13. Such, however, is human infirmity, that when in a dream a person shall see a dead man, he thinks it is the soul that he sees: but when he shall in like manner dream of a living man, he has no doubt that it is not a soul nor a body, but the likeness of a man that has appeared to him: just as if it were not possible in regard of dead men, in the same sort unconscious of it, that it should not be their souls, but their likenesses that appear to the sleepers. Of a surety, when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain person of whom was demanded payment of a debt, with production of his deceased father’s acknowledgment,33    Cautio which debt unknown to the son the father had paid, whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and to marvel that his father while dying did not tell him what he owed when he also made his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness of his, his said father appeared to him in a dream, and made known to him where was the counter34    Recautum acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment was cancelled. Which when the young man had found and showed, he not only rebutted the wrongful claim of a false debt, but also got back his father’s note35    Chirographum of hand which the father had not got back when the money was paid. Here then the soul of a man is supposed to have had care for his son, and to have come to him in his sleep, that, teaching him what he did not know, he might relieve him of a great trouble. But about the very same time as we heard this, it chanced at Carthage that the rhetorician Eulogius, who had been my disciple in that art, being (as he himself, after our return to Africa, told us the story) in course of lecturing to his disciples on Cicero’s rhetorical books, as he looked over the portion of reading which he was to deliver on the following day, fell upon a certain passage, and not being able to understand it, was scarce able to sleep for the trouble of his mind: in which night, as he dreamed, I expounded to him that which he did not understand; nay, not I, but my likeness, while I was unconscious of the thing, and far away beyond the sea, it might be, doing, or it might be dreaming, some other thing, and not in the least caring for his cares. In what way these things come about, I know not: but in what way soever they come, why do we not believe it comes in the same way for a person in a dream to see a dead man, as it comes that he sees a living man? both, no doubt, neither knowing nor caring who, or where, or when, dreams of their images.

CAPUT XI.

13. Visorum in somnis exempla duo. Pater defunctus apparet filio. Augustinus ipse in vivis agens apparet in somnis Eulogio rhetori, et locum Ciceronis exponit. Sic autem infirmitas humana sese habet, ut cum in somnis quisque viderit mortuum, ipsius animam se videre arbitretur; cum autem vivum similiter somniaverit, non ejus animam, neque corpus, sed hominis similitudinem sibi apparuisse non dubitet: quasi non possint et mortuorum hominum eodem modo nescientium, non animae, sed similitudines apparere dormientibus. Pro certo , cum Mediolani essemus, audivimus quod cum debitum repeteretur a quodam, defuncti patris cautione prolata, quod filio nesciente a patre jam fuerat persolutum, contristari homo gravissime coepit, atque mirari quod ei pater moriens non dixerit quid deberet, cum fecisset etiam testamentum. Tunc ei nimis anxio apparuit idem pater ejus in somnis, et ubi esset recautum quo illa cautio vacuata fuerat, indicavit. Quo invento juvenis atque monstrato, non solum falsi debiti calumniam propulsavit, sed etiam paternum recepit 0602 chirographum, quod pater non receperat, quando est persoluta pecunia. Hic itaque putatur anima hominis curam gessisse pro filio, et ad eum venisse dormientem, ut docens quod ignorabat, a magna eum molestia liberaret. Sed eodem ipso ferme tempore quo id audivimus, item nobis apud Mediolanum constitutis, Carthaginis rhetor Eulogius, qui meus in eadem arte discipulus fuit, sicut mihi ipse, posteaquam in Africam remeavimus, retulit, cum rhetoricos Ciceronis libros discipulis suis traderet, recensens lectionem quam postridie fuerat traditurus, quemdam locum offendit obscurum: quo non intellecto, vix potuit dormire sollicitus; qua nocte somnianti ego illi quod non intelligebat exposui; imo non ego, sed imago mea, nesciente me, et tam longe trans mare aliquid aliud sive agente, sive somniante, et nihil de illius curis omnino curante. Quomodo fiant ista, nescio: sed quomodolibet fiant, cur non eodem modo fieri credimus, ut in somnis quisque videat mortuum, quomodo fit ut videat et vivum? ambobus utique nescientibus, neque curantibus quis vel ubi vel quando eorum imagines somniet.