in the supplication of the Mass, and then toward the end she refolded them in the original position.
Tertullian also says that on one occasion, when a body was about to be interred, a body which was already in the grave seemed to draw to one side as though to make place for the newcomer.
In the life of S. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, written by Leontius Archbishop of Cyprus, we are told that when the saint who was aged sixty-four, died at Amanthus in Cyprus, 11th November, 616,[80] his body was brought with great veneration and holy observance to the principal church of that place. Here was opened a magnificent tomb in which two bishops had already been buried. It is said that out of respect the two bodies drew one to the right and one to the left, and that this took place in the sight of all who were present, “non unus, neque decem, neque centum uiderunt, sed omnis turba, quae conuenit ad eius sepulturam.” It must be remembered that Archbishop Leontius had his facts from those who had actually been present at the interment, and the same account may be found in the Menology of Symeon Metaphrastes.
Evagrius Ponticus relates[81] the legend of a certain Anchorite named Thomas, who died in the Nosokomeion at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, where was the shrine of the martyr S. Babylas.[82] The hermit, a stranger, was buried in that part of the cemetery used for beggars and the very poor. In the morning, however, the body was found to be lying by a rich Mausoleum in the most honourable part of the grounds. It was again interred, but when on the following day it was found by the sexton that the same thing had happened a second time, the people hastened to the patriarch Ephraim[83] and told him of the marvel. Thereupon the body was borne with great rejoicing with an attendance of wax flambeaux and fuming frankincense into the town, and honourably enshrined with worship meet in one of the churches, and for many years the city annually observed the festival of the Translation of S. Thomas Eremita. The same story is related by the ascetical writer, the monk Johannes Moschus, in his very beautiful treatise Λειμών Pratum spiriluale, “The Spiritual Meadow,”[84] but Moschus says that the remains of the hermit rested in his grave whilst in veneration for his
