[335] Acts xxvi. 17. [336] Macc. x. 29. [337] 2 Macc. x. 29. [338] 1 Macc. xi. 1. [339] Deut. xviii. 11. [340] Gen. xix. 11. [341] 2 Kings vi. 19. [342] Luke xxvi. 16. [343] Aug. de Cura gerenda pro Mortuis, c. xiii. CHAPTER XL. APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS PROVED FROM HISTORY. St. Augustine[344] acknowledges that the dead have often appeared to the living, have revealed to them the spot where their body remained unburied, and have shown them that where they wished to be interred. He says, moreover, that a noise was often heard in churches where the dead were inhumed, and that dead persons have been seen often to enter the houses wherein they dwelt before their decease. We read that in the Council of Elvira,[345] which was held about the year 300, it was forbidden to light tapers in the cemeteries, that the souls of the saints might not be disturbed. The night after the death of Julian the Apostate, St. Basil[346] had a vision in which he fancied he saw the martyr, St. Mercurius, who received an order from God to go and kill Julian. A little time afterwards the same saint Mercurius returned and cried out, "Lord, Julian is pierced and wounded to death, as thou commandedst me." In the morning St. Basil announced this news to the people. St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in 107,[347] appeared to his disciples, embracing them, and standing near them; and as they persevered in praying with still greater fervor, they saw him crowned with glory, as if in perspiration, coming from a great combat, environed with light. After the death of St. Ambrose, which happened on Easter Eve, the same night in which they baptized neophytes, several newly baptized children saw the holy bishop,[348] and pointed him out to their parents, who could not see him because their eyes were not purified--at least says St. Paulinus, a disciple of the saint, and who wrote his life.