52 Human Levitation. -[January, 
for the body ‘‘to appear elongated or thicker, or be borne 
aloft in the air.” 
In the century of the Church’s triumph, at least one 
Christian and one heathen case of levitated persons are 
recorded. Sozomen relates after Hilarion, the founder of 
monachism in Palestine, that as four of his monks, whom 
he names, were returning to their convent of Bethelea, in 
the desert of Gaza, the youngest, but most esteemed, one 
Malchio, who soon afterwards left this life, suddenly vanished 
from their midst, and later in the journey reappeared 
CCE ccl: “Hist:,”’ Lib. VI., ¢. 32). The other ‘casewiseaa 
Egyptian prostitute, who came to Zosimas, an abbot, to 
beg his prayers and instru¢tion in Christianity. As she was 
kneeling at his feet, he told her to turn and pray for herself 
and others. This he described her doing like Hannah, 
silently moving her lips:—‘‘ Juravit autem, sermonis sul 
testem appellans Deum, quod animadvertens longius pro- 
trahi orationem, oculos aliquantum a terra sustulit, viditque 
ipsam orare in altum sublatam, et in aére suspensam, velut 
ad cubitum unum ; quod cum vidit, majori correptus metu, 
multumque anxius, et omnino nihil proloqui audens, solim 
intra se dicebat identidem, Domine miserere. Sic autem in 
terra jacens, scandalizari coepit senex cogitando, ne forté 
spiritus esset atque orationem simularet.” Plainly, in the 
days of the British Solomon and the Novum Organon, this 
poor woman would, on any British ground, have made ac- 
quaintance with the halter or the stake. But Zosimas, after 
due probation, baptised her; and after the life of an exem- 
plary nun, she became revered to this day as St. Mary 
fEgyptiaca; though nothing approaching miracle seems to 
have been ascribed to her as a Christian, or after this first 
interview (‘‘ Acta Sané¢torum Aprilis,” Vol. I., p. 79). Ec- 
clesiastical miracles in general follow a distribution quite 
opposite to that of these phenomena. ‘The darker and less 
historical the age, the more miracles, but the fewer of these 
phenomena. ‘The testimonies to these, absent so far as we 
see in the ages from the fourth century to the ninth, increase | 
in number, respectability, and accuracy, from the ‘latter to 
the present day. ‘Till the last two centuries, indeed, all 
persons known in Christendom to be subjects of levitation 
were probably either burnt or canonised, according to the 
ruling clerical view of their orthodoxy or the reverse. The 
following i is an attempt to collect some of the chief examples 
not condemned, with the volume and page of the Bol- 
landists’ “ A@ta’” where particulars may be found :— 
