The verity of Christian faith written by Hierome Savanorola [sic] of Ferrara.

CHAP. XI.

YEt such is the generall in∣firmity of men that when at any time they happen to have a vision in their sleep of any dead person, presently they imagine the very soul of such a man appears to them; when as at the same time, if they happen to dream of one, or see one that is alive, they never take it either for body or soul, but as it is indeed, for a meer si∣militude of such a man appear∣ing to them; as if perchance it were not altogether as possible, for the similitudes of souls, as wel as of bodies, (in the absence

of the souls themselves & with∣out their knowledge thereof) to be presented to men in their dreams.

This, which I am about to tell, when I was at Millain, I heard reported for certain. A certain debt was demanded of one by virtue of a writing under his deceased fathers hand, which debt had been discharg∣ed by the Father living, his sonne not knowing thereof, nor yet how to make it appear that it was discharged: he was therefore much troubled and perplexed at it, wondring why his Father at his death, and at the making of his Testament should not acquaint him with that debt. Being thus in per∣plexity, his Father in his sleep appears to him, and tels him where he should find the dis∣charge

of that debt recorded; which the sonne accordingly seeking found and produced, and thereby not onely voided the Action of debt, which was unjustly brought against him, but also recovered the writing it self, which his Father when he paid the mony, did not re∣member to take out: In this case therefore it cannot but seem, that the soul of the Father had a care of his sonne, by coming to him and telling him matter of importance, which himself knew not of, and thereby delivering him from a great deal of trouble. But at the same time that I heard this, namely while I stayed at Mil∣lain, there happened at Car∣thage something which makes me doubt: it was this. Eulogius the Rhetorician there, one who

had been formerly my scholar in that Art, (as himself told me the story afterwards, when I was come again into Africk) was reading to his Scholars Tullies books of Rhetorick, and perusing the lesson or place which he was to expound publickly the next day in the Schools, he met with one ob∣scure passage in it, which he could not possibly understand, and was therefore very much perplexed about it, yea could take no rest all that night, till, as he said, I my self appeared to him and told him the mean∣ing of it: yet certainly not I my self, but some image or si∣militude of me; for I knew no∣thing of the businesse, I was far from him on the other side of the sea, busied about other af∣fairs, had no thoughts, no care,

not so much as dream't, what my Scholar might be doing. Now how these things come to passe, I confesse I know not, yet which way soever they do, why may we not think, that the appearances of the dead and living both, are, as it were, much one and the same, effected in one and the same manner, and by one and the same means, that is, neither the living nor the dead knowing at all, when themselves or their similitudes do so appear.