Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/180

 160 THE DECLINE AND FALL preached and practised the maxims of passive loyalty appeared to Ambrose of less moment than the extreme and pressing danger of the church. He boldly refused to obey ; and his refusal was supported by the unanimous consent of his faithful people/'^ They guarded by turns the person of their arch- bishop ; the gates of the cathedral and the episcopal palace were strongly secured ; and the Imperial troops, who had formed the blockade, were unwilling to risk the attack, of that impregnable fortress. The numerous poor, who had been relieved by the liberality of Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion of signalizing their zeal and gratitude ; and, as the patience of the multitude might have been exhausted by the length and uniformity of nocturnal vigils, he prudently in- troduced into the church of Milan the useful institution of a loud and regular psalmody. While he maintained this arduous contest, he was instructed by a dream to open the earth in a place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius,*^^ had been deposited above three hundred years. Immediately under the pavement of the church two perfect skeletons were found,'^^ with the heads separated from their bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. The holy relics were presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the people ; and every circumstance of this fortunate discovery was admirably adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. The bones of the martyrs, their blood, their garments, were supposed to contain a healing power ; and their praetematural influence was communicated to the most distant objects, without losing any part of its original virtue. The extraordinary cure of a blind man,"*^ and the ^ Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesia mori parata cum episcopo suo. . . Nos adbuc frigidi excitabamur tamen civitate attoniti atque turbata. Angustin. Confession. 1. ix. c. 7. &c., were dedicated to these unknown martyrs, of whom St. Gervase seems to have been more fortunate than his companion. 69 Invenimus mirag magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca aetas ferebat. Tom. ii. epist. xxii. p. 875. [Mr. Hodgkin, who discusses the discovery, seems disposed to entertain the idea that Ambrose may have practised a pious fraud ; i. 440.] The size of these skeletons was fortunately, or skilfully, suited to the popular prejudice of the gradual increase of the human stature ; which has prevailed in every age since the time of Homer. Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepuichris. 'OAmbros. tom. ii. epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin. Confes. 1. i.x. c. 7, de Civitat. Dei, 1. x.vii. c. 8. Paulin. in Vita St Ainbros. c. 14, in Append. Benedict, p. 4. The blind man's name was Se-e-us ; he touched the holy garment, recovered his sight, and devoted the rest of nis ife (at least twenty-five years) to the service of the church. I should recommend this mi-acle to our divines if it did not prove the worship of relics, as well as the Nicene creed.
 * 8Tillemont, M^m. Ex;cl&. torn. ii. p. 78. 498. Many churches in Italy, Gaul,