Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 2.djvu/405

 but   there  will   come   yet   a   harder   persecution   at   Antichrist's coming,

because the  martyrs  have  wrought  many  wonders  through  God,

and in  Antichrist's  time  these  wonders  will  fail;

and the  devil  will  then  work  wonders  by  his  enchantment,

with false  illusions,  to  deceive  the  faithful.

Great anguish  it  will  be  to  the  venerable  saints

that the  fiendly  persecutor  will  work  many  signs,

and they  themselves  may  not  do  as  the  martyrs  did,

showing wonders  in  the  worst  times.

Nevertheless, they  shall  be  preserved  through  the  Saviour's  might

if they  keep  their  faith  unto  the  end,

in the  troublous  persecutions  of  the  wicked  devil;

even as  the  Saviour  said  in  His  holy  gospel.

He Who  shall  easily  destroy  that  Antichrist;

to Whom  be  glory  and  praise  for  ever  and  ever. Amen.

I was  for  a  long  while  in  doubt  as  to  translating  into  English  the Passion of  St.  Thomas  the  apostle,  for  various  reasons;  and  chiefly because the  great  Augustine  denies  the  story  concerning  a  cup-bearer whose  hand  a  black  dog  is  said  to  have  carried  to  a  feast. In contradicting  this  story,  Augustine  himself  wrote  in  these words — ' which  narrative  it  is  permitted  us  to  disbelieve;  for  it is  not  in  the  catholic  canon.'  Nevertheless  those  who,  owing to I  know  not  what  sort  of  blindness,  are  very  bitterly  opposed to the  bodily  punishments  described  in  the  Old  Testament,  because they are  altogether  ignorant  of  the  spirit  in  which  they  were inflicted and  of  the  dispensations  of  different  times,  both  read  it