But if perchance he should answer me from holy Scripture and say: Seek not the things that are too high for you, and search not into the things that are too mighty for you; but the things which the Lord has commanded you, think on these always (See Sir 3:21-22), that too I would accept gladly. For it is no small fruit, if of certain obscure and uncertain things which we are not able to comprehend, it is at least clear and certain to us that they are not to be sought; and if what each one wishes to learn, supposing it would profit if he knew, he learns does no harm if he does not know.

18. 22. Since this is so, let us not suppose that anything reaches the dead, for whom we take care, except what we solemnly supplicate for them by the sacrifices, whether of the altar, or of prayers, or of acts of mercy—although they do not profit all for whom they are done, but only those for whom it is brought about, while they live, that they should profit them. But because we do not discern who these are, we ought to do these things for all the regenerate, so that none of them may be passed over to whom these benefits can and ought to reach. For it is better that these things should be in surplus for those whom they neither harm nor profit, than that they should be lacking to those whom they profit. Yet each does these things more diligently for his own kin, so that the like may be done for him by his own. But whatever is spent on the burial of a body is not a help to salvation, but an office of humanity, in accordance with the affection by which no one ever hated his own flesh. Hence it is fitting that one take what care he can for the flesh of his neighbor, when the one who took such care has departed from it. And if those do these things who do not believe in the resurrection of the flesh, how much more ought those to do them who believe, so that such an office, spent on a dead body—yet one that is to rise again and remain in eternity—may be in some way a testimony of that same faith? But as for the fact that one is buried near the memorial shrines of the martyrs, this alone seems to me to profit the dead person: that, by commending him also to the patronage of the martyrs, the affection of supplication for him may be increased.

18. 23. You have, to the things you thought were to be asked of me, such a reply as I was able to render; and if it is more prolix than is enough, grant pardon; for this came about from the love of speaking with you at greater length. How your venerable Affection receives this book, then, I ask to learn by your reply, which its bearer will without doubt make more welcome to you—namely our brother and fellow presbyter Candidianus, whom, made known to me through your letter, I received with my whole heart, and dismissed unwillingly. For he greatly consoled us by his presence in the love of Christ, and—what must be confessed—it was at his insistence that I obeyed you. For so many things distract my heart that, unless he had assiduously reminded me and not allowed me to forget, my reply would surely have been lacking to your question.