12. Stories are told of certain appearances or visions,30    Visa which may seem to bring into this discussion a question which should not be slighted. It is said, namely, that dead men have at times either in dreams or in some other way appeared to the living who knew not where their bodies lay unburied, and have pointed out to them the place, and admonished that the sepulture which was lacking should be afforded them. These things if we shall answer to be false, we shall be thought impudently to contradict the writings of certain faithful men, and the senses of them who assure us that such things have happened to themselves. But it is to be answered, that it does not follow that we are to account the dead to have sense of these things, because they appear in dreams to say or indicate or ask this. For living men do also appear ofttimes to the living as they sleep, while they themselves know not that they do appear; and they are told by them, what they dreamed, namely, that in their dream the speakers saw them doing or saying something. Then if it may be that a person in a dream should see me indicating to him something that has happened or even foretelling something about to happen, while I am perfectly unwitting of the thing and altogether regardless not only what he dreams, but whether he is awake while I am asleep, or he asleep while I am awake, or whether at one and the same time we are both awake or asleep, at what time he has the dream in which he sees me: what marvel if the dead be unconscious and insensible of these things, and, for all that, are seen by the living in their dreams, and say something which those on awaking find to be true? By angelical operations, then, I should think it is effected, whether permitted from above, or commanded, that they seem in dreams to say something about burying of their bodies, when they whose the bodies are are utterly unconscious of it. Now this is sometimes serviceably done; whether for some sort of solace to the survivors, to whom pertain those dead whose likenesses31    Imagines appear to them as they dream; or whether that by these admonitions the human race may be made to have regard to humanity of sepulture, which, allow that it be no help to the departed, yet is there culpable irreligiousness in slighting of it. Sometimes however, by fallacious visions,32    Visis men are cast into great errors, who deserve to suffer this. As, if one should see in a dream, what Æneas by poetic falsity is told to have seen in the world beneath: and there should appear to him the likeness of some unburied man, which should speak such words as Palinurus is said to have spoken to him; and when he awakes, he should find the body in that place where he heard say while dreaming, that it lay unburied, and was admonished and asked to bury it when found; and because he finds this to be true, should believe that the dead are buried on purpose that their souls may pass to places from which he dreamed that the souls of men unburied are by an infernal law prohibited: does he not, in believing all this, exceedingly swerve from the path of truth?

CAPUT X.

12. Mortui quidam apparent, ut sibi sepultura praebeatur: quomodo haec visa contingant. Narrantur visa quaedam, quae huic disputationi non negligendam videantur inferre quaestionem. Feruntur quippe mortui nonnulli vel in somnis, vel alio quocumque modo apparuisse viventibus atque ubi eorum corpora jacerent inhumata nescientibus, locisque monstratis admonuisse ut sibi sepultura quae defuerat praeberetur. Haec si falsa esse responderimus, contra quorumdam scripta fidelium, et contra eorum sensus qui talia sibi accidisse confirmant, impudenter venire videbimur. Sed respondendum est, non ideo putandum esse mortuos ista sentire, quia haec dicere vel indicare vel petere videntur in somnis. Nam et viventes apparent saepe viventibus dormientibus, dum se ipsi nesciant apparere ; et ab eis haec quae somniaverint audiunt dicentibus, quod eos in somnis agentes aliquid vel loquentes viderint. Si ergo me potest aliquis in somnis videre, sibi aliquid quod factum est indicantem, vel etiam 0601 quod futurum est praenuntiantem; cum id ego prorsus ignorem, et omnino non curem, non solum quid ille somniet, sed utrum dormiente me vigilet, an vigilante me dormiat, an uno eodemque tempore vigilemus ambo sive dormiamus, quando ille somnium videt in quo me videt: quid mirum si nescientes mortui nec ista sentientes, tamen a viventibus videntur in somnis, et aliquid dicunt, quod evigilantes verum esse cognoscant? Angelicis igitur operationibus fieri crediderim, sive permittatur desuper, sive jubeatur, ut aliquid dicere de sepeliendis corporibus suis videantur in somnis, cum id penitus nesciant quorum illa sunt corpora. Id autem aliquando utiliter fit, sive ad vivorum qualecumque solatium, ad quos pertinent illi mortui, quorum apparent imagines somniantibus; sive ut his admonitionibus generi humano sepulturae commendetur humanitas: quae licet defunctis non opituletur, culpanda tamen irreligiositate negligitur. Aliquando autem fallacibus visis homines in magnos mittuntur errores, quos talia perpeti justum est. Velut si quisquam videat in somnis, quod Aeneas vidisse apud inferos poetica falsitate narratur: et ei cujuspiam non sepulti appareat imago, loquaturque talia, qualia fertur illi locutus fuisse Palinurus (Aeneid. lib. 6, V. 337-383); et cum evigilaverit, ibi corpus ejus inveniat, ubi jacere inhumatum cum somniaret audivit, admonitus et rogatus ut sepeliret inventum; et quia id verum esse comperit, credat ideo mortuos sepeliri, ut eorum animae ad loca transeant, unde insepultorum animas inferna prohiberi lege somniavit: nonne ista credens , plurimum a tramite veritatis exorbitat?