Of Ghostes and Spirites, Walking by Night: And of Straunge Noyses, Crackes, and Sundrie Forewarnings, Which Commonly Happen Before the Death of Men: Great Slaughters, and Alterations of KingdomsLavater, Ludwig
Religion
Of Ghostes and Spirites, Walking by Night: And of Straunge Noyses, Crackes, and Sundrie Forewarnings, Which Commonly Happen Before the Death of Men: Great Slaughters, and Alterations of Kingdoms
Lavater, Ludwig
Apparitions -- Early works to 1800
What answere master =Sura=, (who as it appeareth, was well learned)
made vnto maister =Pliny= I do not finde. But to say the truth, what
sound answere could he, being a Gentile make herein? The like history
is to be red in the collections of =Iohn Manlius= common places,
who (as =Philip Melancthon= reporteth) dooth write, that =Theodorus
Gaza= had a lordship or manour place in _Campania_, giuen him by
=Nicholas= Pope of _Rome_. In the manour, when by chaunce, one of
his farmers had digged vp a coffin with dead mens bones in it, there
sodeinly appeared a spirit vnto him, commaunding him to bury the
coffin againe, or else his sonne should shortly after die. Which when
the farmer refused to doo, shortly after his sonne was found slaine
in the night. A fewe dayes after, the Spirit appeared againe vnto
the husbandman, menacing and threatning him, that in case he did not
bury the aforesaid bones, he would kill his other sonne also. The man
taking warning by his losse, and séeing his other sonne fallen sicke,
goeth vnto maister =Theodorus= and sheweth him all the matter. He
vnderstanding it, goeth with him to the manour, and there in the same
place where the farmer had before digged vp the coffin, casting a new
graue, they bury the coffin with the bones. As soone as the bones
were laide in the graue, the husbandmans sonne immediatly recouered
his health.
=Dion= writeth, that the Emperour =Traianus= was ledde out of the
house, where he had taken vp his Inne, in the time of an earthquake,
into a more safer place.
=Iulius Capitolinus=, which setteth out a fewe lines of the Romane
Emperours, reporteth, that =Pertinax= for the space of thrée days
before he was slaine by a thrust, sawe a certaine shadow in one of
his fishponds, which with a sworde readie drawne threatened to slaie
him, and thereby much disquieted him.
=Flauius Vopiscus= writeth, that whereas =Tacitus= fathers graue
opened it selfe, the sides therof falling downe of their owne accord,
and that his mothers soule appeared both to him and =Florianus=
day and night, as if she had bene liuing, it was a most sure and
infallible signe, that he should die shortly after.
=Ammianus Marcellinus=, writing of the signes or prognostications of
=Constantius= death, saith that he was troubled and terrified in the
night season with shapes and figures.
The same Author affirmeth in his 25. booke, that a little before
=Iulianus= died, as he sate writing in the tents, following the
example of =Iulius Cæsar=, he sawe the image of the publicke
=Genius=, or god of the place (which was wont to be painted with
=Amaltheas= horne in his hand) departing from him, more deformed and
ill fauoured, than when it began to mount vp to the narrow top of the
tent.
[Sidenote: Lucan.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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